My ArchLinux installation guide

Last updated: Jul 8, 2023

I will describe how I install ArchLinux on my personal desktop. Hopefully, this guide will prove useful not only to others but also to you!

I personally choose ArchLinux for several reasons:
- Rolling release: Ensuring we always have the latest updates.
- Quick software package updates: Ensuring that software packages are promptly updated.
- KISS philosophy: Embracing the "Keep It Simple Stupid" philosophy.
- Highly configurable: Allowing for extensive customization.
- Lightweight: Offering a lightweight computing environment.
- The official wiki is comprehensive and well-maintained.

However, when it comes to servers, I prefer using Debian instead of ArchLinux. But that's a different topic altogether.

Now, let's delve into the features that I will cover in this guide:
- UEFI boot
- GNOME desktop environment
- Btrfs file system on an SSD drive
- Encrypted partitions
- AMD FirePro W5000 with hardware acceleration

Note: This tutorial draws significant inspiration from the official installation guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org.

Installation medium

First, download the ISO media from the official download webpage (refer to here to verify the signature):

https://archlinux.org/download/

Identify the USB media:

[root@host ~]# fdisk -l

Personally, I create a USB boot media:

[root@host ~]# dd if=archlinux-XXXX.XX.XX-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=16M status=progress; sync

Disable UEFI secure boot (since the installation media does not support this feature) and boot from the USB drive.

Pre-Install

Set the console keyboard layout (e.g., fr for French, us for US, de for German, etc.):

root@archiso ~ # loadkeys fr

Verify that we are in UEFI boot mode:

root@archiso ~ # if [ -d /sys/firmware/efi/efivars ]; then echo "UEFI OK"; else echo "UEFI KO"; fi

Network Configuration

List and identify network interfaces:

root@archiso ~ # ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: ens192: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:50:56:80:0b:32 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    altname enp11s0

Obtain network configuration via DHCP:

root@archiso ~ # dhclient ens192

Or set IP manually:

root@archiso ~ # ip addr add 192.168.1.10/24 dev ens192 root@archiso ~ # ip route add default via 192.168.1.254 root@archiso ~ # echo 'nameserver 192.168.1.254' >> /etc/resolv.conf

Check internet connectivity:

root@archiso ~ # ping 46.105.57.169

Check name resolution:

root@archiso ~ # host std.rocks
std.rocks has address 46.105.57.169
std.rocks has IPv6 address 2001:41d0:301::20
std.rocks mail is handled by 1 mx4.mail.ovh.net.
std.rocks mail is handled by 10 mx3.mail.ovh.net.

Note: From this step, if necessary, you can log in to the installation program as root via SSH from another machine. Just use the "passwd" command beforehand to set a password.

Update the system clock:

root@archiso ~ # timedatectl set-ntp true

Partition the disk

I will partition my 40GB disk as follows:

Partition	Note	Filesystem	Size
EFI	EFI partition	FAT32	512M
/boot	Boot partition	ext2	500M
swap	Swap partition	Swap on LUKS	2G
/	Root partition	Btrfs on LUKS	37G

The graphical view of the disk partitioning:

A Linux disk partitioned with EFI, boot, swap, and root partitions

⚠️ Please note that the sda disk will be completely erased, resulting in data loss. ⚠️

Identify the destination disk:

root@archiso ~ # fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 40 GiB, 42949672960 bytes, 83886080 sectors
Disk model: Virtual disk    
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop0: 683.24 MiB, 716427264 bytes, 1399272 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Start partitioning, using the /dev/sda device:

root@archiso ~ # gdisk /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.9

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Delete existing partitions:

Command (? for help): d

Create the EFI partition:

Command (? for help): n
Partition number (1-128, default 1): 
First sector (34-83886046, default = 2048) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: 
Last sector (2048-83886046, default = 83884031) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: +512M
Current type is 8300 (Linux filesystem)
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 8300): EF00
Changed type of partition to 'EFI system partition'

Create the /boot partition:

Command (? for help): n
Partition number (2-128, default 2): 
First sector (34-83886046, default = 1050624) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: 
Last sector (1050624-83886046, default = 83884031) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: +500M
Current type is 8300 (Linux filesystem)
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 8300): 
Changed type of partition to 'Linux filesystem'

Create the encrypted swap partition:

Command (? for help): n
Partition number (3-128, default 3): 
First sector (34-83886046, default = 2074624) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: 
Last sector (2074624-83886046, default = 83884031) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: +2G
Current type is 8300 (Linux filesystem)
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 8300): 8309
Changed type of partition to 'Linux LUKS'

Create the encrypted / partition:

