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Manual Arch install guide

Part I - Partitions​

A. Booting​

  1. Choose an initsystem :
    1. OpenRC --> old + lots of documentation
    2. Runit --> newer with good docs (Théo uses it)
    3. Dinit --> newer than runit, still not documented enough (I use it)
    4. S6 --> idk
  2. Download the base ISO
  3. If you use a VM, enable EFI
  4. If you have trouble booting the ISO, install Ventoy and boot in grub2 mode
  5. Start the computer
  6. Configure Artix with the correct locale/language/keyboard layout
  7. Enter the edit console
    1. Type video=1980x1080 to setup an appropriate resolution in the VM
  8. Boot into artix
    1. user artix
    2. passwd artix
    3. sudo su

B. Creating partitions​

  1. If keyboard isn't set correctly loadkeys fr
  2. Download & set the font
    1. pacman -Sy terminus-font
    2. Set big font setfont ter-128n
    3. (set less bigger font setfont ter-d24b)
  3. Setup partitions using cfdisk (gpt file system)
    1. First must be EFI of size between 100M and 512M
    2. Then root partition
    3. Then home partition (optional)
    4. Then swap partition (optional if no hibernation)
  4. See created partitions using lsblk
  5. Format the partitions (-L to set a label)
    1. EFI mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1 and fatlabel /dev/sda1 ESP
    2. Root mkfs.ext4 -L ROOT /dev/sda2
    3. Home mkfs.ext4 -L HOME /dev/sda3
    4. Swap mkswap -L SWAP /dev/sda4
  6. Mount the partitions (swap first, then root, finally boot and home)
    1. swapon /dev/disk/by-label/SWAP OR swapon /dev/sda4
    2. mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
    3. mkdir -p mnt/boot/efi (if the fs is encrypted, do not create /efi)
    4. mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi
    5. mkdir -p mnt/home
    6. mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home

[!WARNING] The order matters!!

  1. Check with lsblk
  2. Sync the system clock dinitctl start ntpd
  3. Install the system with interactive mode (-i) basestrap -i /mnt base base-devel linux-zen linux-zen-headers linux-firmware dinit btop vim neovim man-db elogind seatd seatd-dinit intel-ucode grub os-prober efibootmgr networkmanager networkmanager-dinit bash-completion fastfetch (approx 280 packages)
  4. Setup fstab fstabgen -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
  5. Check generated fstab cat /mnt/etc/fstab

Part II - chroot​

A. Various configuration​

  1. chroot inside the installed system artix-chroot /mnt
  2. Update repos with pacman -Sy
  3. Setup timezone ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime
    1. For instance, ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris /etc/localtime
  4. Setup hwclock hwclock --systohc
  5. Uncomment the locale you want to keep in nvim /etc/locale.gen (recommended US UTF-8)
  6. Generate the locale locale-gen
  7. Edit locale.conf with nvim /etc/locale.conf
    1. Enter LANG=en_US.UTF-8
  8. Network config
    1. nvim /etc/hostname and enter your host name (aka computer name)
    2. nvim /etc/hosts
      1. 127.0.0.1 localhost
      2. ::1 localhost
      3. 127.0.1.1 HOSTNAME.localdomain HOSTNAME
  9. Install terminus font (in the installed env) pacman -S terminus-font
  10. Configure console
    1. nvim /etc/vconsole.conf
    2. Enter FONT=ter-d24b
    3. Enter KEYMAP=fr
  11. Setup users and passwords
    1. Setup current session (root) password passwd
    2. Add user useradd -mG wheel user
    3. Setup user password passwd user
    4. Make user a sudoer EDITOR=nvim visudo
      1. Uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
  12. Setup autologin
    1. nvim /etc/dinit.d/tty1
    2. Add flag --autologin user before tty1 in the command= line

B. Grub​

  1. Setup the correct resolution nvim /etc/default/grub and add video="1920x1080" at the end of line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 quiet"
  2. Edit GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080 as well
  3. Uncomment GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false to detect other installed OS (for windows, see the arch wiki: grub)
  4. Mount the other OS in read-only (to detect other installed OS)
    1. mkdir -p /mnt/foo
    2. mount -o ro /dev/sda5 /mnt/foo
    3. If the other installed Linux enters rescue mode at launch, update its /etc/fstab file to remove the line of the old EFI partition UUID
  5. Install for UEFI grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB
  6. grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  7. You can add custom grub entries in /boot/grub/custom.cfg (for instance, shutdown or reboot)
  8. Reboot the system
    1. Exit chroot exit
    2. Unmount all partitions umount -R /mnt
    3. reboot

