Arch Linux Installation Guide
These are the steps necessary to install Arch Linux with LUKS disk encryption using Logical Volume Manager (LVM) under EFI.
Download the ISO and create a bootable USB thumb drive
The simplest way to create a bootable USB on Linux is using the dd command:
sudo dd bs=4M if=/path_to_arch_.iso of=/dev/sdX && sync
Disable Secure Boot
Hold F12 during startup to access bios. If secure boot is enabled it must be turned off since Linux boot loaders don't typically have digital signatures. Secure boot is enabled by default on most modern Windows hardware. Note that if you intend on running a dual-boot system with Windows and Linux you won't be able to use disk encryption on the partition containing Windows, as it requires secure boot.
Boot Arch Linux from the USB thumb drive
Hold F12 during startup to access startup menu. Select the USB drive and boot into Arch.
Make sure EFI is running
Most modern systems use EFI. Let's make sure. The following command should output a list of variables. If it doesn't then EFI is not enabled, so you should look do a more traditional installation using MBR/GRUB.
efivar -l
Establish an internet connection
The most reliable way is to use a wired connection, as Arch is setup by default to connect to DHCP. To test your wired connection:
ping -c 3 www.google.com
To connect to a WiFi network:
wifi-menu
Delete existing disk partitions
This step is only necessary if you are using a drive with existing partitions. To see how your drive is partitioned use fdisk -l. If you need to remove partitions you can use parted:
parted -s /dev/sda rm 1
parted -s /dev/sda rm 2
parted -s /dev/sda rm 3
etc.
Zero the hard drive with random data
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sd* status=progress
Determine which drive partition you will be using
fdisk -l
Partition the drive
There are a number of tools available. This is how to do it using parted:
parted /dev/sda
(parted) mklabel gpt
(parted) mkpart primary 1MiB 500MiB name 1 boot
(parted) mkpart primary 501MiB 100% name 2 root
(parted) quit
Create a physical volume
pvcreate /dev/sda2
Create a volume group
I'm naming it "arch"
vgcreate arch /dev/sda2
Create logical volumes for swap and root
NOTE: The amount of swap space is a function of how much ram you have. The minimum, assuming you have at least 8GB of RAM, should be 4GB, up to 1.5 times RAM. (ie, 8GB RAM = 12GB swap).
The sizes below can be specified in megabytes (100M) or gigs (10G)
lvcreate -n swap -L 500M arch
lvcreate -n root -l 100%FREE arch
Encrypt the partition and create the filesystem
cryptsetup luksFormat -v -s 512 -h sha512 /dev/mapper/LVM-root
Decrypt the newly encrypted partition
cryptsetup open /dev/mapper/arch-root root
Format the partitions:
mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/root
Mount the volumes
mount /dev/mapper/root /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
Choose download mirror (optional)
nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
Install base packages
pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel
Configure fstab (run only once!) and verify it
genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
nano /mnt/etc/fstab
Change to your root directory
arch-chroot /mnt
Language and Time Zone settings (find and un-comment)
nano /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
s
ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/<zone>/ /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc --utc
Set hostname
Note: Change "arch" to whatever you want your host to be.
echo arch > /etc/hostname
Create user
useradd -m -G wheel,users -s /bin/bash <username>
Set password for user
passwd <username>
Set root password:
passwd
Install sudo / add user to the admin-group
pacman -S sudo bash-completion
EDITOR=nano visudo
and un-comment:
%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
Enable multilib repositories: find and un-comment both lines
nano /etc/pacman.conf
[multilib]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
Add Yaourt repository (same file pacman.conf)
[archlinuxfr]
SigLevel = Never
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch
and install yaourt
pacman -Sy yaourt customizepkg rsync
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA)
pacman -S alsa-utils pulseaudio alsa-oss alsa-lib
amixer sset Master unmute
to test sound
speaker-test -c 2
Install Boot-loader (grub)
Enable ethernet interface service at boot (find interface with ip link)
systemctl enable dhcpcd@.service