Installing Arch Linux can seem like a daunting task, but it is definitely worth the effort.

For the curious willing to learn, it is a great opportunity to have a peak into the inner workings of an operating system such as Linux, and get a grasp on how to tweak it to one’s personal taste.

However, if you “simply” try to follow the official installation guide, you will probably feel overwhelmed by the unknown acronyms, technical jargon and endless links through the documentation. Well, this is how I felt when I installed it for the first time.

This is because, as stated in the Frequently asked questions:

If you are a beginner and want to use Arch, you must be willing to invest time into learning a new system, and accept that Arch is designed as a ‘do-it-yourself’ distribution; it is the user who assembles the system.

Fine by me, I am willing to learn, but I wish I had a guide that explained in simple terms each term and acronym. This would immensely help the installation process while contributing to the understanding of each command.

In this page I provide a step-by-step guide for beginners. I only assume very little prior knowledge from my readers, and I assume that you have downloaded an installation image, installed the image on a flash drive, then booted your system from the flash drive.

The first thing you see is a simple console. This is where you start installing Arch Linux on your system. The first steps involve connecting to the internet, partitioning the disk, and installing essential packages.

Console keyboard layout

The only thing you can do, until you install a graphical environment, is to type. Easy, just start typing the commands I provide below and…

Wait, my keyboard doesn’t have that layout!

Oh sure, you have to configure your keyboard layout to match your actual physical keyboard. Not all the keyboards are made for English US.

Yes, but when I type the letter a, I see the letter q on the screen! How am I supposed to find the correct letters to enter the commands below?

Hum… For those first 2 commands, you will just have to try out the keys until you write the proper commands… But once this is done, your keyboard layout will be properly configured!

localectl list-keymaps list available layouts

loadkeys be-latin1 set keyboard layout

Verify boot mode

When you press the power button, the computer needs instructions to start up. These instructions are stored in a special chip on the motherboard called firmware.

There are two main types of firmware, called “boot modes”:

1. UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). This is the modern way for computers to boot. UEFI offers advanced features like secure boot, faster startup, and better hardware support.
2. BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). This is the older way of booting, often called “Legacy mode” or “CSM” (Compatibility Support Module).

To see which type of firmware your computer has, run the command:

cat /sys/firmware/efi/fw_platform_size

This checks the UEFI bitness:

• if it returns 64, then system is booted in UEFI mode and has a 64-bit x64 UEFI
• if it returns 32, then system is booted in UEFI mode and has a 32-bit IA32 UEFI; while this is supported, it will limit the boot loader choice to systemd-boot and GRUB
• if the file does not exist, the system may be booted in BIOS mode

Internet

You need to connect to the internet to install packages.

ip link list network interfaces

iwctl start interactive prompt for iwd (iNet wireless daemon by Intel):

• device list list Wi-Fi devices
• device name show display details of device name
• device name set-property Powered on turn on device
• station name scan scan for networks
• station name get-networks list available networks
• station name connect SSID connect to network with the name SSID
• station name show display connection state

ping archlinux.org verify connection

timedatectl synchronise system clock

Partition disks

Partitioning a disk means dividing a hard drive into separate sections so the computer can organize and manage data more effectively. Each section, called a partition, acts like its own mini-storage space where you can install an operating system, store files, or set up backups.

fdisk -l identify block devices

fdisk /dev/sda run fdisk

• g create a new empty GPT partition table
• n add a new partition
• t change a partition type
• p print the partition table
• w write table to disk and exit

Here are some layout examples from the Arch documentation. An example of partitions for a BIOS system could look like:

• /dev/sda1 size 1M, type BIOS boot
• /dev/sda2 size 8G, type Linux swap
• /dev/sda3 size 300G, type Linux root (x86-64)

Format partitions

mkfs.ext4 /dev/root_partition create an Ext4 file system on partition

mkswap /dev/swap_partition initialise swap partition

Mount file systems

mount /dev/root_partition /mnt mount root volume to /mnt

swapon /dev/swap_partition enable swap volume

Select mirror servers

nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist list of mirror servers. The higher a mirror is placed in the list, the more priority it is given when downloading a package.

