How To Install Arch Linux – Step By Step Guide

Arch Linux is a great Linux distro but it’s also known to be the most complicated to install Linux distro due to the command line based setup. Installing Arch Linux has always been a headache for Linux beginners. In this article, I will teach you how to install arch Linux – step by step.

How to install Arch Linux?

First, you must select your installation source, in this tutorial, I use a live USB:​

Install Arch Linux from USB

  1. Download the arch Linux iso from its website
  2. Make your USB Live bootable using the following command
dd if=archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdx
sdx is your USB key. If you want to see the devices connected to your computer, you can type the following command:​
fdisk -l

If you have another OS installed on your computer you can use the following GUI USB bootable maker:

  • Unetbootin
  • Universal USB Installer

If you have your USB key ready then you can start the installation process. ​

install arch linux menu

  1. Start your computer

2. Configure the keyboard layout:
a. First, you must find your keyboard layout typing:
i. ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz
b. Set your keyboard layout with the command ‘loadkeys’

      3.  Verify the boot mode
a. You must verify if your computer supports UEFI, you can type:
i. ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
b. . If the directory doesn’t exist, the system is booted in BIOS.
c. For UEFI support you must read the following documentation:       4. Check your internet connection typing:
a. ping -c 3 www.google.com
b. The output must look like this:

arch linux check internet connection

           c. If your wired connection fails you can stop the dhcpcd service with: ‘systemctl stop [email protected]<tab>’ and then you must see the following documentation:
d. If your computer has a wifi device,  you can use netctl:
a. ‘wifi-menu -o’      5. Update the system clock:
i. ‘timedatectl set-ntp true’6. Partition the disks:
a. First you must identify your hard drive, you can see the storage devices with the command ‘fdisk -l’. The first hard drive generally is ‘/dev/sda’.

scan the hard drive arch linux

                   b. Partition scheme
                                 i.
/boot
200M
/
15G – 20G
swap
Variable
/home
The rest of the disk

                                 ii.
RAM
Recommended swap
1G
1G
2G – 4G
Half of RAM
+4G
2G

                       c. Make the partitions with cfdisk (DOS partition tables) or cgdisk (GPT partition tables)

i. If your computer has UEFI support you should use GPT, and you must create a partition with partition type EFI system (EF00). Finally, you must mount the EFI partition at ‘/boot’. You don’t need to create a boot partition anymore.

ii. If you have a BIOS-GPT system, you must create a mebibyte partition with partition type BIOS boot (ef02), then you can create the other partitions like boot, root, and home.

iii. If you choose an MBR (DOS) partition table, you can create the system partitions only, like boot, root,  and home.

​iv.

Partitions types
Partition type
Code
Linux Filesystem
83 (cfdisk),  8300 (cgdisk)
Linux Swap
82 (cfdisk), 8200 (cgdisk)
BIOS
ef02 (cgdisk)
UEFI
EF00 (cgdisk)

v. MBR Examples

MBR examples

vi. GPT example

arch linux gpt examples

                d. Formatting the partitions
i. You must format the partitions before installing the system.
ii. Use the command: “mkfs.filsystem_type /dev/sdax”
iii. filesystem_type can be ext2, ext4, jfs, etc
                                iv. sdax is the partition number
v. 
Partition
Partition Type
Command to format
/boot
Linux Filesystem
mkfs.ext2 /dev/sdax
/
Linux Filesystem
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdax
swap
Linux swap
mkswap /dev/sdax
/home
Linux Filesystem
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdax
EFI
EFI
mfks.fat -F32 /dev/sdax

                        vi. If you created a BIOS partition, you don’t need format it.
vii. Format the swap partition with mkswap and after you must enable the swap with the command ‘swapon /dev/sdax’

format partition mkswap

                          viii. Examples

arch linux installation

​                 7. Mounting the partitions
​                            i. Mount the root partition at /mnt
ii. Make the boot subdirectory in /mnt
iii. Make the home subdirectory in /mnt
iv. Mount the boot partition at /mnt/boot, if you created an EFI partition you must mount it at /mnt/boot
v. Mount the home partition at /mnt/home
vi. Example

arch linux mount home partition

                     8. Install the base packages
i. ‘pacstrap /mnt base’
ii. For the bootloader you must install grub: ‘pacstrap /mnt grub’
iii. For network management you must install networkmanager: ‘pacstrap /mnt networkmanager’
iv. Example