Command (? for help): n
Partition number (4-128, default 4): 
First sector (34-83886046, default = 6268928) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: 
Last sector (6268928-83886046, default = 83884031) or {+-}size{KMGTP}: 
Current type is 8300 (Linux filesystem)
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 8300): 8309
Changed type of partition to 'Linux LUKS'

Check and write the partitions to the disk:

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 83886080 sectors, 40.0 GiB
Model: Virtual disk    
Sector size (logical/physical): 512/512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 45AB06C7-DDAF-45D4-A781-B5C33DAF56D2
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 83886046
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 4029 sectors (2.0 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048         1050623   512.0 MiB   EF00  EFI system partition
   2         1050624         2074623   500.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   3         2074624         6268927   2.0 GiB     8309  Linux LUKS
   4         6268928        83884031   37.0 GiB    8309  Linux LUKS

Command (? for help): w

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): Y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/sda.
The operation has completed successfully.

Format the partitions

Format the EFI partition:

root@archiso ~ # mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1

Format the /boot partition:

root@archiso ~ # mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda2

Create a LUKS partition for the swap:

Note: The complexity of the password will not be important here because we will use a random password for the swap partition afterwards.

root@archiso ~ # cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda3

WARNING!
========
This will overwrite data on /dev/sda3 irrevocably.

Are you sure? (Type 'yes' in capital letters): YES
Enter passphrase for /dev/sda3: STDp@$$
Verify passphrase: STDp@$$
cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda3  16.55s user 1.08s system 86% cpu 20.303 total

Decrypt the swap partition:

root@archiso ~ # cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda3 swap
Enter passphrase for /dev/sda3: STDp@$$

Check if the swap device is present:

root@archiso ~ # ls /dev/mapper
control  swap

Format the swap device:

root@archiso ~ # mkswap /dev/mapper/swap

Create a LUKS partition for /:

root@archiso ~ # cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda4
WARNING: Device /dev/sda4 already contains a 'dos' partition signature.

WARNING!
========
This will overwrite data on /dev/sda4 irrevocably.

Are you sure? (Type 'yes' in capital letters): YES
Enter passphrase for /dev/sda4: ComplexSTDp@$$
Verify passphrase: ComplexSTDp@$$
cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda4  9.72s user 0.68s system 75% cpu 13.721 total

Decrypt the / (root) partition:

root@archiso ~ # cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda4 root
Enter passphrase for /dev/sda3: ComplexSTDp@$$

Check if the root device is present:

root@archiso ~ # ls /dev/mapper
control  root  swap

Format the / (root) partition:

root@archiso ~ # mkfs.btrfs /dev/mapper/root

Mount the file system and chroot to /mnt/

Mount to /mnt

Mount the / (root) partition:

root@archiso ~ # mount /dev/mapper/root /mnt/

Enable the swap partition:

root@archiso ~ # swapon /dev/mapper/swap

Mount the /boot partition:

root@archiso ~ # mount --mkdir /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot

Mount the /efi partition:

root@archiso ~ # mount --mkdir /dev/sda1 /mnt/efi

Create Btrfs subvolumes (Optional)

If necessary, we can add Btrfs subvolumes at this point. For example, let's create a /home subvolume:

Create the /home subvolume:

root@archiso ~ # btrfs subvolume create /mnt/home

Mount the /home subvolume:

root@archiso ~ # mount /dev/mapper/root -o subvol=home /mnt/home

Install

Install essential packages

Install essential packages:

root@archiso ~ # pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware btrfs-progs vim grub efibootmgr

Generate the fstab file:

root@archiso ~ # genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Edit the /mnt/etc/fstab file and replace the swap entry with this line:

/dev/mapper/swap none swap defaults 0 0

Chroot to /mnt:

root@archiso ~ # arch-chroot /mnt

Time zone

Identify your Time zone:

[root@archiso /]# ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/

Set your Time zone:

[root@archiso /]# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime

Example:

[root@archiso /]# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Tokyo /etc/localtime

Generate the /etc/adjtime file:

[root@archiso /]# hwclock --systohc

Localization

Edit the /etc/locale.gen file and uncomment the en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 line, along with any other needed locales. For example:

[…]
#en_SG ISO-8859-1  
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
#en_US ISO-8859-1  
[…]
#fr_CH ISO-8859-1  
fr_FR.UTF-8 UTF-8
#fr_FR ISO-8859-1

Generate the locales:

[root@archiso /]# locale-gen

Create the /etc/locale.conf file and set the LANG variable accordingly:
- For example:

[root@archiso /]# echo 'LANG=en_US.UTF-8' > /etc/locale.conf [root@archiso /]# echo 'LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8' > /etc/locale.conf

Set keyboard layout:
- For examples:

