Beginners' guide
Related articles
This document will guide you through the process of installing Arch Linux using the Arch Install Scripts. Before installing, you are advised to skim over the FAQ.
The community-maintained ArchWiki is the primary resource that should be consulted if issues arise. The IRC channel (irc://irc.freenode.net/#archlinux) and the forums are also excellent resources if an answer cannot be found elsewhere. In accordance with the Arch Way, you are encouraged to type man command
to read the man page of any command you are unfamiliar with.
Contents
- 1 System requirements
- 2 Prepare the latest installation medium
- 3 Boot the installation medium
- 4 Change the language
- 5 Establish an internet connection
- 6 Prepare the storage devices
- 7 Select a mirror
- 8 Install the base system
- 9 Generate an fstab
- 10 Chroot and configure the base system
- 11 Unmount the partitions and reboot
- 12 Post-installation
System requirements
Arch Linux should run on any i686 compatible machine with a minimum of 256 MB RAM. A basic installation with all packages from the base group should take less than 800 MB of disk space. If you are working with limited space, this can be trimmed down considerably, but you will have to know what you are doing.
Prepare the latest installation medium
The installation media can be acquired from Download page. The single ISO image supports both 32bit and 64bit. Always use the latest ISO image where possible.
USB and optical drives
See Optical disc drive#Burning (CD/DVD) or USB flash installation media (USB).
Installing over the network
See PXE.
Install from an existing Linux system
See Install from existing Linux. This is particularly useful when installing Arch remotely via VNC or SSH. See also Install from SSH.
Installing on a virtual machine
Installing on a virtual machine is a good way to become familiar with Arch Linux and its installation procedure without leaving your current operating system and repartitioning the storage drive. It will also let you keep this Beginners' Guide open in your browser throughout the installation. Some users may find it beneficial to have an independent Arch Linux system on a virtual drive, for testing purposes.
See Category:Hypervisors for examples.
The exact procedure for preparing a virtual machine depends on the software, but will generally follow these steps:
- Create the virtual disk image that will host the operating system.
- Properly configure the virtual machine parameters.
- Boot the downloaded ISO image with a virtual CD drive.
- Continue with Boot the installation medium.
The following articles may be helpful:
- VirtualBox#Installation steps for Arch Linux guests
- VirtualBox#Install a native Arch Linux system from VirtualBox
- Virtualbox#Run a native Arch Linux installation inside VirtualBox
- Arch Linux as VMware guest
- Moving an existing install into (or out of) a virtual machine
Boot the installation medium
Most modern systems allow you to select the boot device during the POST phase, usually by pressing the F12
key while the BIOS splash screen is visible. Select the device which contains the Arch ISO. Alternatively, you may need to change the boot order in your computer's BIOS.
To do this, press a key (usually Delete
, F1
, F2
, F11
, F12
or Esc
) during the POST phase. This will take you into the BIOS settings screen where you can set the order in which the system searches for devices to boot from. Set the device which contains the Arch ISO as the first device from which boot is attempted. Select "Save & Exit" (or your BIOS's equivalent) and the computer should then complete its normal boot process.
When the Arch menu appears, select "Boot Arch Linux" and press Enter
to enter the live environment where you will run the actual installation (if booting from a UEFI boot disk, the option may look more like "Arch Linux archiso x86_64 UEFI").
Testing if you are booted into UEFI mode
In case you have a UEFI motherboard and UEFI Boot mode is enabled (and is preferred over BIOS/Legacy mode), the CD/USB will automatically launch Arch Linux via Gummiboot and you will get the following menu (white letters on black background), with the first item highlighted:
Arch Linux archiso x86_64 UEFI USB UEFI Shell x86_64 v1 UEFI Shell x86_64 v2 EFI Default Loader
If you do not remember which menu you had at boot time, or if you want to make sure you booted into UEFI mode, run:
# efivar -l
If efivar lists the UEFI variables properly, then you have booted in UEFI mode. If not check whether all the requirements listed in Unified Extensible Firmware Interface are met.
