Arch Linux is a bare-bones distro full of customizations. Install Arch for your head-less server, gaming machine or anything else you want. The installation process is not meant to be a quick setup with all the standard graphical aspects of an operating system. If you want to know what runs behind-the-scenes Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora and many other distros, Archi is the customization heaven you are looking for.
The end product is the functionality you want for your needs. Troubleshooting issues is fairly easier as you know what you installed and configured.
Last weekend Daerandin walked me through step-by-step installing Arch Linux on a spare computer. We spent about 3 hours attending each steps for preparing the drive, installing and booting Arch to Cinnamon Desktop environment.
The installation and setup steps are not simple by any means, but there is a step-by-step guide on the ArchLinux.org website: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide
I began by downloading the 64-bit ISO and loading it up on my USB flash drive.
ISO: archlinux-2021.06.01-x86_64.iso
https://archlinux.org/download/
One problem I had was my PC motherboard is a bit old and only supported BIOS mode, not UEFI.
So when I booted I had to hit F12 on my keyboard, select the flash drive and boot to Arch Linux BIOS
That was fairly simple and we were able to boot to a command prompt to begin.
Note: There is a Boot to Live environment available on the ISO, but I was wanting to learn the hard-core way using commands.
When we tested our internet connection we were pinging google.com and getting the output: Destination Not Found
Turns out the network was defaulting to IPV6 instead of IPV4
So we were able to ping with this command which forces IPV4:
ping -4 google.com
Then we had to update the system clock and start partitioning the drive.
For partitioning we were able to use: cdisk
Which had a GUI-ish interface showing us the drives and options for partitioning them.
We partitioned my 500GB hard drive:
We chose to use BTRFS file system for our Arch installation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs
We had to mount subvolumes next. I wasn't exactly sure why, but Daerandin showed me that we can use them later as system root and home volumes. Probably because of the way BTRFS works as it doesn't actually use separate partitions.
Next we began the Arch installation. This required finding a mirror server near you and adding it to the /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
I made the mistake of not adding the $repo/os/$arch at the end of the mirror I added. Which resulted in errors.
We installed the Linux kernel package and firmware
FSTAB needed to be generated and each one of my partitions showed up perfectly with their path and UUID
This isn't extremely important at this point, but I like how it was auto-generated. I've used those UUID's when adding a 2nd drive to my system, or migrating a home partition.
Next was changing to root with CHROOT
Then adding your time zone, localization, language and creating a hostname.
Hostname is the computer name you can use to connect to the system over the network. You can name it whatever you want.
After that we set a root password and create a non-admin user account.
Now you can reboot and login
Arch Linux is officially installed, but if you are like me, this isn't enough.
I want a graphical user interface:
Here is a list of general recommendations: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/General_recommendations
Daerandin helped me install Cinnamon Desktop environment which comes with Nemo windows manager. Then we install the Nvidia drivers along with 32-bit libraries.
We even had to install a login application: LightDM
After that we were able to boot and login to a graphical login screen and see a generic Cinnamon desktop.
Not much going on but it was a usable graphical Linux operating system.
I would still have to install Pulseaudio, Steam, PlayOnLinux, Wine-Stable, VLC and anything else I wanted to use.
One thing about packages in Arch...
When you install an application you will probably automatically download the newest version available. For example, the Nvidia driver available was 465 but my Mint computer only had 460. This could be an issue with some drivers, packages and dependencies. It is always good to research before installing them.
Specially when you are updating the system.
That's it, the power is in your hands to make it your own unique system!
This review was only informational and does not include every steps of the installation process.
The end product is the functionality you want for your needs. Troubleshooting issues is fairly easier as you know what you installed and configured.
Last weekend Daerandin walked me through step-by-step installing Arch Linux on a spare computer. We spent about 3 hours attending each steps for preparing the drive, installing and booting Arch to Cinnamon Desktop environment.
The installation and setup steps are not simple by any means, but there is a step-by-step guide on the ArchLinux.org website: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide
I began by downloading the 64-bit ISO and loading it up on my USB flash drive.
ISO: archlinux-2021.06.01-x86_64.iso
https://archlinux.org/download/
One problem I had was my PC motherboard is a bit old and only supported BIOS mode, not UEFI.
So when I booted I had to hit F12 on my keyboard, select the flash drive and boot to Arch Linux BIOS
That was fairly simple and we were able to boot to a command prompt to begin.
Note: There is a Boot to Live environment available on the ISO, but I was wanting to learn the hard-core way using commands.
When we tested our internet connection we were pinging google.com and getting the output: Destination Not Found
Turns out the network was defaulting to IPV6 instead of IPV4
So we were able to ping with this command which forces IPV4:
ping -4 google.com
Then we had to update the system clock and start partitioning the drive.
For partitioning we were able to use: cdisk
Which had a GUI-ish interface showing us the drives and options for partitioning them.
We partitioned my 500GB hard drive:
- 3GB SWAP
- 1MB BIOS boot
- 495 /
We chose to use BTRFS file system for our Arch installation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs
We had to mount subvolumes next. I wasn't exactly sure why, but Daerandin showed me that we can use them later as system root and home volumes. Probably because of the way BTRFS works as it doesn't actually use separate partitions.
Next we began the Arch installation. This required finding a mirror server near you and adding it to the /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
I made the mistake of not adding the $repo/os/$arch at the end of the mirror I added. Which resulted in errors.
We installed the Linux kernel package and firmware
FSTAB needed to be generated and each one of my partitions showed up perfectly with their path and UUID
This isn't extremely important at this point, but I like how it was auto-generated. I've used those UUID's when adding a 2nd drive to my system, or migrating a home partition.
Next was changing to root with CHROOT
Then adding your time zone, localization, language and creating a hostname.
Hostname is the computer name you can use to connect to the system over the network. You can name it whatever you want.
After that we set a root password and create a non-admin user account.
Now you can reboot and login
Arch Linux is officially installed, but if you are like me, this isn't enough.
I want a graphical user interface:
- Login screen
- Desktop environment
- Windows manager
- Systems Tray
- Menu
- System Settings
- Nvidia Drivers
- Steam
Here is a list of general recommendations: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/General_recommendations
Daerandin helped me install Cinnamon Desktop environment which comes with Nemo windows manager. Then we install the Nvidia drivers along with 32-bit libraries.
We even had to install a login application: LightDM
After that we were able to boot and login to a graphical login screen and see a generic Cinnamon desktop.
Not much going on but it was a usable graphical Linux operating system.
I would still have to install Pulseaudio, Steam, PlayOnLinux, Wine-Stable, VLC and anything else I wanted to use.
One thing about packages in Arch...
When you install an application you will probably automatically download the newest version available. For example, the Nvidia driver available was 465 but my Mint computer only had 460. This could be an issue with some drivers, packages and dependencies. It is always good to research before installing them.
Specially when you are updating the system.
That's it, the power is in your hands to make it your own unique system!
This review was only informational and does not include every steps of the installation process.