arch linux network management

arch linux update size

9. Fstab
i. ​ Generate a fstab file (use -U or -L to define by UUID or labels, respectively):

generate an fstab

10. Configure your new system – chroot
a. Change root into the new system: ‘arch-chroot /mnt/bin/bash’
b. Set the timezone
i. List the regions

arch linux list the regions

​​                    ii. List the Cities of your region

list the cities of your region

                 c. ​​‘ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime’
​​                 d. ‘hwclock –systohc’​​         iii. Uncomment your localization in ‘/etc/locale.gen’ using ‘nano’
a.  
‘nano /etc/locale.gen’

arch linux set timezone

               b. ​​‘locale-gen’

linux locale-gen

          iv. ​​Set the LANG variable in /etc/locale.conf
​​For example: echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
v. 
If you set the keyboard layout, make the changes persistent in ‘vconsole.conf’
‘echo KEYMAP=la-latin1 > /etc/vconsole.conf’
          vi. ​Set the hostname
‘echo my_hostname > /etc/hostname’

arch linux set hostname

 vii. Initramfs
​​Creating a new initramfs is usually not required, because mkinitcpio was run on installation of the linux package with pacstrap.

initramfs

viii. ​Set the root password
              Use the ‘passwd’ command

set root password in arch linux

viii. Install Grub – Boot loader
         
       i. If you have an Intel CPU, install the intel-ucode package in addition, and enable microcode updates.
          ii. Run the grub installation: ‘grub-install /dev/sda’

run grub configuration

           iii. Run the grub configuration: ‘grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg’

run grub configuration

   ix. Exit from the chroot environment typing ‘exit’
    x. Unmount the partitions
‘umount /mnt/{boot,home,}’

unmount partitions arch linux

11. Reboot the system typing ‘reboot’ and remove the installation USB key.

run arch linux in virtualbox

12. In the first boot you must login with the root account, then start and enable the NetworkManager service with ‘systemctl start NetworkManager.service’ and ‘systemctl enable NetworkManager’.
    a. If you have a wireless connection you can use the following command:
    ‘nmcli dev wifi connect “SSID” password “pass”’13. Finally, you can create a new user with the following command:
‘useradd -m -g users -G audio,lp,optical,storage,video,wheel,games,power,scanner -s /bin/bash user’

Conclusion

So that was it. I hope that now you know how to install Arch Linux. It was a little longer tutorial and that’s why installing Arch Linux is a little tedious job. But once you to install it, you’ will enjoy it. The benefits of using Arch Linux is that one can customize it the way he/she wants. After the install, you’ll need more help so I suggest the following documentation to enhance your knowledge about Arch Linux.

Also don’t hesitate to drop a comment below this article, if you did not understand any particular part of this article.

More Information at:

Boot loaders
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Category:Boot_loaders
Network Manager
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NetworkManager
Post Installation
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/General_recommendations

Also Read – Arch Linux Take Your Linux Knowledge To Next Level

Sohail
Sohail

Mohd Sohail is a web developer and a Linux sysAdmin. He also loves to write how-to articles, applications reviews and loves to use new Linux distributions.

Articles: 860

3 Comments

  1. Just installed my first Arch Linux on a VirtualBox after the steps, presented here.
    The only point, i had to find an answer elsewhere, was the start of NetworkManager.service, which wasn’t installed by default and couldn’t be loaded by pacman, because i had no connection to the internet, though i had connection during the live-session. The solution was to stop and start the dhcpd again, so i was able to get the NetworkManager-package.
    Awesome article, thank you very much for your efforts!

  2. Great! This article have made me install arch linux for the first succeeded on my old notebook.
    I could see mine started after for three days made me confused. But now I can use it again.
    The only one of my missed step in other article that do not show how to make boot drive and I couldn’t find article that giving tutorial for MBR partition scheme. I go to Arch Wiki, but I couldn’t understand well to follow instructions showed. So, here my last article I seen.
    Thanks in advance. Very nice article!

  3. PPA appears to need secure boot. As you are describing updating drivers, is it assumed secure boot is enabed? I know its been mentioned certain lenovo and thinkcentre products need this but its not clear if there is a general need for installation of NVIDIA drivers?

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