installing arch

Aug 12, 2021

installing arch

August 12, 2021

installation procedure

1. boot to iso

2. partition disks

3. format partitions

4. mount partitions

# mount root
$ mount /dev/sda2 /mnt # root partition to /mnt
# mkdirs
$ mkdir -pv /mnt/home /mnt/boot
# mount partitions
$ mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot 
$ mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home

5. networking

artix and or other base systems may have other wifi tools

6. update system and install reflector, update reflector

$ pacman -Syy
# update mirrorlist
$ reflector -c "US" -f 12 -l 10 -n 12 --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

7. install base arch system

$ pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware vim 
# the -K option initializes an empty pacman keyring

8. generate fstab

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
the -U option used UUIDs in the fstab

9. arch-chroot and base set up

# enter system as root
$ arch-chroot /mnt

# now inside the new system install
# timezone
$ ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtime
$ hwclock --systohc

# locale
$ vim /etc/local.gen # uncomment locale en_US.UTF-8
$ locale-gen
$ echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
$ export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

# hosts
$ echo myarch > /etc/hostname # customize hostname for myarch
$ vim /etc/hosts
# ADD HOSTS
127.0.0.1     localhost
::1           localhost
127.0.1.1     myarch    #same as hostname

# update pacman.conf
$ vim /etc/pacman.conf
# add ILoveCandy to the options section
# and uncomment Color, VerbosePkgLists, ParallelDownloads
[Options]
...
Color
ILoveCandy
...
Verbose PkgLists
ParallelDownloads = 5
# uncomment multilib section
[multilib]
Include=/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

# network
$ pacman -S networkmanager
$ systemctl enable NetworkManager

sudo privileges

# sudo
$ pacman -S sudo
$ EDITOR=vim visudo
# uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

10. set root password

create user

# useradd -m -G additional_groups  username
# -m creates the user home directory 
# -G to add groups 
$ useradd -m -G wheel gavin
$ passwd gavin

11. install grub

$ pacman -S grub efibootmgr
$ grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=GRUB --efi-directory=/boot/efi
$ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

From here the system will boot.

$ exit
$ umount -R /mnt
$ shutdown 0

post install considerations

installing yay/aur access

$ pacman -S git base-devel
$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay-git.git && cd yay-git
$ makepkg -si

Desktop Install

Install KDE Plasma

12. install desktop

$ pacman -S xorg sddm plasma kde-applications
# if nvidia gpu
$ pacman -S nvidia nvidia-settings nvidia-utils nvidia-dkms lib32-nvidia-utils vulkan-icd-loader lib32-vulkan-icd-loader
# if amd cpu
$ pacman -S amd-ucode
# other utils
$ pacman -S nfs-utils neofetch firefox git base-devel ttf-fira-code ttf-fira-mono ttf-fira-sans ttf-dejavu

12. enable display server, network, config dm

$ systemctl enable sddm
$ systemctl enable NetworkManager
$ vim /usr/lib/sddm/sddm.conf.d/default.conf
  # find [Theme] and add 'breeze'
  [Theme]
  Current=breeze

13. Reboot

# exit arch-chroot
$ exit
$ systemctl reboot

post-install config

install software

system configs

customize kde

references

its foss
kde sddm not wayland
its foss (kde/wayland)
install yay/aur
install virtualbox on arch btm font braille kde-configuration-files kde config to kwriteconfig.kt

other

packages installed but these failed on a previous install
vulkan-icd-loader
lib32-nvidia-utils
lib32-vulkan-icd-loader

research/future items

Linux · Arch