First of all, this tutorial doesn't prevent you from following the ArchWiki - Installation guide, it is not standalone.
Pre-installation#
First basic steps#
For those first steps, I think you are a big boy enough to do them alone.
So you can download the ArchLinux iso, verify its signature, boot the live environment, set the keyboard layout, verify the boot mode, connect to the internet, update the system clock. If you're not confident with those steps check the ArchWiki.
While creating you new virtual machine, you'll need to configure the VM settings in Virtualbox.
If you want to install Arch Linux in EFI mode inside VirtualBox, in the settings of the virtual machine, choose System item from the panel on the left and Motherboard tab from the right panel, and check the checkbox Enable EFI (special OSes only).
In UEFI mode you may experience a black screen, see #Black screen for guest in EFI mode for a workaround.
Partition the disks#
Identify the block device associated to disks with lsblk
or fdisk -l
.
Now we will use LVM to manage the disk and assume there is only one physical disk.
UEFI is enabled, so I will use a GPT partition type and an EFI system partition (ESP).
So we will have two partitions: one ESP and one partition that will host the LVM container.
1 | # fdisk /dev/sda |
Preparing the logical volumes#
Create a physical volume:
1 | # pvcreate /dev/sda2 |
Create a volume group, adding the previously created physical volume to it:
1 | # vgcreate myvg /dev/sda2 |
Create all your logical volumes on the volume group:
1 | # lvcreate -l 100%FREE myvg -n root |
Format your filesystems on each logical volume:
1 | # mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1 |
Mount your filesystems:
1 | # mount /dev/myvg/root /mnt |
Check the partition table: lsblk -f /dev/sda
.
Installation#
Select the mirrors#
Again, here it let you select the mirrors.
Install the base packages#
Install the base + some useful packages:
1 | # pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware base-devel openssh sudo wget curl neovim lvm2 |
Fstab#
Generate an fstab file by UUID:
1 | # genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab |
Check /mnt/etc/fstab
correctness and add /efi /boot none defaults,bind 0 0
to mount the EFI mountpoint at boot since we mounted ESP outside of /boot
.
So you should have something similar to:
1 | # Static information about the filesystems. |
Chroot#
Change root into the new system:
1 | # arch-chroot /mnt |
Time zone#
Set the time zone:
1 | # ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris /etc/localtime |
Run hwclock
to generate /etc/adjtime
:
1 | # hwclock --systohc |
Localization#
Uncomment locales in /etc/locale.gen
, and generate them with:
1 | # locale-gen |
As I'm French, for me locales were:
1 | en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 |
Set variables in /etc/locale.conf
, for example:
1 | LC_ADDRESS=fr_FR.UTF-8 |
Because I want all sort of format to be displayed like we do in France but keep the system and displayed messages in English.
Set the keyboard layout in /etc/vconsole.conf
, for example (for AZERTY
default keyboard):
1 | KEYMAP=fr |
Network configuration#
Create the hostname file (/etc/hostname
):
1 | archway |
Add matching entries to /etc/hosts
:
1 | 127.0.0.1 localhost |
Initramfs#
Configuring mkinitcpio HOOKS in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
:
1 | HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf kms keyboard keymap consolefont block lvm2 filesystems fsck) |
Recreate the initramfs image:
1 | # mkinitcpio -p linux |
Mount ESP:
1 | # mkdir -p /efi/EFI/ |
Root password#
Easy!
Change root password:
1 | # passwd |
Boot loader#
I know what you're about to say:
WTF man! Why don't you use GRUB?
Because rEFInd works better for EFI partitions as the name states.
1 | # pacman -S refind |
Warning: Virtualbox will ony see esp/EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi
automatically prior to Virtualbox 6.1 but it's ok nowaday. In that case just run refind-install --usedefault /dev/sda
instead.
Then we need to edit /boot/refind_linux.conf
:
1 | "Boot with standard options" "root=/dev/myvg/root rw add_efi_memmap initrd=\initramfs-%v.img" |
Note: Use backslashes \
for initrd
and forward slashes /
for other attributes.
Copy /boot/refind_linux.conf
to /efi/refind_linux.conf
.
And also edit /efi/EFI/refind/refind.conf
in order to work with %v
in refind_linux.conf
:
1 | ... |
So this way we have to configure the boot entries only once for multiple kernels.
Do not bind mount the ESP to /boot
before using refind-install
else it will fail:
1 | # mount --bind /efi /boot |
Reboot#
You know how to reboot right?
Ok ok, but it's better to quit the chroot and unmount all the partitions first umount -R /mnt
.
Post-installation#
In Post-installation the only section specific to a Virtualbox install is about guest additions. For a more complete and up-to-date tutorial, see .
Before we begin#
It could be nice to setup a DHCP client to avoid manual IP configuration.
Enable DHCP client:
1 | # systemctl start dhcpcd |
Note: for a server I rather recommand systemd-networkd and systemd-resolved.