[root@archiso /]# echo 'KEYMAP=fr' > /etc/vconsole.conf [root@archiso /]# echo 'KEYMAP=us' > /etc/vconsole.conf

Network configuration

Set the hostname:

[root@archiso /]# echo 'stdesktop' > /etc/hostname

Initramfs

Edit the /etc/mkinitcpio.conf file to enable luks (to decrypt encrypted devices):

MODULES=(dm_mod ext2 btrfs ext4 xfs)
[…]
#add lvm2, mdadm if needed
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block keyboard keymap encrypt filesystems usr fsck shutdown)

Generate a new initramfs:

[root@archiso /]# mkinitcpio -P

Add the swap entry in the /etc/crypttab file to set a random key for the encrypted swap partition:

[root@archiso /]# echo 'swap    /dev/sda3       /dev/urandom            swap,cipher=aes-cbc-essiv:sha256,size=256' >> /etc/crypttab

Boot Loader

Edit the /etc/default/grub file. Here, you can:
- Use amdgpu.audio=0 to disable HDMI/DP Audio if it is not needed. (See complete module parameters here).
- Specify your crypted root device as /dev/sda4:root.
- Remove the quiet option if you prefer a verbose boot for debugging purposes.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 amdgpu.audio=0"
#we can use /dev/sda4 UUID like that: cryptdevice=UUID=XXXX-XXXX-XXXX:root if we prefer
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="cryptdevice=/dev/sda4:root"

Install the GRUB EFI application to /efi/ (sda1):

[root@archiso /]# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/efi/ --bootloader-id=GRUB

Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
Installation finished. No error reported.

Generate the main configuration file grub.cfg:

[root@archiso /]# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-linux
Found initrd image: /boot/initramfs-linux.img
Found fallback initrd image(s) in /boot:  initramfs-linux-fallback.img
Warning: os-prober will not be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
Systems on them will not be added to the GRUB boot configuration.
Check GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER documentation entry.
Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ...
done

Reboot

Set the root password:

[root@archiso /]# passwd

Remove the boot media and reboot the system:

[root@archiso /]# exit root@archiso ~ # reboot

Post-Install

Add a user

Create a new user:

[root@stdesktop ~]# useradd -m newuser

Set a password for the new user:

[root@stdesktop ~]# passwd newuser

Network

We can configure the network manually, statically, or via DHCP.

The first thing to do is identify your network interface:

[root@stdesktop ~]# ip link show
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: ens192: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 24:1f:fe:d3:bc:2a brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

Manually with ip commands

Note: This configuration will be reset after each reboot.

Enable the network interface:

[root@stdesktop ~]# ip link set ens192 up

Set the IP address:

[root@stdesktop ~]# ip addr add 192.168.1.10/24 dev ens192

Set the gateway:

[root@stdesktop ~]# ip route add default via 192.168.1.254

Set the DNS:

[root@stdesktop ~]# echo 'nameserver 80.67.169.12' > /etc/resolv.conf

Statically with systemd-networkd

Create a /etc/systemd/network/ens192.network file:

[Match]
Name=ens192

[Network]
Address=192.168.1.10/24
Gateway=192.168.1.254
DNS=192.168.1.254

Enable and start the systemd-networkd service:

[root@stdesktop ~]# systemctl enable systemd-networkd.service && systemctl start systemd-networkd.service

DHCP with systemd-networkd

Create a /etc/systemd/network/ens192.network file:

[Match]
Name=ens192

[Network]
DHCP=yes

Enable and start the systemd-networkd service:

[root@stdesktop ~]# systemctl enable systemd-networkd.service && systemctl start systemd-networkd.service

Desktop environment

Install GNOME (simply press enter to each question):

[root@stdesktop ~]# pacman -S gnome

If you are not using the qwerty keyboard layout, set the gdm keyboard layout according to your language:

[root@stdesktop ~]# localectl set-x11-keymap fr

Enable and start the gdm service:

[root@stdesktop ~]# systemctl enable gdm [root@stdesktop ~]# systemctl start gdm archlinux gdm screen waiting to log in

Misc

Hardware acceleration for the AMD FirePro W5000

If you have an AMD FirePro W5000, you may want to enable hardware video acceleration.

