Installer notes for Arch Linux

mainly follow the official [Arch installation guide](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/installation_guide)

EFI

• Partition system has to be GPT
• Create /boot/ or /efi/ partition of a couple of hundred MB
• boot partion must be flagged esp, check with parted /dev/nvme0n1 print

create with parted

• parted /dev/sda
• mkpart boot fat32 0% 512M
• toggle 1 esp
• quit
• mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1

create EFI with fdisk

• fdisk /dev/nvme0n1
• press n for new
• select 2048 as default start sector
• set size by +512M
• now partition is created as Linux filesystem
• Change it by hitting t then number 1
• Format it FAT32 mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1

GRUB

• Install inside chroot (os-prober is to discover other OSes)

pacman -Sy grub efibootmgr os-prober

• Install to boot

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/ --bootloader-id=GRUB

• To discover Windows, mount Windows EFI partition somewhere

mount /dev/nvme0n2 /mnt/win

• Create config

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

After first reboot

Network

NetworkManager

There is probably no network after reboot, test if device is present: lspci -v | less and look for 'Ethernet', then look for 'Kernel driver in use:' in the same section.

Check if this driver is loaded dmesg | grep r8169
Should display something like:
r8169 Gigabit Ether driver 2.3LK-NAPI loaded...enp4s0: renamed from eth0

If this is ok test link with ip link show dev enp4s0:
If things look OK just missing ip address, you only need to set up a network manager This is the simplest choice, it also has dbus events for status bars to listen to. Install:

sudo pacman -S networkmanager

Start and enable:

sudo systemctl start NetworkManager
sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager

That shoud be it. Try nmcli connection show to see status

systemd-networkd

a clean and simple way if you are used to systemd already
Arch systemd-networkd wiki
create config file '/etc/systemd/network/20-wired.network'

[Match]
Name=enp4s0

[Network]
DHCP=ipv4

enable and start systemd-networkd.service
enable and start systemd-resolved.service for dns to start working

Local user / sudo

useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash myusername
passwd myusername # set password

pacman -S sudo
groupadd sudo
usermod -aG sudo myusername
nano /etc/sudoers
## Uncomment to allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo ALL=(ALL) ALL

Graphical enivoronment

Install basic Xorg first

Xorg

pacman -S xorg-server
pacman -S xorg-apps
pacman -S xorg

Arch Xorg wiki

Drivers

Search hardwarelspci | grep -e VGA -e 3D
Yields 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP106 [GeForce GTX 1060 6GB] (rev a1)
Search for drivers pacman -Ss xf86-video
Install pacman -S nvidia

Xinit

Arch initx wiki
Install pacman -S xorg-xinit
Install pacman -S xterm
Copy default config file cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc
Now test barebone X with startx
It should start a plain black and white graphical environment and 3 terminal windows

Window manager

Openbox

Now install for example openbox sudo pacman -S openbox
install screensaver sudo pacman -S xscreensaver
edit xinit config nano ~/.xinitrc

Remove the twn and xterm commands and replace with openbox and screensaver:

xscreensaver &
exec openbox-session

#twm &
#xclock -geometry 50x50-1+1 &
#xterm -geometry 80x50+494+51 &
#xterm -geometry 80x20+494-0 &
#exec xterm -geometry 80x66+0+0 -name login

Test startx again and you should get openbox, right click for the menu

Xfce

Install pacman -S xfce4
Now replace exec openbox-session with exec startxfce4 in ~/.xinitrc

Fonts

There seems to be missing default monospace fonts or something in latest arch reddit thread

pacman -S ttf-dejavu ttf-liberation ttf-droid
; optional

pacman -S ttf-ubuntu-font-family ttf-roboto noto-fonts

; emoji nerd fonts 
pacman -S ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols

Sound

Driver

Alsa
usermod -aG audio atle
pacman -S alsa-utils

Soundserver

Pulseaudio
pacman -S pulseaudio
pacman -S pavucontrol
pacman -S xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin