Guide

TODO:
	- Expand on setting the time/timezone
	- more in-depth description of fdisk commands
	- add howto for automounting CIFS network share in fstab

Sources:
This info mainly comes from the official Arch Install Guide, with bits from related articles:
Grub Info
Sudo info
fdisk info
BEGIN!

Download the official Arch install media,, burn to disk or USB, and boot from it. Now is the time to choose between BIOS or UEFI mode, the mode you boot the disk from determines the mode of the resulting OS!

Booting the install media brings you to a basic terminal. First step, update mirors and install the latest GPG keys to be able to install packages:
 pacman -Syu
 pacman -S archlinux-keyring

Check that you have a network connection and internet:
 ip addr
 ping archlinux.org

Partition disks

identify the disk(s) you wish to install Linux to:
 fdisk -l

format disk(s) and add partitions using fdisk:
 fdisk /dev/[diskname]

Create new "Primary" partitions for each mountpoint.

default type is "Linux Filesystem", this is good for root partition

for other partitions (like swap and EFI SYS), Partition Type must be changed.

Minimum required partitions:

1x "Linux Filesystem" partition to mount to root ("/")
1x "EFI System Partition" if booting in UEFI mode (minimum size 300MB, recommended 1GB)

Format partitions you just made:
 mkfs.ext4 /dev/root_partition
 mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/efi_system_partition
 mkswap /dev/swap_partition [if you made a swap partition]

Install the OS

mount the new root partition to the live CD file system:
 mount /dev/root_partition /mnt
 mount --mkdir /dev/efi_system_partition /mnt/boot
 swapon /dev/swap_partition [if you made a swap partition]

install base OS and useful packages to the new mount:
 pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware nano networkmanager sudo man-db cifs-utils grub efibootmgr os-prober

generate a mountpoint file and save to new install (requires mount commands in step 1):
 genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Enter new OS and configure

Enter the new install:
 arch-chroot /mnt

use timedatectl to set the correct time zone, enable NTP, and enable the HW clock (RTC). Then run hwclock to finalize:
 hwclock --systohc

edit the file /etc/locale.gen and uncomment the line en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8, then generate:
 locale-gen

create the file /etc/locale.conf and enter: LANG=en_US.UTF-8

edit /etc/hostname to set the host name

set the root password with passwd

create your user and add it to group wheel (for sudo access)
 useradd -m -G wheel [username]
 passwd [username]

edit the sudoers file /etc/sudoers and uncommend the wheel line to enable users in the wheel group to sudo

Install GRUB bootloader to EFI system partition:
 grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=boot --bootloader-id=[OSNAME]

edit the grub config /etc/default/grub to enable finding other OS's on attached disks, uncomment the line:

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false

generate GRUB config:
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

enable networking service:
systemctl enable NetworkManager.service

exit the chroot via exit, then reboot system, removing install media during POST.

Install KDE:

once rebooted, log in as new user [user] and install KDE packages:
 sudo pacman -S xorg plasma plasma-wayland-session kde-applications

once completed, enable the display manager and restart:
 sudo systemctl enable sddm.service
 sudo reboot