Installation guide - ArchWiki

# Installation guide

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.

For more detailed instructions, see the respective ArchWiki articles (accessible from the installation environment with ELinks), or the various programs' man pages; see archlinux(7) for an overview of the configuration. For interactive help, the IRC channel and the forums are also available.

## Pre-installation

Arch Linux should run on any i686 or x86_64 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. The installation process needs to retrieve packages from a remote repository, therefore a working internet connection is required.

Download and boot the installation medium as explained in Category:Getting and installing Arch. You will be logged in as the root user and presented with a Zsh shell prompt; common commands such as systemctl(1) can be tab-completed.

To edit configuration files, nano, vi and vim are available.

### Verify the boot mode

If UEFI mode is enabled on an UEFI motherboard, Archiso will launch Arch Linux accordingly via systemd-boot. To verify this, list the efivars directory:

    # ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

If it does not exist, the system is booted in BIOS (or CSM) mode.

### Set the keyboard layout

The default console keymap is US. Available choices can be listed with `ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz`.

The layout can be changed with loadkeys(1), appending a file name (path and file extension can be omitted). For example:

    # loadkeys de-latin1

Console fonts are located in `/usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/` and can likewise be set with setfont(8).

### Connect to the Internet

Internet service via dhcpcd is enabled on boot for supported wired devices; check the connection using a tool such as ping.

If a different network configuration tool is needed, systemd-networkd and netctl are available. See systemd.network(5) and netctl.profile(5) for examples. When using either service, stop `dhcpcd@interface.service` first.

### 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

To modify and print partition tables, use:

- fdisk or parted for both MBR and GPT, or
- gdisk for GPT only.

At least one partition must be available for the `/` (root) directory. UEFI systems additionally require an EFI System Partition. Other partitions may be needed, such as a GRUB BIOS boot partition.

If wanting to create any stacked block devices for LVM, disk encryption or RAID, do it now.

### Format the partitions

File systems are created using mkfs(8), or mkswap(8) in case of the swap area. See File systems#Create a file system for details.

### Mount the file systems

mount(8) the root file system on `/mnt`, for example:

    # mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

After that, create directories for and mount any other file systems (`/mnt/boot`, `/mnt/home`, ...) and activate your swap device with swapon(8), if you want them to be detected later by genfstab.

## Installation

### Select the mirrors

Edit `/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist` and select a download mirror(s). Regional mirrors usually work best; however, other criteria may be necessary to discern, read more on Mirrors.

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

The group does not include all tools from the live installation, such as btrfs-progs or specific wireless firmware; see packages.both for comparison.

To install other packages or groups to the new system, append their names to pacstrap (space separated) or to individual pacman(8) commands after the #Chroot step.

## Configure the system

### Fstab

Generate an fstab file (use `-U` or `-L` to define by UUID or labels):

    # 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 -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/zone/subzone /etc/localtime

Run hwclock(8) to generate `/etc/adjtime`. If the hardware clock is set to UTC, other operating systems should be configured accordingly.

    # hwclock --systohc --utc

### Locale

Uncomment `en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8` and other needed localizations in `/etc/locale.gen`, and generate them with:

    # locale-gen

Set the `LANG` variable in locale.conf(5) accordingly, for example:

    # echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf

If required, set the console keymap and font in vconsole.conf(5).

### Hostname

Create an entry for the hostname in `/etc/hostname`:

    # echo myhostname > /etc/hostname

Add a matching line to `/etc/hosts`:

    127.0.1.1	myhostname.localdomain	myhostname

### Network configuration

Configure the network for the newly installed environment: see Network configuration.

For Wireless configuration, install the iw, wpa_supplicant, and dialog packages, as well as needed firmware packages.

### Initramfs

When making configuration changes to mkinitcpio.conf, create a new initial RAM disk with:

    # mkinitcpio -p linux

### Root password

Set the root password:

    # passwd

### Boot loader

See Category:Boot loaders for available choices and configurations. For example, set up the boot loader with systemd-boot if your system supports UEFI, and GRUB when not.

If you have an Intel CPU, install the intel-ucode package in addition, and enable microcode updates.

## 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.

Category:

- Getting and installing Arch