Troubleshooting boot problems
- If the screen goes blank with an Intel video chipset, the problem may be due to KMS. See Intel#Blank screen during boot, when "Loading modules" and KMS#Disabling modesetting.
- If the screen does not go blank and the boot process gets stuck while trying to load the kernel, press
Tab
while hovering over the menu entry, typeacpi=off
at the end of the string and pressEnter
.
Change the language
You are now presented with a shell prompt, automatically logged in as root. Your shell is Zsh; this will provide you advanced Tab completion, and other features as part of the grml config. For editing text files, the console editor nano is suggested. If you are not familiar with it, see nano#Usage. If you have (or plan on having) a dual boot setup with Windows, see Windows and Arch Dual Boot.
By default, the keyboard layout is set to us
. If you have a non-US keyboard layout, run:
# loadkeys layout
...where layout can be fr
, uk
, dvorak
, be-latin1
, etc. See this wikipedia article for a 2-letter country code list. Use the command localectl list-keymaps
to list all available keymaps.
If some glyphs of your language's alphabet (e.g. accented and non Latin letters) show up as white squares or as other symbols, you may want to change the console font with one from /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/
. For example:
# setfont lat9w-16
You can run the showconsolefont command to display the full contents of the loaded font. Note that the font name is case-sensitive, so type it exactly as you see it. See Fonts#Console fonts for more information.
By default, the language is set to English (US). If you would like to change the language for the install process (German, in this example), remove the #
in front of the locale you want from /etc/locale.gen
, along with English (US). Please choose the UTF-8
entries:
# nano /etc/locale.gen
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8
# locale-gen # export LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
Establish an internet connection
The dhcpcd network daemon starts automatically during boot and it will attempt to start a wired connection. Try to ping a server to see if a connection was established. For example, Google's webservers:
# ping -c 3 www.google.com
PING www.l.google.com (74.125.132.105) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from wb-in-f105.1e100.net (74.125.132.105): icmp_req=1 ttl=50 time=17.0 ms 64 bytes from wb-in-f105.1e100.net (74.125.132.105): icmp_req=2 ttl=50 time=18.2 ms 64 bytes from wb-in-f105.1e100.net (74.125.132.105): icmp_req=3 ttl=50 time=16.6 ms --- www.l.google.com ping statistics --- 3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2003ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 16.660/17.320/18.254/0.678 ms
If you get a ping: unknown host
error, first check if there is an issue with your cable or wireless signal strength. If not, you will need to set up the network manually, as explained below. Once a connection is established move on to #Prepare the storage devices.
Wired
Follow this procedure if you need to set up a wired connection via a static IP address.
Identify the name of your ethernet interface:
# ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00 2: enp2s0f0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT qlen 1000 link/ether 00:11:25:31:69:20 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff 3: wlp3s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DORMANT qlen 1000 link/ether 01:02:03:04:05:06 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
In this example, the ethernet interface is enp2s0f0
. If you are unsure, your ethernet interface is likely to start with the letter "e", and unlikely to be "lo" or start with the letter "w".
See Network_configuration#Static_IP_address for required settings. Configure a static profile for dhcpcd in /etc/dhcpcd.conf
with these settings:
interface enp2s0f0 static ip_address=192.168.0.10/24 static routers=192.168.0.1 static domain_name_servers=192.168.0.1 8.8.8.8
Restart dhcpcd.service
:
# systemctl restart dhcpcd.service
You should now have a working network connection. If you do not, see Network configuration page.
Wireless
Use netctl's wifi-menu to connect to a wireless network:
# wifi-menu
This should bring you a menu of wifi networks if your computer has only one Wi-Fi device (mostly the case in laptops).
If your computer has more than one Wi-Fi device, you need to choose one and pass its interface name to wifi-menu. First, identify the name of the needed interface:
# iw dev
phy#0 Interface wlp3s0 ifindex 3 wdev 0x1 addr 00:11:22:33:44:55 type managed
This example shows wlp3s0
as the only available wireless interface, for simplicity. If you are unsure, wireless interfaces are likely to start with the letter "w", and unlikely to be "lo" or start with the letter "e".
