Dualboot_Arch.md - Fri, May 19, 2023

Installing Arch from Scratch for UEFI Devices, note that I'm not mentioning the process where you need to open your Windows system (If that's the OS you are using and want to dualboot on) and create free space, and prepare installation media, etc stuff. This process is directly after booting into the Arch installation media

Connecting Network

iwctl <— open wifi settings

device list <— show available wifi devices

station YOURDEVICEHERE scan <— look for networks

station YOURDEVICEHERE get-networks <— list available networks

station YOURDEVICEHERE connect YOURNETWORKHERE <— connect to network

quit <— leave wifi settings

ping google.com <– to check internet connection working or not

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Fix Signing Keys issues

pacman-key --init
pacman-key --populate archlinux

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Verifying EFI or not

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/

This should pop some results

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Update Date & Time

timedatectl status to check current status timedatectl list-timezones to view available timezones timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Kolkata set IST

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Partitioning

Note that the numbers and alphabets maybe varying in your case like /dev/sda or /dev/sda5 ‎

General Viewing

lsblk - to properly view the drives hdparam -i /dev/sda - more info about the drive fdisk -l - detailed drives view ‎

Create Partitions

cfdisk /dev/sda - to start making partitions

• Partitions
  • Root
  • Home
  • Swap (Min 4GB) ‎

Format Paritions

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda5 - to make ext4 partitions

mkswap /dev/sda7 - to make swap partitions

swapon /dev/sda7 - to mention swap mountpoint

Mounting Home and Root Partitions

mount /dev/sda5 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/home

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Setting up Mirrors

cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.bak Backing up current mirror list

pacman -Sy update pacman databases

pacman -S pacman-contrib install ranking tool

rankmirrors -n 10 /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.bak > /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist rank the list and update the servers by their speed you can view it again by using cat (cat /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist)

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Install Arch to root partition

Installing necessary packages

pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel linux linux-lts linux-headers linux-firmware intel-ucode sudo nano git neofetch networkmanager dhcpcd pulseaudio bluez wpa_supplicant

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Generate File System Table

When we boot to arch drive, we need to tell the system that we need to mount all the partitions under current boot /mnt to the same location

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

you can view it again by using cat (cat /mnt/etc/fstab)

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Entering Arch Drive

We can chroot to our installed arch drive arch-chroot /mnt

you can verify if you are there or not by typing lsblk ‎

Set Password and Sudo

passwd - set superuser password

you should not run system as a root user as a practice, so lets create a user

useradd -m stealthspectre
passwd stealthspectre
(and setup your password)

add to user groups usermod -aG wheel,storage,power stealthspectre

edit the sudoers file to access sudo

EDITOR=nano visudo

uncomment %wheel ALL=... this thing

you can add timeout for asking password below it by mentioning the time

Defaults timestamp_timeout=0

Ctrl+O - to write the changes

Ctrl+X - to exit the editor

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Setting System Language

nano /etc/locale.gen

scroll all the way and uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

locale-gen - to generate the saved locale

echo LANG=en_US.UTF8 > /etc/locale.conf - create a locale config file

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8 - export the system language

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Setup Host Name

echo ArchLinux > /etc/hostname

And add these lines to nano /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 <tabspace> localhost
::1 <tabspace> localhost
127.0.1.1 <tabspace> ArchLinux<this_is_your_hostname>.localdomain <tabspace> localhost

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Setup TIme Zone and Local Time

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc

you can use <tab> to see the timezones after .../zoneinfo/

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Setup GRUB

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Prerequisites

Constantly use lsblk to check whats happening and to select partitions

mkdir /boot/efi
mount /dev/sda1 /boot/efi/
pacman -S grub efibootmgr dosfstools mtools

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Edit and Updating GRUB config file

nano /etc/default/grub

uncomment GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false Ctrl+O - to write the changes Ctrl+X - to exit the editor

pacman -S osprober
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=grub_uefi --recheck
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

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Finalizing

systemctl enable dhcpcd.service Enabling network services (This service is responsible for providing the ip-address)

systemctl enable NetworkManager.service

Exit the chroot by exit

umount -lR /mnt - to unmount all the partitions

now run systemctl daemon-reload to make sure that grub is visible in the bootloader

reboot and remove the installation media