8 min readBangkok, Thailand

Arch Linux Installation Guide

Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are reading this from. These installation instructions form the foundation of the Arch system that I use on my own machine. While it's important to always consult the official Arch wiki, my intention here is to provide a walkthrough on setting up your own system with the following stack:

resourcesSupporting links:
  • btrfs: A feature-rich, copy-on-write filesystem for Linux.
  • encryption: LUKS disk encryption based on the dm-crypt kernel module.
  • zram-generator: RAM compression for memory savings.
  • timeshift: A system restore tool for Linux.
  • COSMIC Alpha: A new desktop environment by System76.

My intention is to keep this guide up-to-date, and any feedback is more than welcome.

Let's get started!

Step 1: Creating a Bootable Arch Media Device

Here we will follow the Arch wiki:

i. Acquire an installation image here.

ii. Verify the signature on the downloaded ISO image (section 1.2 of the installation guide).

iii. Write your ISO to a USB (check out this guide).

iv. Insert the USB into your target device and boot into it.

Step 2: Setting Up Our System with the Arch ISO

tipOPTIONAL: SSH into your target machine
  • Create a password for the ISO root user with passwd; and,
  • Ensure sshd is running: systemctl status sshd (start with systemctl start sshd if not).

i. Set the console keyboard layout (US by default):

  • list available keymaps with localectl list-keymaps; and,
  • load your keymap with loadkeys <your-keymap>.
tipOPTIONAL: Set the console font size
bash
setfont ter-132b

ii. Verify the UEFI boot mode:

bash
cat /sys/firmware/efi/fw_platform_size
noteThis installation is written for a 64-bit x64 UEFI system. If you are on a different boot mode, consult section 1.6 of the official guide.

iii. Connect to the internet:

  • use iwctl for WiFi; and,
  • confirm your connection with ping -c 2 archlinux.org.

iv. Set the timezone:

bash
timedatectl list-timezones
timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Bangkok   # replace with your timezone
timedatectl set-ntp true

v. Partition your disk:

  • list partitions with lsblk; and,
  • open your target disk with gdisk or fdisk to delete existing partitions and create two new ones.
warningThe following step will delete all data on the target disk. Ensure you have selected the correct disk before proceeding.
notezram vs swap partition

The official Arch guide suggests a swap partition. This guide uses zram instead, which compresses data in RAM and avoids SSD wear. zram is only active when RAM is at or near capacity.

PartitionSizeType
/dev/nvme0n1p11GBEFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2Remaining spaceLinux filesystem

vi. Format your main partition:

bash
# set up LUKS encryption
cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/nvme0n1p2
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/nvme0n1p2 main

# format as btrfs
mkfs.btrfs /dev/mapper/main

vii. Create btrfs subvolumes:

noteTimeshift requires @ and @home as subvolume names. Do not rename them.
bash
mount /dev/mapper/main /mnt
cd /mnt

btrfs subvolume create @
btrfs subvolume create @home

cd -
umount /mnt

viii. Mount subvolumes:

bash
mkdir /mnt/home

mount -o noatime,ssd,compress=zstd,discard=async,subvol=@ /dev/mapper/main /mnt
mount -o noatime,ssd,compress=zstd,discard=async,subvol=@home /dev/mapper/main /mnt/home

ix. Format and mount the EFI partition:

bash
mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot

x. Install base packages:

bash
pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware

xi. Generate the filesystem table:

bash
genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
  • Verify with cat /mnt/etc/fstab that all subvolumes and boot entries are present and correct before continuing.

xii. Change root into the new system:

bash
arch-chroot /mnt

You are now working within your new Arch system (i.e. not from the ISO) and you will now see that your prompt starts with #. Great work so far!

Step 3: Working Within Our New System

We are now working within our Arch system, chrooted in from the ISO. Let's continue with a few steps that we need to repeat (such as setting our root password, timezone, keymaps and language).

warningDo not reboot yet. Complete all steps in this section before rebooting.
noteYou are now running as root inside the chroot (i.e. no sudo).

i. Configure the timezone and hardware clock:

bash
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Bangkok /etc/localtime   # replace with your timezone
hwclock --systohc