Now try wifi-menu again by passing it the interface name:
# wifi-menu wlp3s0
See the sample configuration in WPA2 Enterprise#netctl for networks that require both a username and password.
You should now have a working wireless network connection. If you do not or even failed to identify the wireless interface, see #Without wifi-menu below or the detailed Wireless network configuration page.
Bring the interface up with:
# ip link set wlp3s0 up
To verify that the interface is up, inspect the output of the following command:
# ip link show wlp3s0
3: wlp3s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN mode DORMANT group default qlen 1000 link/ether 00:11:22:33:44:55 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
The UP
in <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP>
is what indicates the interface is up, not the later state DOWN
.
Most wireless chipsets require firmware in addition to a corresponding driver. The kernel tries to identify and load both automatically. If you get output like SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
, this means you will need to manually load the firmware. If unsure, invoke dmesg to query the kernel log for a firmware request from the wireless chipset. For example, if you have an Intel chipset which requires and has requested firmware from the kernel at boot:
# dmesg | grep firmware
firmware: requesting iwlwifi-5000-1.ucode
If there is no output, it may be concluded that the system's wireless chipset does not require firmware.
Next, scan for available networks using iw dev wlp3s0 scan | grep SSID
, then connect to a network with:
# wpa_supplicant -B -i wlp3s0 -c <(wpa_passphrase "ssid" "psk")
You need to replace ssid
with the name of your network and psk
with your wireless password, leaving the quotes around the network name and password.
Finally, you have to give your interface an IP address. This can be set manually or using dhcp:
# dhcpcd wlp3s0
If that does not work, issue the following commands:
# echo 'ctrl_interface=DIR=/run/wpa_supplicant' > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf # wpa_passphrase "ssid" "psk" >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf # ip link set interface up # wpa_supplicant -B -D nl80211,wext -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i interface # dhcpcd -A interface
Setting the interface up at step 3 may not be needed, but does no harm in any case.
Analog modem, ISDN, or PPPoE DSL
For xDSL, dial-up, and ISDN connections, see Direct Modem Connection.
Behind a proxy server
If you are behind a proxy server, you will need to export the http_proxy
and ftp_proxy
environment variables. See Proxy settings for more information.
Prepare the storage devices
In this step, the storage devices that will be used by the new system will be prepared. Read Partitioning for a more general overview.
Identify the devices
The first step is identify the devices where the new system will be installed. The following command will show all the available devices:
# lsblk
This will list all devices connected to your system along with their partition schemes, including that used to host and boot live Arch installation media (e.g. a USB drive). Not all devices listed will therefore be viable or appropriate mediums for installation. To filter out inappropriate results, the command can optionally be amended as follows:
# lsblk | grep -v "rom\|loop\|airoot"
Devices (e.g. hard disks) will be listed as sdx
, where x
is a lower-case letter starting from a
for the first device (sda
), b
for the second device (sdb
), and so on. Existing partitions on those devices will be listed as sdxY
, where Y
is a number starting from 1
for the first partition, 2
for the second, and so on. In the example below, only one device is available (sda
), and that device uses only one partition (sda1
):
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT sda 8:0 0 80G 0 disk └─sda1 8:1 0 80G 0 part
The sdxY
convention will be used in the examples provided below for partition tables, partitions, and file systems. As they are just examples, it is important to ensure that any necessary changes to device names, partition numbers, and/or partition sizes (etc.) are made. Do not just blindly copy and paste the commands.
If the existing partition scheme needs not be changed, skip to #Create filesystems, otherwise continue reading the following section.
Partition table types
If you are installing alongside an existing installation (i.e. dual-booting), a partition table will already be in use. If the devices are not partitioned, or the current partitions table or scheme needs to be changed, you will first have to determine the partition tables (one for each device) in use or to be used.
