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Revision as of 19:50, 27 December 2018
This document is a guide for installing Arch Linux from the live system booted with the official installation image. Before installing, it would be advised to view the FAQ. For conventions used in this document, see Help:Reading. In particular, code examples may contain placeholders (formatted in italics
) that must be replaced manually.
For more detailed instructions, see the respective ArchWiki articles or the various programs' man pages, both linked from this guide. For interactive help, the IRC channel and the forums are also available.
Arch Linux should run on any x86_64-compatible machine with a minimum of 512 MB RAM. A basic installation with all packages from the base group should take less than 800 MB of disk space. As the installation process needs to retrieve packages from a remote repository, this guide assumes a working internet connection is available.
Pre-installation
The installation media and their GnuPG signatures can be acquired from the Download page.
Verify signature
It is recommended to verify the image signature before use, especially when downloading from an HTTP mirror, where downloads are generally prone to be intercepted to serve malicious images.
On a system with GnuPG installed, do this by downloading the PGP signature (under Checksums) to the ISO directory, and verifying it with:
$ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --keyserver-options auto-key-retrieve --verify archlinux-version-x86_64.iso.sig
Alternatively, from an existing Arch Linux installation run:
# pacman-key -v archlinux-version-x86_64.iso.sig
- The signature itself could be manipulated if it is downloaded from a mirror site, instead of from archlinux.org as above. In this case, ensure that the public key, which is used to decode the signature, is signed by another, trustworthy key. The
gpg
command will output the fingerprint of the public key. - Another method to verify the authenticity of the signature is to ensure that the public key's fingerprint is identical to the key fingerprint of the Arch Linux developer who signed the ISO-file. See Wikipedia:Public-key_cryptography for more information on the public-key process to authenticate keys.
Boot the live environment
The live environment can be booted from a USB flash drive, an optical disc or a network with PXE. For alternative means of installation, see Category:Installation process.
- Pointing the current boot device to a drive containing the Arch installation media is typically achieved by pressing a key during the POST phase, as indicated on the splash screen. Refer to your motherboard's manual for details.
- When the Arch menu appears, select Boot Arch Linux and press
Enter
to enter the installation environment. - See README.bootparams for a list of boot parameters, and packages.x86_64 for a list of included packages.
You will be logged in on the first virtual console as the root user, and presented with a Zsh shell prompt.
To switch to a different console—for example, to view this guide with ELinks alongside the installation—use the Alt+arrow
shortcut. To edit configuration files, nano, vi and vim are available.
Set the keyboard layout
The default console keymap is US. Available layouts can be listed with:
# ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz
To modify the layout, append a corresponding file name to loadkeys(1), omitting path and file extension. For example, to set a German keyboard layout:
# loadkeys de-latin1
Console fonts are located in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/
and can likewise be set with setfont(8).
Verify the boot mode
If UEFI mode is enabled on an UEFI motherboard, Archiso will boot Arch Linux accordingly via systemd-boot. To verify this, list the efivars directory:
# ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
If the directory does not exist, the system may be booted in BIOS or CSM mode. Refer to your motherboard's manual for details.
Connect to the Internet
The installation image enables the dhcpcd daemon for wired network devices on boot. The connection may be verified with ping:
# ping archlinux.org
If no connection is available, stop the dhcpcd service with systemctl stop dhcpcd@interface
where the interface
name can be tab-completed. Proceed to configure the network as described in Network configuration.
Update the system clock
Use timedatectl(1) to ensure the system clock is accurate:
# timedatectl set-ntp true
To check the service status, use timedatectl status
.
Partition the disks
When recognized by the live system, disks are assigned to a block device such as /dev/sda
or /dev/nvme0n1
. To identify these devices, use lsblk or fdisk.
# fdisk -l
Results ending in rom
, loop
or airoot
may be ignored.
The following partitions are required for a chosen device:
- One partition for the root directory
/
. - If UEFI is enabled, an EFI system partition.
If you want to create any stacked block devices for LVM, full disk encryption or RAID, do it now.
