Arch Linux

John Hammond | September 29th, 2019

These are my notes and scripts while installing and setting up my Arch Linux environment.

I did this on my DELL XPS 15 laptop on September 29th, 2019. Following that, I began to set up a virtual machine for use at work. The virtual machine required a little bit of a different setup, so I decided to write these things down and try and automate the procedure.

The bootstrap.sh script

This script is still in development, but it can be used to quickly take a freshly installed Arch Linux system to a fleshed-out and working state (per my own idea of "usable").

NOTE: The script is INCOMPLETE, and I will be continuously adding to it.

As of right now, the script will

• Set the locale, "arch" hostname, and EDT5EST timezone
• Create a new user (or use an existing one) you supply
• Configure pacman to use close mirrors
• Install:
  • sudo
  • pulseaudio (and pavucontrol)
  • git
  • vim
  • tmux
  • X (and xrandr)
  • base-devel
  • i3 (and gnu-free-fonts)
  • terminator
  • dmenu
  • firefox
  • yay
• Configure Terminator to use my prefered theme
• Configure tmux to run on start of a shell
• Configure X to start i3 and for the first TTY to start the desktop
• Configure Vim to use the Sublime Text Monokai colorscheme
• Configure git with my preferred name and e-mail (change this if you use this)
• Made the /opt directory writeable by the user (I like to store tools there)

You can run the script right after a fresh install and you set up GRUB. Replace john with whatever username you want to be the one managing your system, that you use from here on out.

./bootstrap.sh <john>

Installing

Downloading the ISO

I downloaded the archlinux-2019.09.01-x86_64.iso from here: https://www.archlinux.org/download/. I searched for a United States mirror and chose one: specifically, I used: http://mirrors.acm.wpi.edu/archlinux/iso/2019.09.01/

Burning the ISO to a Disc

I still had Ubuntu at the time, so I burned the Arch Linux ISO to a disc with [Brasero]. Booting the Arch Linux Live Disc

On my DELL XPS 15, I needed to spam the F12 key when booting to get to the menu and choose "Boot from CD". I made sure to boot in UEFI.

Once I got into the Arch Linux prompt, I followed the instructions from their Installation Guide.

I didn't need to change the keyboard layout, so I went on just to verify the UEFI boot mode:

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

This had results, so I knew I successfully booted with UEFI. Good enough!

When I did this on the virtual machine, I did not have results -- it had not booted in UEFI. This did not end up mattering much.

Connecting to the Internet

On my DELL XPS 15, I wanted to connect to the Internet right away. To get started, I needed to know the name of the interface I was working with.

ip link

In my case, my interface name was wlp59s0.

Now I needed to actually connect to my Wi-Fi. I used netctl to keep it easy.

cp /etc/netctl/examples/wireless-wpa /etc/netctl/home
vim /etc/netctl/home

With that configuration file, I could fill in the interface name, SSID, and Wi-Fi password.

net start home

At that point, I could connect to the Internet!

On the virtual machine, I did not need to set any of this up. Because the VM was either bridged or NAT-d, it should have Internet. I did run these commands to snag an IP address (and I often need to do this on boot for the VM):

dhcpcd
dhcpcd -4

Updating the Time Service

timedatectl set-ntp true

Partitioning the Disks

I used this command to determine which devices are set up already.

fdisk -l

In my case of my DELL XPS 15, I had /dev/nvmen1p1, /dev/nvmen1p2 and /dev/nvmen1p3 all set up (because I did have Ubuntu installed on this previously).

My /dev/nvmen1p1 was the EFI partition for GRUB, /dev/nvmen1p2 was my EXT4 filesystem, and /dev/nvmen1p3 was my swapspace.

If you needed to partition the drive manually, like you were setting up in a virtual machine, I would recommend using cfdisk.

In my case, I needed to format these partitions with their appropriate purposes.

mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvmen1p2
mkswap /dev/nvmen1p3
swapon /dev/nvmen1p3

I handled the /dev/nvmen1p1 EFI partition later, when I would install GRUB.

In the case of the virtual machine, I would need to create these partitions "manually" with

cfdisk

I created a 1 GB partition for swap space and another 1 GB for the boot loader (probably don't need that much...) and the rest I reserved for the filesystem.

I would then run the appropriate commands with /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, etc.

Mounting the Filesystem

mount /dev/nvmen1p2 /mnt

Installing Arch

pacstrap /mnt base

Configure the system

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

Chroot into the new filesystem

arch-chroot /mnt

Setting the root password

passwd

Install GRUB

pacman -Sy grub os-prober

When I was installing via virtual machine, I just needed to:

grub-install /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

When I was installing on my hard drive I did:

grub-install /dev/nvmen1p3
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

DO NOT forget to copy over a network profile for netctl and install netctl and network-manager so you still have internet access when you reboot into the real system

At this point, the bootstrap.sh script could be used.