Arch Linux Installation Tutorial
This tutorial was written in October 2021 for CS3353. Version numbers and other factors may have changed by the time you read this.
Setting the System Time
NTP is used to synchronize your system’s time with a publicly known time server. Here we set the system we booted up to synchronize its time to prevent any issues that may be caused by desynchronized clocks between systems.
timedatectl set-ntp true
I live in the US Central timezone so this how I set the system to use it.
timedatectl set-timezone US/Central
Partitioning the Hard Disk
List the block devices, the hard disk for the permanent installation should be /dev/sda. “sda” is short for “Storage Device A”.
fdisk -l
Select the storage device for the permanent installation. This will open a menu to allow you to configure the storage device’s partitions.
fdisk /dev/sda
Set partition table as GPT with ‘g’
create partition 1
- use default first sector
- set part 1 to +1M
- change type with ’t'
- set type to ‘BIOS boot’
create partition 2
- use default first sector
- set part 2 to +4G
- change type with ’t'
- set type to ‘swap’
create partition 3
- use default first sector
- use deafult last sector, setting part 2 to rest of Disk
w to exit
Formatting Partitions
Use mkfs and mkswap to format the corresponding partitions into ext4 and swap partitions
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
mkswap /dev/sda2
Mounting Partitions
Mount the installation’s primary partitition to start setting up the system’s files
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
Turn on the linux swap memory of the installation’s swap partition
swapon /dev/sda2
Installing Base Software
Install software to the installation’s file system
pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware iproute2 net-tools dhcpcd ufw vim
Configure the System
Tell the system where file systems and data are
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
Chroot
Change your linux instance’s root directory to be that of the installation’s root directory
arch-chroot /mnt
Time Zone
Set the installation’s time zone
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Central /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc
Localization
Establish the character encoding for the language and characters you want your system to use
Open /etc/locale.gen and uncomment “en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8”
locale-gen
echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf
Network Configuration
Set the hostname
hostnamectl set-hostname Arch-CS3353
Initramfs
Generate the initial system that gets loaded on boot-up
mkinitcpio -P
Root password
Set the password for ‘root’
passwd
Boot Loader
This is what will let you boot into your system, without this your system will not boot.
pacman -S grub
Point grub to the storage device with your installation on it
grub-install /dev/sda
Tell grub where your operating system is on the storage device
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Exit the chroot Environment
exit
Unmount the installation’s storage device
umount -R /mnt
Reboot the system
reboot
Setting Up New System
Boot into ‘Arch Linux’ entry of GRUB menu
Setting Up DHCP Client
Use DHCP to be able to acquire a DHCP IP address lease on a network with DHCP
systemctl start dhcpcd && systemctl enable dhcpcd
Start your network interface
ip link set ens33 up
Check connectivity
ping google.com
Set Up Users
Install the sudo tool
pacman -S sudo
Create the sudo group
groupadd sudo
Edit the sudoers file
sudo EDITOR=vim visudo
Uncomment the line that reads %sudo ALL=(ALL) ALL
Create user ’eric’ with new home directory and add them to group ‘sudo’
useradd -m -G sudo eric
useradd -m -G sudo codi
useradd -m -G sudo sal
Set password for users to ‘GraceHopper1906 passwd eric passwd codi passwd sal`
Install ZSH with Oh My ZSH
Install the neccesary packages
pacman -S curl wget git zsh
Install oh my zsh
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
Clone oh my zsh plugins
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting
Import eric’s custom zshrc
curl -o ~/.zshrc https://ericiniguez.com/file/zshrc
Edit the .zshrc to have your home directory’s .oh-my-zsh directory instead on line 4
Import eric’s custom vimrc
curl -o ~/.vimrc https://ericiniguez.com/file/vimrc
Install SSH
Install SSH
pacman -S openssh
Installing a Desktop Environment (GUI)
Install the Xorg Display Server, the Gnome Desktop Environment, the Gnome Software Package Plugin to fix the Graphic Software Package Manager, Firefox Web Browser, Leafpad Graphical Text Editor, and Cascadia Code Font.
pacman -S xorg xorg-server gnome gnome-packagekit gnome-software-packagekit-plugin firefox leafpad ttf-cascadia-code
Press Enter to accept default options for all prompts
Enable the Gnome Display Manager to start when you start the computer, then start it manually right now
systemctl enable gdm.service && systemctl start gdm.service