In nvim /etc/locale.gen, uncomment your locale (e.g. en_US.UTF-8), write and exit, then run:

bash
locale-gen
echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" >> /etc/locale.conf
echo "KEYMAP=us" >> /etc/vconsole.conf

ii. Configure the hostname:

bash
echo "t480" > /etc/hostname   # replace with your hostname

iii. Set the root password:

bash
passwd

iv. Create a user (replace rad with your preferred username):

bash
useradd -m -g users -G wheel rad
passwd rad
mkdir /etc/sudoers.d
chmod 755 /etc/sudoers.d    # readable, executable by all; writable by root only
echo "rad ALL=(ALL) ALL" >> /etc/sudoers.d/rad
chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/rad    # read-only for root and group; visudo will refuse otherwise

v. Set the mirrorlist:

bash
pacman -S reflector
reflector -c Thailand -a 12 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
noteYou could install all of the following packages together, but they are grouped below to make them easier to reason about.

vi. Install core packages:

bash
pacman -Syu \
  base-devel \
  linux-headers \
  btrfs-progs \
  grub \
  efibootmgr \
  mtools \
  networkmanager \
  network-manager-applet \
  openssh \
  sudo \
  neovim \
  git \
  iptables-nft \
  ipset \
  firewalld \
  reflector \
  acpid \
  grub-btrfs

vii. Install CPU microcode:

  • Intel: pacman -S intel-ucode
  • AMD: pacman -S amd-ucode

viii. Install a desktop environment and display manager:

bash
pacman -S cosmic ly
noteThis guide uses COSMIC by System76. You can substitute gnome, kde, or any tiling window manager you prefer.

ix. Install other useful packages:

bash
pacman -S \
  man-db \
  man-pages \
  texinfo \
  bluez \
  bluez-utils \
  alsa-utils \
  pipewire \
  pipewire-pulse \
  pipewire-jack \
  sof-firmware \
  ttf-firacode-nerd \
  alacritty \
  firefox

x. Configure mkinitcpio for LUKS + btrfs:

In nvim /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, update MODULES and HOOKS:

bash
MODULES=(btrfs)
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf kms keyboard keymap block encrypt filesystems)
noteThis guide is udev-based — for a systemd-based initramfs replace encrypt with sd-encrypt. fsck is removed as btrfs uses btrfsck externally. Add usbhid and atkbd to MODULES if you need an external keyboard available at the LUKS prompt.

Regenerate the initramfs:

bash
mkinitcpio -P

xi. Configure GRUB:

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

Get the UUID of your LUKS partition and append it to the grub defaults file for reference:

bash
blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/nvme0n1p2 >> /etc/default/grub

Edit /etc/default/grub and set the following - replacing <uuid> with the value appended at the bottom of the file, then delete that line:

bash
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 quiet zswap.enabled=0 cryptdevice=UUID=<uuid>:main root=/dev/mapper/main"

Generate the GRUB config:

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

xii. Enable services:

bash
systemctl enable NetworkManager    # network management
systemctl enable bluetooth         # Bluetooth
systemctl enable sshd              # SSH server
systemctl enable ly.service        # display manager
systemctl enable firewalld         # firewall
systemctl enable reflector.timer   # mirror ranking
systemctl enable fstrim.timer      # weekly SSD trim
systemctl enable acpid             # ACPI events

xiii. Reboot:

bash
reboot

Step 4: Tweaking Our New Arch System

When you boot up you will be presented with the GRUB bootloader menu. Once you have selected Arch Linux and entered your encryption password, ly will greet you. Log in with the user you created earlier.

i. Install paru:

bash
sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/paru.git
cd paru
makepkg -si

ii. Install zram-generator:

notezram vs zswap

zram compresses data and stores it in RAM, resulting in less SSD wear. zswap uses a compressed in-RAM cache in front of a disk-based swap partition. This guide uses zram. If you regularly exceed your RAM ceiling, zswap is preferable.

bash
sudo pacman -Syu zram-generator

Create /etc/systemd/zram-generator.conf:

ini
[zram0]
zram-size = ram / 2
compression-algorithm = zstd
swap-priority = 100
fs-type = swap

Then reboot.

iii. Install timeshift:

bash
paru -S timeshift timeshift-autosnap
sudo timeshift --list-devices
sudo timeshift --create --comments "initial snapshot" --tags D
sudo systemctl edit --full grub-btrfsd
noteIn the editor, replace:

ExecStart=/usr/bin/grub-btrfsd --syslog /.snapshots with: ExecStart=/usr/bin/grub-btrfsd --syslog -t

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

Optional Further Steps

i. Install power-profiles-daemon:

noteYou may also like tlp, although for my use case tlp does not work with COSMIC's power applet.
bash
sudo pacman -Syu power-profiles-daemon
sudo systemctl enable --now power-profiles-daemon.service

ii. Install auto-cpufreq:

bash
paru -S auto-cpufreq
sudo systemctl enable --now auto-cpufreq.service

iii. Install brave-browser:

bash
paru -S brave-browser

That's all folks!