Arch Linux Installation and Configuration

Set keyboard layout

Load german keyboard layout. Use "ß" on a german keyboard to type "-"

loadkeys de-latin1

WiFi

Enter iwctl

iwctl

Check the name and adapter of your wireless devices. It might be different than wlan0.

device list

If needed power on the adapter.

adapter <adapter> set-property Powered on

Scan for available Networks. This command has no verbose output

station wlan0 scan

Show available networks

station wlan0 get-networks

Connect to network

station wlan0 connect <SSID>

SSH

Enable sshd (should be by default)

systemctl enable sshd

Set password for current user

passwd

Show device IP address

ip addr

Remotely login with this command:

ssh root@<sddr>

Partitioning

Get names of the blocks

lsblk

Enter gdisk

gdisk /dev/nvme0n1

Inside of gdisk use x for advanced options and z to to whipe the current partition table.

Enter gdisk again, and create new partitions using n command.

partition	first sector	last sector	code	use
1	default	+512M	ef00	EFI
2	default	+4G	ef02	boot
3	default	default	8309	Luks

Encryption

Load the encryption modules to be save.

modprobe dm-crypt

modprobe dm-mod

Setting up encryption on the luks lvm partition. Enter your password, and keep it save!!

cryptsetup luksFormat -v -s 512 -h sha512 /dev/nvme0n1p3

Mount the dive

cryptsetup open /dev/nvme0n1p3 luks_lvm

Volume setup

Create the volume and volume group

pvcreate /dev/mapper/luks_lvm

vgcreate arch /dev/mapper/luks_lvm

Create swap volume. Size should be RAM size + 2G

lvcreate -n swap -L 18G arch

Root volume

lvcreate -n root -L 128G arch

Remaining space for home partition

lvcreate -n home -l +100%FREE arch

Filesystems

FAT32 on EFI partition

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1

EXT4 on Boot partition

mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p2

BTRFS on root

mkfs.btrfs -L root /dev/mapper/arch-root

BTRFS on home

mkfs.btrfs -L home /dev/mapper/arch-home

Setup swap

mkswap /dev/mapper/arch-swap

Mounting

Swap

Mount swap

swapon /dev/mapper/arch-swap

swapon -a

Create subvolumes

mount /dev/mapper/arch-root /mnt

btrfs su cr /mnt/@
btrfs su cr /mnt/@tmp
btrfs su cr /mnt/@log
btrfs su cr /mnt/@pkg
btrfs su cr /mnt/@snapshots

umount /mnt

mount /dev/mapper/arch-home /mnt

btrfs su cr /mnt/@home

umount /mnt

Mount Subvolumes

Mount root partition

mount -o relatime,space_cache=v2,ssd,compress=zstd,subvol=@ /dev/mapper/arch-root /mnt

Create home and boot directory in root

mount --mkdir -o relatime,space_cache=v2,ssd,compress=zstd,subvol=@tmp /dev/mapper/arch-root /mnt/tmp
mount --mkdir -o relatime,space_cache=v2,ssd,compress=zstd,subvol=@log /dev/mapper/arch-root /mnt/var/log
mount --mkdir -o relatime,space_cache=v2,ssd,compress=zstd,subvol=@pkg /dev/mapper/arch-root /mnt/var/cache/pacman/pkg
mount --mkdir -o relatime,space_cache=v2,ssd,compress=zstd,subvol=@snapshots /dev/mapper/arch-root /mnt/.snapshots
mount --mkdir -o relatime,space_cache=v2,ssd,compress=zstd,subvol=@home /dev/mapper/arch-home /mnt/home
mount --mkdir -o relatime,space_cache=v2,ssd,compress=zstd,subvolid=5 /dev/mapper/arch-root /mnt/btrfs
mount --mkdir /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt/boot
mount --mkdir /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot/efi

Install arch

pacstrap -K /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware btrfs-progs bash-completion neovim lvm2 grub efibootmgr

Load the file table

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

chroot into installation

arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

Configuration

Decrypting volumes

Add encrypt and lvm2 HOOKS

nvim /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

HOOKS=(... block encrypt lvm2 filesystem ...)

Bootloader

Setup grub on efi partition

grub-install --efi-directory=/boot/efi

Obtain your lvm partition device UUID and copy them to your clipboard.

blkid /dev/nvme0n1p3

Add the following kernel parameters to grub.

nvim /etc/default/grub

add to variables: root=/dev/mapper/arch-root cryptdevice=UUID=<uuid>:luks_lvm 

Keyfile

mkdir /secure

Create root keyfile

dd if=/dev/random of=/secure/root_keyfile.bin bs=512 count=8

Change permissions

chmod 000 /secure/root_keyfile.bin

Also smart to change permissions on these

chmod 600 /boot/initramfs-linnux*

Add keyfile to partition

cryptsetup luksAddKey /dev/nvme0n1p3 /secure/root_keyfile.bin

Add keyfile to mkinitcpio.conf

nvim /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

FILES=(/secure/root_keyfile.bin)

reload linux

mkinitcpio -p linux

Grub

Create grub config

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

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/arch/grub.cfg

system configuration

Keyboard

Save keyboard config to file

echo "KEYMAP=de-latin1" > /etc/vconsole.conf

Time

Timezone

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin /etc/localtime

hwclock --systohc

NTP

Add NTP servers:

nvim /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf

[Time]
NTP=0.arch.pool.ntp.org 1.arch.pool.ntp.org 2.arch.pool.ntp.org 3.arch.pool.ntp.org 
FallbackNTP=0.pool.ntp.org 1.pool.ntp.org

