How To Install Arch Linux

This is my walkthrough for how I installed Arch Linux on LVM with encryption, utilizing KDE Plasma as the desktop environment.

This repository includes additional documents pertaining to:

General Maintenance
LVM
Windows 10

Documents within these areas of interest are listed in the Additional Information section of the Table of Contents.

SweatyHands is a work in progress and will be continually updated as I become more familiar with Arch.

Stage 1

All steps are done in the live boot environment.

Clear Existing Partitions

$ fdisk -l
Find disk path (probably /dev/sda/ on hard drives)
$ fdisk /dev/sda
Use option d to delete partition, select partition number
- Repeat until all existing partitions are deleted
- Use option p to list pending changes to system throughout process
Use option w to write changes

Create New Partitions

The order of my partitions, including partition path, purpose, type, and their corresponding sizes:
- Partition Path Partition Purpose Partition Type Size
  
  /dev/sda1 EFI EFI 512MB
  
  /dev/sda2 boot Linux Filesystem 512MB
  
  /dev/sda3 LVM ( /, /home, swapfile) LVM Remaining disk
$ fdisk /dev/sda
Use option n to create new partitions.
- fdisk knows how to number partitions, you can leave it at its default when selecting partition number
- First sector: enter through
- Last sector: ex. +512M to make a 512MB partition
  - Simply enter through first and last sector fields if you want to make a partition from the remaining disk space
- If prompted to remove existing filesystem signature, y
- Use option t to set partition type
  - EFI option number: 1
  - Linux filesystem option number: 20. It is also the default so entering through would set this as the partition type
  - Linux LVM option number: 30

Make Filesystems for EFI and boot Partitions

For /dev/sda1 (EFI)
- $ mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
For /dev/sda2 (boot)
- $ mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

Encrypt and Make Filesystem for the LVM

$ cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda3
"Are you sure?" Well, yeah. So type YES
Enter and re-enter passphrase for encrypted partition
Open encrypted partition
- $ cryptsetup open /dev/sda3 lvm to open partition as "lvm"
Create physical volume
- $ pvcreate --dataalignment 1m /dev/mapper/lvm
Create volume group
- $ vgcreate volgroup0 /dev/mapper/lvm to create volume group "volgroup0"
Create logical volumes
- Create / (root)
  - $ lvcreate -L 32GB volgroup0 -n lv_root to create logical volume of size 32GB with the name "lv_root"
- Create /home
  - $ lvcreate -l 100%FREE volgroup0 -n lv_home to use the rest of disk with the name "lv_home"
Make filesystem for LVM groups
- For / (root)
  - $ mkfs.ext4 /dev/volgroup0/lv_root
- For /home
  - $ mkfs.ext4 /dev/volgroup0/lv_home

Mount Volumes (ALL EXCEPT EFI)

$ mount /dev/volgroup0/lv_root /mnt to mount .../lv_root to /mnt
Create directory in /mnt to mount /home: $ mkdir /mnt/home
$ mount /dev/volgroup0/lv_home /mnt/home
Create directory for boot: $ mkdir /mnt/boot
$ mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot
$ mkdir /mnt/etc for later use

Get a Network Connection (Wireless Connection)

$ ip a or $ ip link to get wireless interface name
$ wifi-menu INTERFACE_NAME to scan for networks with the interface. Edit the name for the new profile if you want.
$ ping A_WEBSITE to check connection

Edit Mirror List

$ nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist and move United States mirrors to the top of the list. Pacman prioritizes mirrors at the top of the list, so this would result in a faster download speed.

Install `base` Package

$ pacstrap -i /mnt base

Generate and Check `fstab` File

$ genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab to generate and store the fstab file in /mnt/etc/fstab
$ cat /mnt/etc/fstab and you should see three partitions listed in the file

Access In-Progress Installation

$ arch-chroot /mnt
You can now do the following steps in any order you'd like

Stage 2

All steps are done in the chroot environment.

Install Additional Essential Linux packages

$ pacman -S base-devel lvm2 linux-firmware man-db man-pages texinfo linux linux-lts linux-headers linux-lts-headers networkmanager wpa_supplicant wireless_tools netctl dialog mesa grub efibootmgr dosfstools os-prober mtools xorg-server plasma-meta kde-applications intel-ucode nano
- lvm2 - CRITICAL PACKAGE. Required to boot LVM
- linux and linux-lts gives us kernel options
- linux-headers and linux-lts-headers are optional, but recommended
- netctl is optional. MAY CONFLICT WITH networkmanager
- mesa - graphics; provides the DRI driver for 3D acceleration
- grub efibootmgr dosfstools os-prober mtools - necessary packages to install GRUB
- plasma-meta kde-applications - installing KDE Plasma as desktop environment
- intel-ucode - microcode for Intel cpu; or amd-ucode for AMD processors

IMPORTANT: Edit `mkinitcpio.conf` File

$ nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf. The file controls modules and scripts added to the image as well as what happens at boot time.
Find HOOKS=(base udev autodetect ...) line
- Add "encrypt lvm2" between "block" and "filesystems". ORDER IS IMPORTANT
$ mkinitcpio -p linux and $ mkinitcpio -p linux-lts if both were installed. You only need to run it against whichever linux package was installed.