Install essential packages

pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware

pacstrap -K /mnt man-db man-pages nano networkmanager sudo optional but recommended packages

Fstab

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab generate an fstab file

Chroot

arch-chroot /mnt change root into the new system

Time

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin /etc/localtime set the time zone

hwclock --systohc generate /etc/adjtime

Localization

nano /etc/locale.gen uncomment needed UTF-8 locales

locale-gen generate the locales

echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf create locale.conf file

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8 set the LANG variable

echo KEYMAP=be-latin1 > /etc/vconsole.conf make the console keyboard layout persistent

Network configuration

nano /etc/hostname create the hostname file: yourhostname

Root password

passwd set the root password

Boot loader

For GRUB to boot from a GPT-partitioned disk on a BIOS-based system, a BIOS boot partition is required.

BIOS systems

pacman -S grub install GRUB 2 package

grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda install GRUB

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg generate the main configuration file

Reboot

exit exit the chroot environment

umount -R /mnt unmount all the partitions (optional)

reboot

Login into the new system with the root account.

GRUB

nano /etc/default/grub

• GRUB_TIMEOUT=0 time to wait in seconds for a user selection before default is booted
• GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=*6*" all kernel messages with a loglevel smaller than the console loglevel will be printed to the console

0 (KERN_EMERG)          system is unusable
1 (KERN_ALERT)          action must be taken immediately
2 (KERN_CRIT)           critical conditions
3 (KERN_ERR)            error conditions
4 (KERN_WARNING)        warning conditions
5 (KERN_NOTICE)         normal but significant condition
6 (KERN_INFO)           informational
7 (KERN_DEBUG)          debug-level messages

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg regenerate the main configuration file

Internet

systemd-networkd is a system daemon that manages network configurations. It detects and configures network devices as they appear; it can also create virtual network devices.

The systemd package is part of the default Arch installation and contains all needed files to operate a wired network. Wireless adapters can be set up by services such as wpa_supplicant or iwd.

systemctl enable systemd-networkd

systemctl start systemd-networkd

systemctl enable systemd-resolved

systemctl start systemd-resolved

ip link list network interfaces

nano /etc/systemd/network/20-wired.network:

[Match]
Name=my_wired_interface
[Network]
DHCP=yes
[DHCPv4]
RouteMetric=100
[IPv6AcceptRA]
RouteMetric=100

nano /etc/systemd/network/25-wireless.network:

[Match]
Name=my_wireless_interface
[Network]
DHCP=yes
[DHCPv4]
RouteMetric=600
[IPv6AcceptRA]
RouteMetric=600

systemctl restart systemd-networkd

systemctl restart systemd-resolved

ip addr show IP addresses

Wi-Fi

systemctl start NetworkManager.service

systemctl enable NetworkManager.service

nmcli device wifi list list nearby Wi-Fi networks

nmcli device wifi connect SSID_or_BSSID password password connect to a Wi-Fi network

Microcode

grep microcode /proc/cpuinfo show current microcode (e.g. microcode: 0x2)

pacman -S intel-ucode iucode-tool

modprobe cpuid load the cpuid kernel module

iucode_tool -lS /usr/lib/firmware/intel-ucode/ search update for your cpuid. If an update is available, it should show up below selected microcodes.

grep microcode /proc/cpuinfo show current microcode (e.g. microcode: 0x7)

journalctl -k --grep='microcode:' check kernel messages to see if the microcode has been updated

Users

useradd -m -G wheel user add new user and add it to the administration group wheel

• G, --groups group comma separated list of supplementary groups which the user is also a member of
• m, --create-home create user’s home directory

EDITOR=nano visudo to allow members of group wheel sudo access, uncomment this line: %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Display driver

lspci -v | grep -A1 -e VGA -e 3D identify the graphics card (the Subsystem: output shows the specific model)