Part III - UI​

[!WARNING] Now, you may need to add sudo in front of most commands since you are no longer chroot'ed

Last details​

  1. Enable network connection
    1. dinitctl enable NetworkManager (be cautious of the uppercase letters)
  2. Enable seatd
    1. dinitctl enable seatd
    2. Add user to group seat to allow them to start processes usermod -aG seat <user>
    3. Add user to group video (and group audio) usermod -aG video <user>
  3. Enable ssh for remote control (if needed)

A. Additional Arch repos & yay​

  1. Enable Arch repos
    1. sudo pacman -Sy artix-archlinux-support
    2. sudo pacman-key --populate archlinux
    3. sudo pacman -S archlinux-mirrorlist
    4. sudo nvim /etc/pacman.conf # Arch [extra] Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch [multilib] Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch

[!NOTE] All Universe packages have been moved to Galaxy according to the Artix wiki

  1. sudo pacman -Sy
  2. Install yay
    1. Setup dependencies pacman -S --needed git base-devel
    2. Clone the git git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay-bin.git
    3. cd yay-bin
    4. Make makepkg -si
    5. (Next steps are not mandatory, works without)
    6. Scan for packages installed without yay yay -Y --gendb
    7. Check for installed package updates yay -Syu --devel
    8. Permanently check for dev updates yay -Y --devel --save
    9. Remove the unnecessary folder cd .. and rm -rf yay-bin/

B. Installing useful stuff​

[!TIP] Awesome Hyprland Awesome Wayland Awesome wlroots Hyprland Wiki - Must have

  1. Install fastfetch pacman -S fastfetch
    1. fastfetch
    2. hyfetch
  2. Install Hyprland yay -S hyprland
    1. Hyprland (dynamic tiling WM) Hyprland wiki - Master tutorial
    2. Sway (manual tiling WM)
  3. Install a file manager (GUI) pacman -S thunar
    1. Dolphin (KDE)
    2. Thunar (XFCE)
    3. Nemo (Mint)
    4. Nautilus (GNOME)
    5. PCManFM (LXDE)
      • plugins for all of them (if needed)
  4. Install a file manager (CLI, if needed) pacman -S nnn
    1. nnn
    2. Ranger
    3. vifm
  5. Install a launcher (see) pacman -S rofi-wayland
    1. Rofi-wayland
    2. Wofi
    3. Fuzzel
    4. bemenu
    5. dmenu-wl
    6. yofi
  6. Install a wallpaper yay -S hyprpaper
  7. Install a terminal emulator pacman -S kitty
    1. Kitty
    2. Alacritty
    3. Foot
  8. Install fish pacman -S fish
    1. Edit hyprland's config to launch kitty terminal emulator by default
    2. Edit kitty's config to launch on fish by default
  9. Install a clipboard manager pacman -S cliphist wl-clipboard wl-clip-persist 1.
  10. Install Flatpak for even more apps pacman -S flatpak (Proton-QT is packed inside)

[!WARNING] Flatpak requires a working xdg-portal, install xdg-desktop-portal ; xdg-desktop-portal-hyprland needs to be installed as well.

C. Configuring Hyprland​

[!WARNING] OUTDATED SECTION

  1. Create a startup script (to set up additional env variables, can be set up in /etc/environment or in your .profile or .bash_profile)
    1. nvim starthypr.sh
    2. #!/bin/sh
    3. export WLR_NO_HARDWARE_CURSORS=1
    4. export WLR_RENDERER_ALLOW_SOFTWARE=1
    5. export XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=Hyprland
    6. `export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Hyprland
    7. export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland
    8. export HYPRLAND_LOG_WLR=1
    9. export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1
    10. export LIBSEAT_BACKEND=seatd
    11. exec dbus-run-session Hyprland
    12. chmod +x starthypr.sh
  2. Configure it or download dotfiles/scripts/rices

Part IV - Tips & tricks​

  • Edit .desktop files of installed apps that doesn't start and edit Exec = dbus-run-session program instead of Exec = program (after having copied them to ~/.local/share/applications)
  • AppImage can be detected and started in rofi if you create a .desktop entry for them in ~/.local/share/applications

References​