• Table of contents
• Partition Hard Drive
• Configure Base System
• Finalize The Install

I decided to finally try Arch Linux out, and found it to be fast and highly configurable. As such I will document what I did to get a Base installation for Arch. I booted Arch up from its live ISO and was dumped to a root shell.

This guide will use GRUB with a Master Boot Record; this is an older setup, but still useful.

Partition Hard Drive¶

• Use fdisk to setup the initial partition map:
  

  fdisk /dev/sda
  n
  p
  +1G
  n
  p
  [Enter]
  w
  

• Make file system and swap
  

  mkswap /dev/sda1
  mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
  

• Mount the new file system
  

  mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
  

• Bootstrap the base system installation
  

  pacstrap /mnt base base-devel openssh grub sudo
  

Configure Base System¶

• Generate A File System Configuration
  

  genfstab -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
  

• Chroot Into The Base System
  

  arch-chroot /mnt
  

• Create a static ethernet connection
  

  cp /etc/netctl/examples/ethernet-static /etc/netctl/wired
  netctl enable wired
  

  • NOTE: Edit /etc/netctl/wired to the correct network settings

• Set host name
  

  vi /etc/hostname
  

• Set the local time
  

  ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles /etc/localtime
  

• Create initial ram disk
  

  mkinitcpio -p linux
  

• Change root password
  

  passwd
  

• Create a non-privileged user
  

  useradd -m -g users -s /bin/bash bob
  

• Add non-privileged user to sudo users
  

  visudo
  

  • Then add the following
    

    bob ALL=(ALL) ALL
    

• Install grub boot files
  

  grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck --debug /dev/sda
  

• Generate grub config file
  

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

• Exit The Chroot Environment
  

  exit
  

Finalize The Install¶

At this point Arch is ready for use, however you can install packages for the new Base system before restarting the machine:

pacman -S gnome

• NOTE: Setting up Xorg or a Desktop Environment is outside the scope of this guide.

When all packages are finished installing unmount the Base system partition and reboot

umount /dev/sda1
reboot