There are two types of partition table:
Any existing partition table can be identified with the following command for each device:
# parted /dev/sdx print
Partitioning tools
For each device to be partitioned, a proper tool must be chosen according to the partition table to be used. Several partitioning tools are provided by the Arch installation medium, including:
Using parted in interactive mode
All the examples provided below make use of parted, as it can be used for both BIOS/MBR and UEFI/GPT. It will be launched in interactive mode, which simplifies the partitioning process and reduces unnecessary repetition by automatically applying all partitioning commands to the specified device.
In order to start operating on a device, execute:
# parted /dev/sdx
You will notice that the command-line prompt changes from a hash (#
) to (parted)
: this also means that the new prompt is not a command to be manually entered when running the commands in the examples.
To see a list of the available commands, enter:
(parted) help
When finished, or if wishing to implement a partition table or scheme for another device, exit from parted with:
(parted) quit
After exiting, the command-line prompt will change back to #
.
Create new partition table
You need to (re)create the partition table of a device when it has never been partitioned before, or when you want to change the type of its partition table. Recreating the partition table of a device is also useful when the partition scheme needs to be restructured from scratch.
Open each device whose partition table must be (re)created with:
# parted /dev/sdx
To then create a new MBR/msdos partition table for BIOS systems, use the following command:
(parted) mklabel msdos
To create a new GPT partition table for UEFI systems instead, use:
(parted) mklabel gpt
Partition schemes
You can decide the number and size of the partitions the devices should be split into, and which directories will be used to mount the partitions in the installed system (also known as mount points). The mapping from partitions to directories is the partition scheme, which must comply with the following requirements:
- At least a partition for the
/
(root) directory must be created. - Depending on the motherboard's firmware interface, the chosen #Partition table types, and in some cases also the chosen boot loader, the following additional partitions must be created:
- BIOS/MBR: no additional partition required.
- BIOS/GPT:
- If using syslinux: no additional partition required.
- If using GRUB: one BIOS Boot Partition.
- UEFI/GPT: one EFI System Partition.
- UEFI/MBR: one EFI System Partition.
In the examples below it is assumed that a new and contiguous partitioning scheme is applied to a single device. Some optional partitions will also be created for the /boot
and /home
directories: see also Arch filesystem hierarchy for an explanation of the purpose of the various directories; if separate partitions for directories like /boot
or /home
are not created, these will simply be contained in the /
partition. Also the creation of an optional partiton for swap space will be illustrated.
If not already open in a parted interactive session, open each device to be partitioned with:
# parted /dev/sdx
The following command will be used to create partitions:
(parted) mkpart part-type fs-type start end
-
part-type
is one ofprimary
,extended
orlogical
, and is meaningful only for MBR partition tables. -
fs-type
is one of the supported file systems listed in the manual. The partition will be properly formatted in #Create filesystems. -
start
is the beginning of the partition from the start of the device. It consists of a number followed by a unit, for example1M
means start at 1MiB. -
end
is the end of the partition from the start of the device (not from thestart
value). It has the same syntax asstart
, for example100%
means end at the end of the device (use all the remaining space).
The following command will be used to flag the partition that contains the /boot
directory as bootable:
(parted) set partition boot on
-
partition
is the number of the partition to be flagged (see the output of theprint
command).
UEFI/GPT examples
In every instance, a special bootable EFI System Partition is required.