Example layouts
UEFI with GPT | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Mount point | Partition | Partition type (GUID) | Suggested size | |
/boot or /boot/efi
|
/dev/sdx1 | EFI System Partition | 260–512 MiB | |
[SWAP] | /dev/sdx2 | Linux swap | More than 512 MiB | |
/
|
/dev/sdx3 | Linux | Remainder of the device | |
BIOS with MBR or GPT | ||||
Mount point | Partition | Partition type | Suggested size | |
– | /dev/sdx1 | BIOS boot partition | 1 MiB | |
[SWAP] | /dev/sdx2 | Linux swap | More than 512 MiB | |
/
|
/dev/sdx3 | Linux | Remainder of the device |
Format the partitions
Once the partitions have been created, each must be formatted with an appropriate file system. For example, to format the root partition on /dev/sda1
with ext4
, run:
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
If you created a partition for swap (for example /dev/sda3
), initialize it with mkswap:
# mkswap /dev/sda3 # swapon /dev/sda3
See File systems#Create a file system for details.
Mount the file systems
Mount the file system on the root partition to /mnt
, for example:
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
Create mount points for any remaining partitions and mount them accordingly:
# mkdir /mnt/boot # mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot
genfstab will later detect mounted file systems and swap space.
Installation
Select the mirrors
Packages to be installed must be downloaded from mirror servers, which are defined in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
. On the live system, all mirrors are enabled, and sorted by their synchronization status and speed at the time the installation image was created.
The higher a mirror is placed in the list, the more priority it is given when downloading a package. You may want to edit the file accordingly, and move the geographically closest mirrors to the top of the list, although other criteria should be taken into account.
This file will later be copied to the new system by pacstrap, so it is worth getting right.
Install the base packages
Use the pacstrap script to install the base package group:
# pacstrap /mnt base
This group does not include all tools from the live installation, such as btrfs-progs or specific wireless firmware; see packages.x86_64 for comparison.
To install packages and other groups such as base-devel, append the names to pacstrap (space separated) or to individual pacman commands after the #Chroot step.
Configure the system
Fstab
Generate an fstab file (use -U
or -L
to define by UUID or labels, respectively):
# genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
Check the resulting file in /mnt/etc/fstab
afterwards, and edit it in case of errors.
Chroot
Change root into the new system:
# arch-chroot /mnt
Time zone
Set the time zone:
# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime
Run hwclock(8) to generate /etc/adjtime
:
# hwclock --systohc
This command assumes the hardware clock is set to UTC. See System time#Time standard for details.
Localization
Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
and other needed locales in /etc/locale.gen
, and generate them with:
# locale-gen
Set the LANG
variable in locale.conf(5) accordingly, for example:
/etc/locale.conf
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
If you set the keyboard layout, make the changes persistent in vconsole.conf(5):
/etc/vconsole.conf
KEYMAP=de-latin1
Network configuration
Create the hostname file:
/etc/hostname
myhostname
Add matching entries to hosts(5):
/etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost ::1 localhost 127.0.1.1 myhostname.localdomain myhostname
If the system has a permanent IP address, it should be used instead of 127.0.1.1
.
Complete the network configuration for the newly installed environment.
Initramfs
Creating a new initramfs is usually not required, because mkinitcpio was run on installation of the linux package with pacstrap.
For special configurations, modify the mkinitcpio.conf(5) file and recreate the initramfs image:
# mkinitcpio -p linux
Root password
Set the root password:
# passwd
Boot loader
See Arch boot process#Boot loader for a list of Linux-capable boot loaders.
Reboot
Exit the chroot environment by typing exit
or pressing Ctrl+D
.
Optionally manually unmount all the partitions with umount -R /mnt
: this allows noticing any "busy" partitions, and finding the cause with fuser(1).
Finally, restart the machine by typing reboot
: any partitions still mounted will be automatically unmounted by systemd. Remember to remove the installation media and then login into the new system with the root account.
Post-installation
See General recommendations for system management directions and post-installation tutorials (like setting up a graphical user interface, sound or a touchpad).
For a list of applications that may be of interest, see List of applications.