Set Timezone and Hardware Clock

$ ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Detroit /etc/localtime
$ hwclock --systohc to set hardware clock to UTC

Set Locale

$ nano /etc/locale.gen
- Uncomment lines that start with "en_US" for United States
$ locale-gen

Edit `/etc/hosts` and `/etc/hostname`

Add these lines in hosts

127.0.0.1   localhost
::1         localhost
127.0.1.1   arch.localdomain  arch

Add this to hostname
- arch

Set Root Password

$ passwd

Create Users

$ useradd -m -g users -G wheel NAME to create user of NAME in groups users and wheel
Set password for user $ passwd NAME
Make user admin
- Check sudo $ which sudo. If DNE, $ pacman -S sudo
- Configure sudo. Create env variable and edit sudo settings $ EDITOR=nano visudo
  - Uncomment line that starts with "%wheel ALL" to give users of group wheel permission to execute any command
Repeat and assign privileges as needed.

Configure GRUB

$ nano /etc/default/grub
Uncomment "GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y"
Edit line "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT"
- Add "cryptdevice=/dev/sda3:volgroup0:allow-discards" between "loglevel=3" and "quiet"
  - CRITICAL. DO NOT **** UP.
$ mkdir /boot/EFI
Finally mount the EFI partition $ mount /dev/sda1 /boot/EFI
$ grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=grub_uefi --recheck
$ mkdir /boot/grub/locale
$ cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo
$ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Create SWAPFILE

SWAPFILE vs Swap Partition: Can resize at any time whereas resizing a swap partition would be troublesome and risky for system integrity
$ fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
$ chmod 600 /swapfile
$ mkswap /swapfile
Add SWAPFILE to fstab so that swapfile is initialized during each boot
- Optional but recommended: make a backup of existing fstab file $ cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.backup
- Add SWAPFILE to fstab $ echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | tee -a /etc/fstab to append line to fstab file
$ cat /etc/fstab to check if SWAPFILE was added correctly

Configure KDE Plasma

This assumes you've already installed packages plasma-meta and kde-applications
$ systemctl enable sddm
$ systemctl enable NetworkManager

Stage 3

Reboot and Pray to God You Didn't **** Something Up

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 37 Commits
General Maintenance		General Maintenance
LVM		LVM
Windows 10		Windows 10
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md

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How To Install Arch Linux

Table of Contents

Stage 1

Clear Existing Partitions

Create New Partitions

Make Filesystems for EFI and boot Partitions

Encrypt and Make Filesystem for the LVM

Mount Volumes (ALL EXCEPT EFI)

Get a Network Connection (Wireless Connection)

Edit Mirror List

Install `base` Package

Generate and Check `fstab` File

Access In-Progress Installation

Stage 2

Install Additional Essential Linux packages

IMPORTANT: Edit `mkinitcpio.conf` File

Set Timezone and Hardware Clock

Set Locale

Edit `/etc/hosts` and `/etc/hostname`

Set Root Password

Create Users

Configure GRUB

Create SWAPFILE

Configure KDE Plasma

Stage 3

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Partition Path	Partition Purpose	Partition Type	Size
/dev/sda1	EFI	EFI	512MB
/dev/sda2	boot	Linux Filesystem	512MB
/dev/sda3	LVM ( /, /home, swapfile)	LVM	Remaining disk

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JosephLai241/SweatyHands

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Repository files navigation

How To Install Arch Linux

Table of Contents

Stage 1

Clear Existing Partitions

Create New Partitions

Make Filesystems for EFI and boot Partitions

Encrypt and Make Filesystem for the LVM

Mount Volumes (ALL EXCEPT EFI)

Get a Network Connection (Wireless Connection)

Edit Mirror List

Install base Package

Generate and Check fstab File

Access In-Progress Installation

Stage 2

Install Additional Essential Linux packages

IMPORTANT: Edit mkinitcpio.conf File

Set Timezone and Hardware Clock

Set Locale

Edit /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname

Set Root Password

Create Users

Configure GRUB

Create SWAPFILE

Configure KDE Plasma

Stage 3

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Install `base` Package

Generate and Check `fstab` File

IMPORTANT: Edit `mkinitcpio.conf` File

Edit `/etc/hosts` and `/etc/hostname`