If creating a new EFI System Partition, use the following commands (the recommended size is 512MiB):
(parted) mkpart ESP fat32 1M 513M (parted) set 1 boot on
The remaining partition scheme is entirely up to you. For one other partition using 100% of remaining space:
(parted) mkpart primary ext3 513M 100%
For separate /
(20GiB) and /home
(all remaining space) partitions:
(parted) mkpart primary ext3 513M 20.5G (parted) mkpart primary ext3 20.5G 100%
And for separate /
(20GiB), swap (4Gib), and /home
(all remaining space) partitions:
(parted) mkpart primary ext3 513M 20.5G (parted) mkpart primary linux-swap 20.5G 24.5G (parted) mkpart primary ext3 24.5G 100%
BIOS/MBR examples
For a minimum single primary partition using all available disk space, the following command would be used:
(parted) mkpart primary ext3 1M 100% (parted) set 1 boot on
In the following instance, a 20Gib /
partition will be created, followed by a /home
partition using all the remaining space:
(parted) mkpart primary ext3 1M 20G (parted) set 1 boot on (parted) mkpart primary ext3 20G 100%
In the final example below, separate /boot
(100MiB), /
(20Gib), swap (4GiB), and /home
(all remaining space) partitions will be created:
(parted) mkpart primary ext3 1M 100M (parted) set 1 boot on (parted) mkpart primary ext3 100M 20G (parted) mkpart primary linux-swap 20G 24G (parted) mkpart primary ext3 24G 100%
Create filesystems
Once the partitions have been created, each must be formatted with an appropriate file system, except for swap partitions. All available partitions on the intended installation device can be listed with the following command:
# lsblk /dev/sdx
With the exceptions noted below, it is recommended to use the ext4
file system:
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdxY
Activate swap
If a swap partition has been created, it must be set up and activated with:
# mkswap /dev/sdxY # swapon /dev/sdxY
Mount the partitions
The /
(root) partition must be mounted first: this is because any directories such as /boot
or /home
that have separate partitions will have to be created in the root file system. The /mnt
directory of the live system will be used to mount the root partition, and consequently all the other partitions will stem from there. If the root partition's name is sdxR
, do:
# mount /dev/sdxR /mnt
Once the /
partition has been mounted, any remaining partitions may be mounted in any order. The general procedure is to first create the mount point, and then mount the partition to it. If using a separate /boot
partition:
# mkdir -p /mnt/boot # mount /dev/sdxB /mnt/boot
If using a separate /home
partition:
# mkdir -p /mnt/home # mount /dev/sdxH /mnt/home
Once all the remaining partitions, if any, have been mounted, the devices are ready to install Arch.
Select a mirror
You may want to edit the mirrorlist
file and place your preferred mirror first. A copy of this file will be installed on your new system by pacstrap as well, so it is worth getting it right.
# nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
## ## Arch Linux repository mirrorlist ## Sorted by mirror score from mirror status page ## Generated on YYYY-MM-DD ## Server = http://mirror.example.xyz/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch ...
If you want, you can make it the only mirror available by deleting all other lines, but it is usually a good idea to have a few more, in case the first one goes offline.
Install the base system
The base system is installed using the pacstrap script. The -i
switch can be omitted if you wish to install every package from the base group without prompting. To build packages from the AUR or with ABS, you will also need the base-devel group.
# pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel
Other packages can be installed later using pacman.
Generate an fstab
Generate an fstab file with the following command. UUIDs will be used because they have certain advantages (see fstab#Identifying filesystems). If you would prefer to use labels instead, replace the -U
option with -L
:
# genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab # nano /mnt/etc/fstab
The last field determines the order in which partitions are checked at start up: use 1
for the (non-Btrfs) root partition, which should be checked first; 2
for all other partitions you want checked at start up; and 0
means 'do not check' (see fstab#Field definitions). All Btrfs partitions should have 0
for this field. Normally, you will also want your swap partition to have 0
.
Chroot and configure the base system
Next, chroot into your newly installed system:
# arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
At this stage of the installation, you will configure the primary configuration files of your Arch Linux base system. These can either be created if they do not exist, or edited if you wish to change the defaults.
Closely following and understanding these steps is of key importance to ensure a properly configured system.
Locale
Locales define which language the system uses and other regional considerations like currency denomination, numerology and character sets. Possible values are listed in /etc/locale.gen
, the active locale is defined in locale.conf
files.
All entries in locale.gen
are commented out (or preceded by #
) by default. Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
, as well as other needed localisations. UTF-8
is highly recommended over other options.
# nano /etc/locale.gen
... #en_SG ISO-8859-1 en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 #en_US ISO-8859-1 ...
