These are my notes on installing Arch Linux. This is not meant to be a universal guide, but only how I like to setup Arch Linux on my workstations. Since other people might find it useful, I decided to publish it.

Here is the setup I use:

• UEFI
• systemd-boot
• LVM on LUKS, plain /boot
• NetworkManager
• Xorg
• KDE / Plasma
• SDDM

This is mostly based on the installation guide. I kept what I needed and added other parts. I made sure to put the links to all the wiki pages that I used. ( Arch Wiki)

First, download the ISO here https://www.archlinux.org/download/ and burn to a drive or insert it to your VM, and boot on it.

If using a French keyboard:

Check if system is under UEFI:

Connect to wifi if needed

Enable NTP and set timezone

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Partitioning
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EFI_system_partition

I will describe below 4 ways of using your disk:

1. Classic, unencrypted partitions
2. LVM
3. LUKS + crypttab for the swap
4. LVM on LUKS

Most people use the 4th one these days.

cfdisk is my favorite partitioning ncurses tool.

For each method, you can launch the tool with:

Replace sda with your drive. Choose GPT if asked. Create the partitions and label them. Then write and quit.

The tutorial will assume /dev/sda is your drive for the rest of the tutorial

/ partition:

/boot partition:

swap:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LVM

Create the physical volume:

Then the volume group:

Then the logical volumes:

/ partition:

/boot partition:

swap:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_entire_system#Simple_partition_layout_with_LUKS

Prepare the encrypted container:

/:

/boot:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Swap_encryption#UUID_and_LABEL

This setup will use crypttab to initalize a swap parition on /dev/sda2, encrypted with a key from /dev/urandom, upon each boot.

Thus, when the machine is shutdown, the key is lost and the content of the swap partition can't be read.

As usual, we want to use UUID since they are safer to use than their /dev mappings. Also, the partition will be wiped upon each reboot so it's very important to make sure the same partition is always used.

Since it will be wiped, we can't use a UUID or a label to identify it. Except if we create a tiny, empty file system with a label and then define an offset in crypttab.

After pacstraping the system and entering arch-root:

/etc/crypttab:

/etc/fstab:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_entire_system#LVM_on_LUKS

Create the physical volume:

Then the volume group:

Then the logical volumes:

/ partition:

/boot partition:

swap:

Install the base packages:

Generate partition table:

Enter the chroot:

Set timezone and sync clock:

See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Locale

Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 (and fr_FR.UTF-8 UTF-8 if needed) in /etc/locale.gen.

Generate locales:

Set default locale:

Set keymap to French (if needed):

Set hostname:

Set hosts file:

Set root password:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_entire_system#Configuring_mkinitcpio
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mkinitcpio

The HOOKS line might need to be updated in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf depending on the disk method you used:

• Method 1: nothing to change
• Method 2: base systemd udev autodetect modconf block sd-lvm2 filesystems keyboard fsck
• Method 3: base systemd udev autodetect keyboard sd-vconsole modconf block sd-encrypt filesystems fsck
• Method 4: base systemd udev autodetect keyboard sd-vconsole modconf block sd-encrypt sd-lvm2 filesystems fsck

Generate the ramdisks using the presets:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd-boot
• https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=230911

Since we're using /boot/, no need to use --path option.

/boot/loader/entries/arch.conf :

The options line depends on the disk method you used.

• Method 1: options root=UUID=$(blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/sda2) rw
• Method 2: options root=/dev/vg0/root rw
• Method 3: options rd.luks.name=$(blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/sda3)=cryptroot root=/dev/mapper/cryptroot rw
• Method 4: options rd.luks.name=$(blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/sda3)=cryptlvm root=/dev/vg0/root rw

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microcode

Add initrd /intel-ucode.img above initrd /initramfs-linux.img in /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf.

Check after reboot:

Use amd-ucode for an AMD CPU.

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NetworkManager

If wired with DHCP, nothing more to do.

As this point, the system should be working and usable, you can reboot. You can also stay in the chroot.

To enable sudo access, uncomment this line in /etc/sudoers:

The sudo group does not exit by default so we'll use wheel.

Add user:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KDE

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SDDM

By default, Arch uses the archlinux-simplyblack theme, which is ugly. Let's setup breeze (the original default):

If you're not using QWERTY, set the keymap for SDDM with:

Log back in.

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR_helpers
• https://github.com/Jguer/yay

yay is my current AUR helper.

As I trained in a VMware Fusion VM, here are some notes.

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VMware/Installing_Arch_as_a_guest

Install xf86-video-vmware instead of xf86-video-intel. xf86-input-vmmouse too.

To install the VMware tools:

See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/General_recommendations