Setting up Arch Linux from scratch in 2021

Few days back my long time running system broke due to some inconsistent package and I was forced to reinstall Arch. There are many tutorials and how-to pages to do so, but I found none to be exhaustive or seemless, so I decided to write my own.

Here are the steps to install Arch Linux from scratch

Make a bootable drive

Download Arch Linux from here

If using Windows, download Rufus and create a bootable drive. If you are on Linux, you can use the dd command to create a live USB.

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Installation

Insert your bootable drive and select “Install Arch Linux”.

Follow below steps:

• Verify boot mode

  ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
  

  If the command shows the directory without error, then the system is booted in UEFI mode. If the directory does not exist, the system may be booted in BIOS (or CSM) mode.

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• Connect to Internet

  • Check network interfaces

    ip link
    

  • For wifi:

    Connect Internet

    iwctl --passphrase <passphrase> station <wlan0> connect <wifi_ssid>
    

    Replace <passphrase>, <wlan0>, <wifi_ssid> appropriately.

    <wlan0> is wifi interface, use ip link to check yours.

    • Check if Internet is working

      ping google.com
      

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• Setup datetime

  System clock, read more here

  • Set Network Synchronization

    timedatectl set-ntp true
    

  • Setting timezone, run timedatectl list-timezones to list all timezones

    timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Kolkata
    

  • Check if properly configured

    timedatectl status
    

  We will sync with hardware clock later.

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• Partition devices

  Note: If you have dual boot, make sure you have already alloted blank space for linux partition. Else please do this in the current os (Windows for me).

  • Check partition volumes

    lsblk
    

    Output for me:

    

  • Minimum we need the following partitions:

    • One partition for the root directory /.
    • For booting in UEFI mode: an EFI system partition.

    You can have separate partition for SWAP, and even your home directory, skipping this here.

  • Use fdisk to partition your drives.

    Be careful with the tool, it may delete your existing data and drives.

    In my case, the drive was /dev/sdb, see below image:

    

    Create a new partition using the tool (delete existing partition if required, be careful before you save your changes, you might lose your data on the drive).

  • Format the partition

    mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb5
    

    Use the partition which you created with fdisk, for me it is /dev/sdb5

  • Format partition for UEFI filesystem (boot menu)

    If reinstalling or replacing old linux distro, this would have been already there, so you can skip this. Replace with the partition you created, for me it is /dev/sdb1

    mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdb1
    

  • Extra:

    If using SWAP, format SWAP partition also, replace swap_partition

    mkswap /dev/swap_partition
    

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• Mount the file system

  mount /dev/sdb5 /mnt
  

  Here, I mounted /dev/sdb5 which was my partition.

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• Installation

  • Essential packages

    pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware vim vi
    

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• Configurations

  • Fstab: Defines how disk partitions, various other block devices, or remote filesystems should be mounted into the filesystem

    genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
    

  • Change root directory for the process (bootdrive)

    This step is very important and all other configurations need to follow after this.

    arch-chroot /mnt
    

  • Timezone

    • Local time configuration, see this

      ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata /etc/localtime
      

    • Sync with hardware clock

      hwclock --systohc --utc
      

  • Localization

    • Edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

    • locale-gen
      

    • echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf
      

  • Network

    Configuring hostname and hosts file

    • echo "wilstation" > /etc/hostname
      

    • echo "127.0.0.1	localhost
      ::1		localhost
      127.0.1.1	wilstation.localdomain	wilstation" > /etc/hosts
      

  • Users

    • Create user and setup password, creating wilspi here

      useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash wilspi
      passwd wilspi
      

    • Sudoers

      • pacman -S sudo
        

      • echo "root ALL=(ALL) ALL
        %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL" > /etc/sudoers
        

      • chown -c root:root /etc/sudoers
        chmod -c 0440 /etc/sudoers
        

  • Boot Configuration

    • pacman -S grub efibootmgr
      

    • mkdir /boot/efi
      

    • Note: Here, /dev/sdb1 (my UEFI partition) is mounted to /boot/efi

      mount /dev/sdb1 /boot/efi
      

    • grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=GRUB --efi-directory=/boot/efi
      

    • grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
      

    • mkinitcpio -P 
      

  • Root Password

    • passwd
      

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• Desktop Environment (GNOME)

  Setting up GNOME as my desktop environment, you can use any other from here

  • pacman -S xorg gnome
    

  • systemctl enable gdm.service
    

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• Pre final steps

  We are almost done, setting up drivers and enabling services.

  • Graphics driver

    pacman -S nvidia
    

    nvidia pkg works for my graphics driver, check here for your driver.

  • Enable NetworkManager

    systemctl enable NetworkManager.service
    

    You can use other managers as well.

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• Final steps before rebooting

  • Unmount uefi partition

    umount /boot/efi
    

  • Exit chroot

    exit
    

  • Unmount system partition

    umount /mnt
    

  • Reboot

    reboot now
    

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Post Installation

After logging in,

Add wifi details:

nmcli device wifi connect <wifi_SSID> password <password>

nmcli is cli tool for NetworkManager

Install packages:

sudo pacman -S amd-ucode git bash-completion ntfs-3g pacman-contrib firefox net-tools gnome-tweak-tool 

Setup yay for AUR:

# Install yay
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
cd yay/
makepkg -si
cd .. && rm -rf yay

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Remedies

• GDM takes too much time to reboot, sometimes get stuck on loading screen. This happens because nvidia drivers are not getting loaded before gdm.

  Add nvidia modules in MODULES in file: /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, see below:

  MODULES=(nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm)
  

  Rebuild image:

  mkinitcpio -P
  

  More details: Nvidia page on Arch Wiki

• Sometimes due to some mishap (configs/packages go outdated, you missed installing something) you are not able to connect to Internet. You can chroot into the machine and fix the network issue.

  • Reload the bootloader
  • Load into the terminal (by choosing installing Arch)
  • Setup your internet
  • Change root to your system using chroot

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System Screenshots

Keeping it simple silly.

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