guide

Arch Installation Documentation (non dual-boot)

by @notkaramel

USB Drive (~800MB) with archiso
- From Windows: Use rufus to flash ISO to drive
- From Linux:
  - Using rpi-imager (AUR) via custom image
  - MultiWriter gnome-multi-writer

Using wired connection is preferable
archiso has iwctl built-in. It can connect to regular IEEE 802.11x wifi, i.e., Wifi with SSID and passphrase.

Using fdisk for partitioning

fdisk -l # list all partitions
fdisk /dev/device # e.g.: /dev/sda, /dev/nvme0n1

Now you’re inside fdisk CLI: m for help menu

If fresh install, or disk not GPT, do g to create new empty GPT table
n: new partition
- Partition number: go by default or your preferred order
- First sector: rcm go by default
- Last sector: use +SIZE to set partition size (e.g.: +500MiB, +2G)

t: change partition type

Partition	#	Type (`t` option)	Size
EFI System	1	EFI (1)	+600MiB
Swap (optional)	2	Linux swap (19)	+4GiB
Root	3	Linux root (23)	+50GiB
Home	4	Linux home (42)	the rest

Partition a swap if the PC has low RAM (swap’s size should be 2x RAM) 3. w: write table to disk and exit 4. q: quit without saving changes

Format partitions

mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/EFI_Partition
mkswap /dev/SWAP_Partition
mkfs.ext4 /dev/ROOT_and_HOME

Mounting & activate partitions

swapon /dev/SWAP_Partition
mount /dev/ROOT /mnt			
mount /dev/HOME /mnt/home   
mount --mkdir /dev/EFI /mnt/boot 	// for the EFI file system 

Edit /etc/pacman.conf and enable ParallelDownloads = ... for faster download
Install essential packages (see CorePackages.md for more). pacstrap also have flags like -K to initialize empty pacman keyring
```
pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware base base-devel # ... 
```
Generate file system table fstab
```
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
```
Now, arch-chroot to /mnt and go to next steps!

I highly recommend install fish shell of out-of-the-box suggestions.
pacman -S fish
chsh root
# New shell: /usr/bin/fish

Set timezone

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/REGION/CITY /etc/localtime

Set system clock to hardware (or vice versa, do man hwclock)
```
hwclock --systohc
```
Get text editor of choice: nano, vim, neovim, etc.
Localization: uncomment locale in /etc/locale.gen
- e.g.: en_CA.UTF-8, fr_CA.UTF-8
```
locale-gen
```
Create locale.conf to set up LANG
```
LANG=en_CA.UTF-8 
```

Network Configuration

In /etc/hosts:

  127.0.0.1		localhost 
  ::1			    localhost 
  127.0.1.1		myHostName 

mkinitcpio

mkinitcpio -P # using all presets, see `man mkinitcpio` for more

Add non-root user

useradd -m myUser # `-m` create a folder in /home/myUser
passwd myUser # to set password

Add user to access/privilege groups:
```
usermod -aG wheel,audio,video,optical,storage myUser
```
later on, groups like docker for Docker dev, or uucp for embedded (Arduino) are also required

Install sudo and edit visudo.

pacman -S sudo
EDITOR=nvim visudo # visudo uses vi by default, but you can specify your preferred text editor

Here, root user can determine how users should have access to sudo. It’s good to have password whenever sudo is called, but users can opt-out
```
%wheel ALL = (ALL) ALL
# %wheel ALL = (ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
```
Install GRUB and Dual-boot stuffs
```
pacman -S efitbootmgr os-prober grub
```

Install grub to EFI menu (boot menu) && Generate GRUB config:

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB –recheck
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg 

Exit, unmount everything, and you’re done!

exit # Ctrl + D
umount -a /mnt # unmount all