Intel graphics

pacman -S mesa

Desktop environment

sudo pacman -S gnome includes the display manager GDM (GNOME display manager)

sudo systemctl enable gdm

To enable automatic login with GDM, add the following to /etc/gdm/custom.conf:

# Enable automatic login for user
[daemon]
AutomaticLogin=user
AutomaticLoginEnable=True

sudo pacman -S seahorse GNOME application for managing PGP keys

• To use automatic unlocking with automatic login, set a blank password for the default keyring. Note that the contents of the keyring are stored unencrypted in this case.
  • Open searhorse (GUI application called Passwords and Keys)
  • In the left panel, right-click Login → Change Password

Post-installation

AUR

sudo pacman -S base-devel git

sudo nano /etc/makepkg.conf

• MAKEFLAGS="--jobs=$(nproc)" specify the number of jobs to run simultaneously on a multi-core/multi-processor system

mkdir ~/.builds create build directory

Install packages

sudo pacman -S noto-fonts noto-fonts-cjk noto-fonts-extra

Shell

sudo pacman -S zsh

chsh -s /usr/bin/zsh change default shell to zsh

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh>)" install Oh My Zsh

nano

sudo nano /etc/nanorc

## === Syntax coloring ===
# Uncomment:
include "/usr/share/nano/*.nanorc"
# Add:
include "/usr/share/nano/extra/*.nanorc"

mkdir ~/.config/nano && cp /etc/nanorc ~/.config/nano/nanorc (optional – if the user needs another configuration) create a local copy of the configuration file

Bluetooth

sudo pacman -S bluez-utils bluez-obex

sudo modprobe btusb

sudo systemctl start bluetooth.service

sudo systemctl enable bluetooth.service

systemctl status bluetooth.service

bluetoothctl

Packages

Pacman

Here are some configuration options for pacman and explanations of the most important commands.

/etc/pacman.conf Pacman’s settings

• Color enable colors
• VerbosePkgLists display name, version and size of target packages formatted as a table for upgrade, sync and remove operations

pacman -R package remove package. NB: Pacman will not remove configurations that the application itself creates (for example dotfiles in the home directory).

• -n prevent the creation of the .pacsave backup files created when removing certain applications
• -s remove its dependencies which are not required by any other installed package

pacman -S

• package1 package2 install packages, including dependencies
• -i package display extensive information about package
• -s string1 string2 search for packages in the database, searching both in packages’ names and descriptions
• -yu synchronise the repository databases and update the system’s packages, excluding “local” packages that are not in the configured repositories

pacman -Q

• -dt list all packages no longer required as dependencies (orphans)
• -e list packages explicitly installed
• -i package display extensive information about a locally installed package
• -m list installed packages not found in sync db(s)
• -s string1 string2 search for already installed packages

pactree package show dependency tree of package

• -r dependant tree

paccache -r delete all cached versions of installed and uninstalled packages, except for the most recent 3. This is useful to run regularly, in order to free up disk space by removing old, unnecessary package files while keeping the latest 3 versions in case you need to reinstall or roll back.

Arch User Repository (AUR)

Install a package

• cd ~/.builds
• git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/*package*.git acquire build files
• cd package/ and verify that the PKGBUILD and accompanying files are not malicious or untrustworthy
• acquire a PGP public key if needed
• makepkg -sirc make package
  • -s, --syncdeps install dependencies with pacman before building
  • -i, --install install the package if it is built successfully
  • -r, --rmdeps remove build-time dependencies after the build, as they are no longer needed. However, these dependencies may need to be reinstalled the next time the package is updated.
  • -c, --clean clean up temporary build files after the build, as they are no longer needed. These files are usually needed only when debugging the build process.
• git clean -dfx delete all files not tracked by git, thus deleting all previously built package files

AUR helper Yay (Yet Another Yogurt)

yay -Syu or yay update all packages

• --aur update only AUR packages

makepkg

makepkg is a script to automate the building of packages. The system configuration is available in /etc/makepkg.conf.

To disable options, add a ! character directly in front of them in the OPTIONS=() array.

• To configure makepkg to avoid generating debug packages, disable debug:

OPTIONS=(... !debug ...)