This is meant to be a supplementary to the ArchLinux docs, containing some of the choices that I made during the process (and occasionally, helpful pointers).
This first part assumes that you begin on Windows and need to burn the ISO to a flash drive (as I originally did). If your circumstances are different, visit the official docs instead:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide
#Prepare_the_latest_installation_medium
First, get the "dual" ISO from the download page:
https://archlinux.org/download
Verify the signature. Burn the ISO to a flash drive using USBWriter:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/usbwriter
Then find your way into the BIOS and boot it from the disk. You are
provided a zsh shell with some basic tools. There's no Emacs so you're
going to have to use either nano or vi.
You'll need an Internet connection. If you can, prefer wired over wireless as they seem to be lot less frustrating to set up. Follow the steps in:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide
#Establish_an_internet_connection
In my situation, dhcpcd didn't work so I had to manually set my own IP
address. (And I couldn't get wireless to work at all [TODO].)
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide
#Prepare_the_storage_drive
I picked fdisk since I just wanted a single, good ol' MBR partition. The
interface of the program is pretty simple and I think the docs are pretty
self-explanatory.
Afterwards, mount the partition(s) somewhere, e.g.
mount /dev/sd((DRIVE))((PARTITION)) /mnt
where ((DRIVE)) is a letter and ((PARTITION)) is a number.
Run the pacstrap script to install the base packages:
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel
(Add -i if you want interactive confirmations.)
Be sure to check if everything is OK:
genfstab >>/mnt/etc/fstab -U -p /mnt
less /mnt/etc/fstab
You could use GRUB but here we'll use the simpler one: syslinux.
pacman -S syslinux
syslinux-install_update -i -a -m
Now edit /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg (there are TWO lines that look like this):
APPEND root=/dev/sd((DRIVE))((PARTITION)) rw
of the corresponding system partition, of course.
Now we can log into the new system:
arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
There are a couple things to set up here (check the wiki for details):
-
Assuming your
((LANG))isen_US.UTF-8... -
Uncomment
((LANG)) UTF-8in/etc/locale.gen. UseC-wto search innano. -
Then run:
locale-gen export $LANG=((LANG)) echo >/etc/locale.conf LANG=$LANG -
Set the time zone (you'll find them under
/usr/share/zoneinfo/) and hardware clock:ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/((ZONE))/((SUBZONE)) /etc/localtime hwclock --systohc --utc -
Set the hostname:
echo >/etc/hostname ((HOSTNAME)) -
Add the hostname to
/etc/hostsimmediately afterlocalhostfor the line corresponding to127.0.0.1. See this link if you're not sure what I mean:https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide#Hostname -
Set up the Internet again. See wiki.
Uncomment the line that says "%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL"
visudo
This way, anyone in the wheel group can use sudo. Now, create the
non-root user ((USER)):
USER=((USER))
useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash $USER
passwd $USER
Then you can disable root login
passwd -l root
Warning: do NOT make the root account expire via usermod -e 1 root. If
you do this then you will break some programs that require the root account
to be active, including usermod itself! If you do happen to do this, edit
/etc/shadow and remove the expiration time (if you don't have a sudoer for
this, then use chroot with a boot disk as you had done previously).
OK, so the basic system is ready, so try booting into it.
shutdown 0
Remove the flash drive and start the computer.
sudo pacman -S xf86-video-ati # for ATI video cards
First generate the key with ssh-keygen. Then go to:
https://github.com/settings/ssh
in lynx and copy the SSH public key at ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub into the textbox
(via the shortcut C-x i).