Enable timesyncd

systemctl enable systemd-timesyncd.service

Locale

Uncomment locales

nvim /etc/locale.gen

de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

locale-gen

nvim /etc/locale.conf

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_US:en:C:de_DE:de
LC_COLLATE=C
LC_TIME=de_DE.UTF-8

Hostname

echo "name" > /etc/hostname

Enable multilib, color and parallelDownload in /etc/pacman.conf

nvim /etc/pacman.conf

Color
ParallelDownloads = 5
...
[multilib]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

$pacman -Sy

Users

Install zsh if you want your user to use it instead of Bash

pacman -S zsh

Set root password

passwd

Add new user

useradd -m -g users -G wheel,storage,power -s /bin/zsh user

Set pasword for user

passwd user

Add the wheel group to sudoers by uncommenting the line

EDITOR=nvim visudo

%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Network Connectivity

pacman -S networkmanager

systemctl enable NetworkManager.service

CPU micro-code

For intel:

pacman -S intel-ucode

For AMD:

pacman -S amd-ucode

Make grub.cfg

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

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/arch/grub.cfg

Reboot

exit

unmount -R /mnt

reboot

Past Install

Connect to WiFi

nmcli device wifi connect Zwerg password [password]

Default directorys

Create all default XDG folder

sudo pacman -S xdg-uuser-dirs

xdg-user-dirs-updpate

Create folder for self installed programs

mkdir ~/Programs

Yay

Install git to clone the repo

sudo pacman -S git

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git  ~/Programs
```sh
cd ~/Programs
```sh
makepkg -si

OpenSSH

yay -S openssh

mkdir ~/.ssh

echo "AddKeysToAgent yes" > ~/.ssh/config

systemctl --user enable --now ssh-agent.service

ssh-keygen -C "comment"

Add to .ssh/config:

Host *
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/sshHootsmanPrivat

TODO: setup ssh to remotely ssh into the system

Dotfiles

Install gnu-stow for dotfile management

sudo pacman -S stow

git clone https://github.com/budlicode/dotfiles

cd dotfiles

packages for dotfiles

yay -S --needed fzf soxide fd eza bat

stow . --dotfiles

Backups

BTRFS required Install timeshift grub-btrfs and timeshift-autosnap

yay -S timeshift grub-btrfs cronie timeshift-autosnap

Start timeshift and use the Wizzard

change snapper to timeshift-auto

sudo systemctl edit --full grub-btrfsd

ExecStart=/usr/bin/grub-btrfs --syslog --timeshift-auto

sudo systemctl enable --now grub-btrfsd

sudo nvim /etc/timeshift-autosnap.conf

Power management

yay -S tlp

sudo systemctl enable --now tlp

sudo systemctl mask --now systemd-rfkill.service

sudo systemctl mask --now systemd-rfkill.socket

Packages to install:

intel GPU

yay -S mesa lib32-mesa vulkan-intel lib32-vulkan-intel intel-gpu-tools libva-utils intel-media-driver

pipewire-audio

yay -S pipewire lib32-pipewire pipewire-docs wireplumber pwvucontrol pipewire-audio pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse pipewire-jack lib32-pipewire-jack

fonts install:

yay -S ttf-liberation ttf-ubuntu-font-family ttf-anonymous-pro ttf-dejavu ttf-bitstream-vera adobe-source-sans-pro-fonts noto-fonts noto-fonts-cjk ttf-hack-nerd

basic apps:

yay -S man-db man-pages tldr vivaldi alacritty dolphin wget zip unzip ripgrep keepassxc libreoffice-still tar tmux gparted

WM Hyprland:

yay -S  hyprland wofi dunst pipewire wireplumber xdg-desktop-portal-hyprland polkit-kde-agent qt5-wayland qt6-wayland hyprlidle hyprlock hyprpaper brightnessctl waybar

zusatz: qt4ct qt5ct qt6ct nwg-look

TODOs:

• ssh
• rate mirrors
• complete ssh-agent setup after shell
• hyprpaper (wallpaper)
• hypridle (idle manager)
• workspace manager? hyprsome
• HyprLS editor support für hyprland config
• hyprlock
• hyprcurser + einrichten
• wofi
• Clipboard manager
• screensharing? https://gist.github.com/brunoanc/2dea6ddf6974ba4e5d26c3139ffb7580
• xwaylandvideobridge
• Discord (Webcord?)
• WebApps (Teams...)
• greetd/
• terminal emulator: kitty
• shell: zsh + tmux
• cmd prompt: starship
• file explorer: thunar (später ranger?)
• dotfiles kopieren
• sound alsa pipewire
• vivaldi einrichten
• power management
• dotfiles manager suchen
• grub theme
• sddm einrichten
• theme einrichten
• waybar einrichten
• OSD
• network manager applet
• usb mounting udiskie?
• tab-replacement?
• hyprland plugins?
• firewall?
• screenshots?
• nvim zufriedenstellend einrichten/lernen
• VMsu