Hi there! 😊

I gathered here all the steps that I took to install Arch Linux on my desktop computer. The main purpose of this post is for personal future reference, but I think (and hope) that someone else might find it useful as well.

Let’s start!

I assume that you are in the installation environment, logged in the first virtual console as the root user, and presented with a Zsh shell prompt. If not, follow the first steps described here.

Enable internet access through iwctl for Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable.

timedatectl set-ntp true

fdisk /dev/nvme0n1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p2
mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/nvme0n1p1
mkswap /dev/nvme0n1p3
swapon /dev/nvme0n1p3

mount /dev/nvmen0p1p2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/nvmen0p1p1 /mnt/boot

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware vim iwd dhcpcd networkmanager iproute2

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

arch-chroot /mnt

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Rome /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc

Edit /etc/locale.gen uncommenting “en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8”

locale-gen

Generate: /etc/locale.conf with “LANG=en_US.UTF-8”

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

Generate: /etc/hostname with <your-hostname>

echo <your-hostname> > /etc/hostname

Edit /etc/hosts with 127.0.0.1 stuff

mkinitcpio -P
systemctl enable --now dhcpcd
systemctl enable --now NetworkManager
passwd

pacman -S grub
pacman -S efibootmgr
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --removable

In the new system run:

launch this: systemctl enable --now dhcpcd.service
launch this: systemctl enable --now NetworkManager.service
connect with iwctl

Add a new user <user-name>

pacman -S sudo
install zsh
useradd -m <user-name> --shell /bin/zsh
passwd <user-name>
visudo /etc/sudoers (add the following line: "<user-name> ALL=(ALL) ALL")
su <user-name>

pacman -S xorg
pacman -S gnome
systemctl start gdm.service
systemctl enable gdm.service
exit

I didn’t install the following, but Arch Wiki suggests to do so:

pacman -S intel-ucode

Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf with “MODULES=“hid-logitech-hidpp” Recreate the initrd for the kernel with

mkinitcpio -p linux-lts

List of useful packages:

pacman -S \
    cmatrix \
    cowsay \
    lolcat \
    terminal-parrot \
    rxvt-unicode \
    youtube-dl \
    base \
    e2fsprogs \
    git \
    htop \
    intel-ucode \
    iproute2 \
    iw \
    iwd \
    less \
    man-db \
    man-pages \
    openssh \
    python \
    sudo \
    textinfo \
    tmux \
    vim \
    zsh

EFISTUB

EFISTUB allows “EFI firmware to load the kernel as an EFI executable”. Despite my motherboard should be able to support EFI firmware, I couldn’t find a way to make it works. Since I spent plenty of time trying to figure out what was the problem, I want to put here the command that should have worked for future experimentations:

!/bin/sh
blkid -p -o value -s PART_ENTRY_UUID /dev/nvme0n1p2  PARTUUID  # for root parition
efibootmgr --disk /dev/nvme0n1 --part 1 --create --label "Arch Linux" --loader '/vmlinuz-linux-lts' --unicode 'root=PARTUUID=<insert-PARTUUID-here> rw initrd=\initramfs-linux-lts.img' --verbose

Bye, bye! 👋

I hope you have found this post useful somehow. In case you have any questions or comments, please write them below, I’ll be happy to discuss with you. In the meanwhile, have a beautiful day! 😊