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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!

  1. 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!

  2. 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

  3. Check that you have a network connection and internet:

     $ ip addr
 $
 ping archlinux.org

Partition disks

  1. identify the disk(s) you wish to install Linux to:

     $ fdisk -l

  2. 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)

  3. 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

  1. 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]

  2. 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

  3. 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

  1. Enter the new install:

     $ arch-chroot /mnt

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

     $ hwclock --systohc

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

     $ locale-gen

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

  5. edit /etc/hostname to set the host name

  6. set the root password with passwd

  7. create your user and add it to group wheel (for sudo access)

     $ useradd -m -G wheel [username]
 $
 passwd [username]

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

  9. Install GRUB bootloader to EFI system partition:

     $ grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=boot --bootloader-id=[OSNAME]

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


    

    GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false


  11. generate GRUB config:

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

  12. enable networking service:

    $ systemctl enable NetworkManager.service

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

Install KDE:

  1. once rebooted, log in as new user [user] and install KDE packages:

     $ sudo pacman -S xorg plasma plasma-wayland-session kde-applications

  2. once completed, enable the display manager and restart:

     $ sudo systemctl enable sddm.service
 $
 sudo reboot
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