Before locales can be enabled, they must be generated:
# locale-gen
The /etc/locale.conf
file does not exist by default. Create it, where LANG
refers to the first column of an uncommented entry in /etc/locale.gen
:
# echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
Export the chosen locale:
# export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Console font and keymap
If you changed the default console keymap and font in #Change the language, you will have to edit /etc/vconsole.conf
accordingly (create it if it does not exist) to make those changes persist in the installed system, for example:
# nano /etc/vconsole.conf
KEYMAP=de-latin1 FONT=lat9w-16
Note that these settings are only valid for your virtual consoles, not in Xorg. See Fonts#Console fonts for more information.
Time zone
Available time zones and subzones can be found in the /usr/share/zoneinfo/Zone/SubZone
directories, and listed with the ls command. Create a symbolic link /etc/localtime
to your subzone file /usr/share/zoneinfo/Zone/SubZone
:
# ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Zone/SubZone /etc/localtime
Example:
# ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Minsk /etc/localtime
If you get ln: failed to create symbolic link '/etc/localtime': File exists
, check the existing file with ls -l /etc/localtime
and add the -f
option to the ln command to overwrite it.
Hardware clock
If you have multiple operating systems installed in the same machine, they will all derive the current time from the same hardware clock, which must be set to either UTC or localtime. For this reason you must make sure that all the operating systems see the hardware clock as providing time in the same chosen standard, otherwise some of them will perform the time zone adjustement for the system clock, while others will not.
In particular, it is strongly recommended to set the hardware clock to UTC, in order to avoid conflicts between the installed operating systems. For example, if the hardware clock was set to localtime, more than one operating system may adjust it after a DST change, thus resulting in an overcorrection; more problems may arise when travelling between different time zones and using one of the operating systems to reset the system/hardware clock.
To set the hardware clock to UTC in Linux, run:
# hwclock --systohc --utc
The hwclock command also generates the /etc/adjtime
file.
Kernel modules
Needed kernel modules are automatically loaded by udev, so you will rarely need to load modules manually. See Kernel modules for details.
Hostname
Set the hostname to your liking:
# echo myhostname > /etc/hostname
Add the same hostname to /etc/hosts
:
#<ip-address> <hostname.domain.org> <hostname> 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost myhostname ::1 localhost.localdomain localhost myhostname
Configure the network
You need to configure the network again, but this time for your newly installed environment. The procedure and prerequisites are very similar to the one described above, except we are going to make it persistent and automatically run at boot.
As a first step, identify the network interface name you want to configure the connection for with ip link
.
Wired
Dynamic IP
- Using dhcpcd
If you only use a single fixed wired network connection, you do not need a network management service and can simply enable the dhcpcd service for the interface:
# systemctl enable dhcpcd@interface_name.service
- Using netctl
Copy a sample profile from /etc/netctl/examples
to /etc/netctl
:
# cd /etc/netctl # cp examples/ethernet-dhcp my_network
Edit the profile as needed (update Interface
from eth0
to the interface name of the system.
# nano my_network
Enable the my_network
profile:
# netctl enable my_network
- Using netctl-ifplugd
Alternatively, you can use netctl-ifplugd
, which gracefully handles dynamic connections to new networks.
Install ifplugd, which is required for netctl-ifplugd
:
# pacman -S ifplugd
Then enable for interface that you want:
# systemctl enable netctl-ifplugd@interface.service
Static IP
- Using netctl
Copy a sample profile from /etc/netctl/examples
to /etc/netctl
:
# cd /etc/netctl # cp examples/ethernet-static my_network
Edit the profile as needed (modify Interface
, Address
, Gateway
and DNS
):
# nano my_network
For the Address
take care to include the correct netmask (the /24
in the sample profile equates to a netmask of 255.255.255.0
) or the profile will fail to start. See also CIDR notation.
Enable above created profile to start it at every boot:
# netctl enable my_network
- Using systemd-networkd
See systemd-networkd.
Wireless
Install iw and wpa_supplicant which you will need to connect to a network:
# pacman -S iw wpa_supplicant
Adding wireless networks
- Using wifi-menu
Install dialog, which is required for wifi-menu:
# pacman -S dialog
After finishing the rest of this installation and rebooting, you can connect to the network with wifi-menu interface_name
(where interface_name
is the interface of your wireless chipset).