Install the libva-mesa-driver and mesa-vdpau packages:

[root@stdesktop ~]# pacman -S libva-mesa-driver mesa-vdpau

Install the vainfo, vdpauinfo, and radeontop tools:

[root@stdesktop ~]# pacman -S libva-utils vdpauinfo radeontop

Create the /etc/modprobe.d/amdgpu.conf file:

options amdgpu si_support=1

Create the /etc/modprobe.d/radeon.conf file:

options radeon si_support=0
options radeon cik_support=0

Edit the /etc/mkinitcpio.conf file:

MODULES=(dm_mod ext2 btrfs ext4 xfs amdgpu)
[...]
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block keyboard keymap encrypt lvm2 filesystems usr fsck shutdown)

Generate a new initramfs:

[root@archiso /]# mkinitcpio -P

Reboot and check if the amdgpu driver is loaded:

[newuser@stdesktop ~]$ lspci -k | grep -A 3 -E "(VGA|3D)"
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Pitcairn LE GL [FirePro W5000]
	Subsystem: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Device 0b06
	Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
	Kernel modules: radeon, amdgpu

Add the VDPAU_DRIVER environment variable:

[newuser@stdesktop ~]$ echo 'export VDPAU_DRIVER=radeonsi' >> ~/.bashrc

Verify VA-API:

[newuser@stdesktop ~]$ vainfo
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.15 (libva 2.15.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Mesa Gallium driver 22.1.7 for ATI FirePro V(FireGL V) Graphics Adapter (pitcairn, LLVM 14.0.6, DRM 3.47, 5.19.9-arch1-1)
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileNone                   : VAEntrypointVideoProc

Verify VDPAU:

[newuser@stdesktop ~]$ vdpauinfo
display: :0   screen: 0
API version: 1
Information string: G3DVL VDPAU Driver Shared Library version 1.0

Video surface:

name   width height types
-------------------------------------------
420    16384 16384  NV12 YV12 
422    16384 16384  UYVY YUYV 
444    16384 16384  Y8U8V8A8 V8U8Y8A8 
420_16 16384 16384  
422_16 16384 16384  
444_16 16384 16384  

Decoder capabilities:
[…]

Open applications at login

When logging in, you can have your most frequently used applications open automatically.

Create the ~/.config/autostart/ folder:

[newuser@stdesktop ~]$ mkdir ~/.config/autostart

Create the ~/.config/autostart/apps.desktop file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=AutostartScript
GenericName=Gnome Auto Start Script
Comment=Script wich launch applications at startup
Exec=/home/newuser/.config/autostart.sh
Terminal=false
Type=Application
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true

Create the ~/.config/autostart.sh file:

#Open terminal
gnome-terminal&
#Open Firefox
firefox &
#Open Explorer
nautilus&

Add execution rights:

[newuser@stdesktop ~]$ chmod +x ~/.config/autostart.sh

Crontab

I usually use cron as a task scheduler. While there are implementations of cron in ArchLinux, none of them are pre-installed. By default, the base system uses systemd/Timers. Here, we will see how to create a systemd/Timers task.

Create a /etc/systemd/system/mytask.service file that will run a program (in this example, we copy /home/newuser/a_file to a /backup location using the date command substitution):

[Unit]
Description=Copy a file
Wants=mytask.timer

[Service]
Type=oneshot
User=newuser
#Normaly $(/usr/bin/date +%Y%m%d) but $ and % need to be escaped
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c  '/usr/bin/cp /home/newuser/a_file /backup/a_file.$$(/usr/bin/date +%%Y%%m%%d)'

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Create the associated /etc/systemd/system/mytask.timer file where we will set the trigger:

[Unit]
Description=Copy a file trigger
Requires=mytask.service

[Timer]
Unit=mytask.service
#It will run each day at 19h00
OnCalendar=*-*-* 19:00:00

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Enable the timer and reload the systemd configuration:

[root@stdesktop ~]# systemctl enable mytask.timer && systemctl daemon-reload

Check the status of mytask.timer:

[root@stdesktop ~]# systemctl status mytask.timer
● mytask.timer - Copy a file
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/mytask.timer; enabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: active (waiting) since Sun 2022-09-25 16:28:31 CEST; 26min ago
      Until: Sun 2022-09-25 16:28:31 CEST; 26min ago
    Trigger: Sun 2022-09-25 19:00:00 CEST; 2h 4min left
   Triggers: ● mytask.service

sept. 25 16:28:31 stddesktop.local systemd[1]: Started Copy a file.

Computing

Music

Misc

My ArchLinux installation guide

Installation medium

Pre-Install

Network Configuration

Partition the disk

Format the partitions

Mount the file system and chroot to /mnt/

Mount to /mnt

Create Btrfs subvolumes (Optional)

Install

Install essential packages

Time zone

Localization

Network configuration

Initramfs

Boot Loader

Reboot

Post-Install

Add a user

Network

Manually with ip commands

Statically with systemd-networkd

DHCP with systemd-networkd

Desktop environment

Misc

Hardware acceleration for the AMD FirePro W5000

Open applications at login

Crontab

References