Before we start

By installing the Arch Linux, you can learn a few things about operating systems. If you want to install Arch Linux or just want to follow along to see how the installation process goes, you can follow this guide.

Some processes during the Arch Linux installation might change in the future; therefore, you should also read the official Arch Linux installation guide for the most accurate and up-to-date information.

1 Pre-installation

1.0 Ensure that the Safe Boot option is Disabled

To disable the Safe Boot option, first enter the BIOS. I am using an MSI motherboard (MSI PRO Z690), and to enter the BIOS, I had to press the Del key. Once in the BIOS, choose Advanced Mode, navigate to the Security section at the bottom right corner of the BIOS UI, and set the Safe Boot option to Disabled.

This would allow Arch Linux to boot.

1.1 Acquire an installation image

Go to the Arch Linux Download page and acquire an installation image. It is recommended to get it as a torrent. If that is not an option for you, download it through HTTP by choosing the country you are downloading from for the fastest download speed.

1.2 Prepare an installation medium

Once you have acquired the installation image, you can create an Arch Linux installer USB drive. Remember that once you write the Arch Linux ISO file onto the USB drive, the content of the USB drive will be irrevocably deleted, so make sure to save any important files from the USB drive before creating a bootable USB drive.

To create a bootable USB drive with the Arch Linux ISO file, run the following command on your current Linux distro:

dd bs=4M if=path/to/archlinux-version-x86_64.iso of=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-My_flash_drive conv=fsync oflag=direct status=progress

Where:

• path/to/archlinux-version-x86_64.iso is the path to the Arch Linux ISO file you downloaded earlier

• /dev/disk/by-id/usb-My_flash_drive is the location of yyur USB drive that will be made bootable

To find the location of your USB drive, run lsblk in the terminal.

In my case I would run the following command:

dd bs=4M if=/andrija/Downloads/archlinux-version-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sda conv=fsync oflag=direct status=progress

1.3 Reboot and choose the USB installation medium

Reboot the PC, and choose the USB installation medium from your Boot Menu. To access the Boot Menu, you may need to press a specific key (such as F12, Esc, or Del) during startup, depending on your motherboard. Once in the Boot Menu, select the USB drive to begin the Arch Linux installation process.

1.4 Check the internet connection

Once you’ve entered the live environment, check if you have access to the internet:

ping archlinux.org

if you’re using WiFi connection, check the iwctl Guide.

1.5 Partition the disks

To identify the drive on which you will be installing Arch Linux, run the lsblk command. If it is an NVMe SSD it will start with nvme.

Let’s say you will be installing Arch Linux on the nvme2n1 device. To create partitions on that disk run the following:

fdisk /dev/nvme2n1

Then to create an empty GPT partition table, press g and then Enter.

To create a new partition, press n, and leave the default values for the Partition number and the First sector. I will make this partition a BOOT partition, allocate 1 Gigabyte. To do so, type +1G for the Last sector.

If you get asked to remove the partition signature, you can say Yes.

To create the second, press n again, and leave the default values for the Partition number and the First sector. This will be my SWAP partition and I will allocate 32 Gigabytes for it, because I am running a 32 GB RAM configuration, and that should be sufficient for swapping. So I will type +32G for the Last sector.

If you get asked to remove the partition signature, you can say Yes.

To create the third partition, press n once again and leave all the default values. This means the Last sector will take up the remaining space, which will be used for the / partition.

If you get asked to remove the partition signature, you can say Yes.

Now, that partitions are created, let’s choose the correct partition types for each partition. To do this, enter t, and choose 1 as partition number. Since the first partition will be for BOOT, type 1 as a Partition type.

Next, to change the partition type for the SWAP partition, type t again, choose 2 as Partition number, and then 19 as the Partition type. This sets the second partition type to Linux swap.

Leave the type for the third partition unchanged, as it is set to Linux filesystem by default.

1.6 Format the partitions

Each newly created partition must be formatted with an appropriate file system. For the root partition, I'll use the Ext4 file system.

mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme2n1p3

To initialize the SWAP partition, run the following:

mkswap /dev/nvme2n1p2

And for the BOOT, run the following:

mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/nvme2n1p1

1.7 Mount the file system

Mount the root partitiono to /mnt:

mount /dev/nvme2n1p3 /mnt

Create a mount point for the BOOT partition, and mount the BOOT partition:

mount --mkdir /dev/nvme2n1p1 /mnt/boot

To enable the SWAP partition, use the following command:

swapon /dev/nvme2n1p2

2 Installation

2.1 Install packages

To install the base system and other packages that we’re going to use, run the following command:

pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware neovim intel-ucode sof-firmware base-devel grub efibootmgr networkmanager

This command installs the base Arch Linux system, the Linux kernel, firmware, and additional utilities including:

• neovim (a text editor)

• intel-ucode (Intel CPU microcode updates)

• sof-firmware (Sound Open Firmware for audio devices)

• base-devel (development tools)

• grub (bootloader)

• efibootmgr (UEFI boot manager)

• networkmanager (network management tool)

3 Configure the system

3.1 Generate a file system table

To generate a file system table (fstab) that will be used for mounting filesystems at boot, run the following command:

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

3.2 Change root into the new system

To chroot into the new Arch Linux installation, use the following command:

 arch-chroot /mnt

3.3 Set time

Set the time zone for your region. Replace Europe and Belgrade with your appropriate region and city. Use the following commands:

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Belgrade /etc/localtime

Synchronize the hardware clock:

hwclock --systohc

3.4 Localization

Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 in the /etc/locale.gen file. You can do this using the following command:

nvim /etc/locale.gen

To enter EDIT/INSERT mode in neovim(nvim), press i. To exit EDIT/INSERT mode, press Esc. To save your changes and exit, type :wq and press Enter.

Then generate the locale with:

locale-gen

Create the /etc/locale.conf file and set the language variable to LANG=en_US.UTF-8:

nvim /etc/locale.conf

3.5 Network configuration

Open the /etc/hostname file to add your hostname for the PC:

neovim /etc/hostname

Add your desired hostname (e.g., mycomputer) and save the file.

3.6 Additional configurations

Set the root password by running:

passwd

Create a user and add that user to the wheel group with the following commands:

useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash andrija

Where andrija is the user.

Set a password for the new user using papsswd:

passwd andrija

To allow members of the wheel group to use sudo, uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL in the /etc/sudoers. First set your editor to neovim:

EDITOR=nvim visudo

To enable the Network Manager, use the following command:

systemctl enable NetworkManager

This will configure Network Manager to start automatically on boot. To start it immediately without rebooting, run:

systemctl start NetworkManager

To Install the boot loader(GRUB in this case) for UEFI systems run:

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB --removable

And generate the GRUB configuration file:

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

4 Reboot

Exit the chroot environment:

exit

Unmount all mounted partitions:

umount -R /mnt

Reboot the system:

reboot

After the reboot, Arch Linux should boot, but you will see a command line interface. Now that you have Arch Linux installed, in the next posts, we’ll cover how to install NVIDIA drivers, as well as the KDE Plasma Desktop environment and the Hyprland Window Manager.

Now that your Arch Linux installation is complete, you can proudly say: “I use Arch, BTW 😉”.

5 Next steps

Once you have completed the installing of Arch Linux, you can enhance your experience by setting up a Desktop Environment. To do so, visit the following link: Install a Desktop Environment Guide. This guide will walk you through the process of installing a Desktop Environment, allowing you to enjoy a graphical user interface on your Arch Linux system.