# wifi-menu interface_name
- Using manual netctl profiles
Copy a network profile from /etc/netctl/examples
to /etc/netctl
:
# cd /etc/netctl # cp examples/wireless-wpa my-network
Edit the profile as needed (modify Interface
, ESSID
and Key
):
# nano my-network
Enable above created profile to start it at every boot:
# netctl enable my-network
Connect automatically to known networks
Install wpa_actiond, which is required for netctl-auto
:
# pacman -S wpa_actiond
Enable the netctl-auto
service, which will connect to known networks and gracefully handle roaming and disconnects:
# systemctl enable netctl-auto@interface_name.service
Analog modem, ISDN or PPPoE DSL
For xDSL, dial-up and ISDN connections, see Direct Modem Connection.
Create an initial ramdisk environment
Here you need to set the right hooks if the root is on a USB drive, if you use RAID, LVM, if using a multi-device Btrfs volumes as root, or if /usr
is on a separate partition.
Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
as needed and re-generate the initramfs image with:
# mkinitcpio -p linux
Set the root password
Set the root password with:
# passwd
Install and configure a bootloader
For BIOS motherboards
For BIOS systems, several boot loaders are available, see Boot loaders for a complete list. Choose one as per your convenience. Possible choices include:
- Syslinux#Installation is (currently) limited to loading only files from the partition where it was installed. Its configuration file is considered to be easier to understand. An example configuration can be found in Syslinux#Examples.
- GRUB is more feature-rich and supports more complex scenarios. Its configuration file(s) is more similar to 'sh' scripting language, which may be difficult for beginners to manually write. It is recommended that they automatically generate one.
Here, installation with GRUB and MBR is demonstrated. Install the grub package and then run grub-install to install the bootloader:
# pacman -S grub # grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda
Automatically generate grub.cfg
:
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
For more information on configuring and using GRUB, see GRUB.
For UEFI motherboards
For UEFI systems, several boot loaders are available, see Boot loaders for a complete list. Choose one as per your convenience. Possible choices include:
- gummiboot is a minimal UEFI Boot Manager which provides a menu for EFISTUB kernels and other UEFI applications. This is recommended for beginners, especially those wishing to dual-boot with other installed operating systems such as Windows 8.
- GRUB is a more complete bootloader, useful if you run into problems with Gummiboot.
Here, installation with gummiboot is demonstrated. First install dosfstools to manipulate the EFI System Partition post-installation, and efibootmgr to create a UEFI boot entry (used by bootmanager installation scripts):
# pacman -S dosfstools efibootmgr
Install the gummiboot package and run the automated installation script, replacing $esp
with the location of your EFI System Partiton, usually /boot
:
# pacman -S gummiboot # gummiboot --path=$esp install
Gummiboot will automatically be detected by firmware that requires that the bootable bootx64.efi
stub be placed in $esp/EFI/boot
, and will in turn automatically detect the presence of any other installed operating systems using .efi stubs. However, it will still be necessary to manually create a configuration file for Gummiboot.
First, create $esp/loader/entries/arch.conf
and add the following, replacing /dev/sdaX
with your root partition (e.g. /dev/sda1
):
# nano $esp/loader/entries/arch.conf
title Arch Linux linux /vmlinuz-linux initrd /initramfs-linux.img options root=/dev/sdaX rw
Second, create $esp/loader/loader.conf
and add the following, replacing the timeout value (in seconds) with your own choice:
# nano $esp/loader/loader.conf
default arch timeout 5
See gummiboot for more information.
Unmount the partitions and reboot
Exit from the chroot environment:
# exit
Reboot the computer:
# reboot
Remove the installation media, or you may boot back into it. You can log into your new installation as root, using the password you specified with passwd.
Post-installation
Your new Arch Linux base system is now a functional GNU/Linux environment ready to be built into whatever you wish or require for your purposes. You are now strongly advised to read the General recommendations article, especially the first two sections. Its other sections provide links to 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.