Now we have Internet access, let's update the system before installing anything:
1 | # pacman -Syu |
We'll use a lot this terminal so let's get a fancier zsh shell:
1 | # pacman -S zsh zsh-autosuggestions zsh-completions zsh-history-substring-search zsh-syntax-highlighting |
System administration#
Users, groups and privilege escalation#
We already installed sudo
with pacstrap
.
Add a new user and assign sudo privilege
1 | # useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/zsh noraj |
And uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
.
Exit root session and log back as user.
Creating default XDG directories
1 | $ sudo pacman -S xdg-user-dirs |
Package management#
Repositories#
Send stats about packages
1 | $ sudo pacman -S pkgstats |
Arch User Repository#
Install a pacman wrapper for AUR support, for example pikaur
, pakku
, yay
:
1 | $ sudo pacman -S git |
Please, don't install yaourt
, check the pacman wrapper ArchWiki page.
Graphical user interface#
Display server and display drivers#
Install the display server, some utils and associated drivers
1 | $ sudo pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xrandr |
Desktop environments#
As we want a true graphical library backed desktop environment (understand a Qt DE as GTK is only the GIMP library), we have barely two choices: KDE or LXQT, but LXQT is very light (nice for a VM but too light for a nice desktop experience).
Install KDE Desktop Environment
1 | $ sudo pacman -S plasma-meta |
Configure KDE:
- System Settings > Startup and Shutdown > Background Services > disable all unneeded services
- System Settings > Desktop Behavior > Desktop Effects > Disable
Translucency
that behave bad for dark themes. - System Settings > Search > File Search > Deselect "Enable File Search"
- System Settings > Regional Settings > Set Language and Formats
- System Settings > Input Devices > Keyboard > Layouts > Configure Layouts
Generate SDDM keyboard layout /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf
:
1 | $ sudo localectl set-x11-keymap fr |
Networking#
If not already installed, install NetworkManager network manager and applets:
1 | $ sudo pacman -S networkmanager kdeplasma-addons plasma-nm |
Strenght of NetworkManager
are: official package for KDE applet, integrated wifi manager, nice integration with KDE.
Drawback of NetworkManger
: does not support the use of dhcpcd
for IPv6 currently. So you can change for dhclient
instead.
If you want to change to dhclient
:
1 | $ sudo pacman -S dhclient # not running as systemd service unlike dhcpcd |
Encrypted Wi-Fi passwords by using KDE wallet.
Disallow /etc/resolv.conf
overwrite:
1 | $ sudoedit /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf |
VirtualBox#
Install the Guest Additions#
Install virtualbox-guest-utils
provided by virtualbox-guest-modules-arch
if you plan to keep the default vanilla kernel, else install it from virtualbox-guest-dkms
.
1 | $ sudo pacman -S virtualbox-guest-utils |
Load the VirtualBox kernel modules#
1 | $ sudo systemctl enable vboxservice |
General#
Install a VTE (Virtual Terminal Emulator):
1 | $ sudo pacman -S qterminal konsole |
Install net browsers, Firefox is far more powerful but use GTK where Falkon is using Qt but is far to be complete and fast. But anyway having several browser is always useful.
1 | $ sudo pacman -S firefox falkon |
Install general software:
1 | $ sudo pacman -S code kate okular dolphin xsel p7zip unrar kvantum-qt5 openssh ksysguard htop |
Install some fonts!
1 | $ sudo pacman -S ttf-liberation noto-fonts ttf-roboto ttf-anonymous-pro ttf-hack ttf-inconsolata noto-fonts-emoji powerline-fonts adobe-source-code-pro-fonts ttf-fira-mono |
Install oh-my-zsh:
1 | $ pikaur -S oh-my-zsh-git |
Install a konsole color scheme, I installed bl1nk.
Aliases for color:
1 | alias diff='diff --color=auto' |
Color wrappers:
1 | $ sudo pacman -S grc |
KDE Theme
1 | $ sudo pacman -S papirus-icon-theme |
SDDM theme: I installed Sugar Dark for SDDM.
Install a Terminal multiplexers:
1 | $ sudo pacman -S tmux |
Troubleshooting#
System crash/freeze during system update#
If it was during download phase it's probably ok but if it was during the upgrade phase it could be bad especially if it was during the kernel upgrade.
Example: rEFInd doesn't show any boot option because kernel image are not present (crash during kernel upgrade).
Boot on the Arch ISO.
Mount the filesystems:
1 | mount /dev/myvg/root /mnt |
Chroot into the filesystem:
1 | arch-chroot /mnt |
Remove the locked pacman database:
1 | rm /var/lib/pacman/db.lck |
Reinstall the kernel from the cache or download it from a mirror (for kernel issues):
1 | rm -r /var/lib/pacman/local/linux{,-headers}-5.13.9-1 |
Or reinstall all packages if you have other errors:
- Reinstall all dependencies
pacman -Qqdn > /tmp/pkglist_deps.txt
pacman --asdeps -S $(< /tmp/pkglist_deps.txt)
- Reinstall all explicit packages:
pacman -Qqen > /tmp/pkglist_exp.txt
pacman -S $(< /tmp/pkglist_exp.txt)
Copy kernel images to ESP:
1 | cp -a /boot/vmlinuz-linux /efi/ |