For a few years now I really wanted to get some time to learn/install and play around with ArchLinux. ArchLinux is very minimal, highly customizable, but powerful distribution of Linux based on one of oldest distribution Slackware and BSD like Unix.

ArchLinux is not for everybody, if you want everything out-of-box, then probably Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora or like are for you. But for me, and I have Mac, I see no difference between Ubuntu and Mac. Because for both, out-of-box you’ll get a predefined UI, apps. I’m not going into discussion that most of this can be change in Ubuntu, but how much of them really change?

ArchLinux is completely opposite, the install is not really easy (for average PC user), nor GUI like, and after install you are left with bare minimal packages needed for OS to run and configure, and without GUI too.

This installation is not for Linux n00bs, some familiarity with console and Linux commands should be expected, because some of notes are really not in depth and there are thing assumed, like basic knowledge of vim (or you can replace vim with nano).

This is all part of my learning ArchLinux, and then to dual boot it on my Mac with Mac OS X. And even though I really like Mac, I really have huge respect and likeness for Linux, and my minimalistic side was in real need of distribution like ArchLinux. Why ArchLinux?

Just look into their wiki, that much of content and expressiveness (sometimes maybe too much) it is really what it makes ArchLinux great, and second is the Arch User Repository (AUR) where you can search for packages, install and comment them (very helpful comments!).

Another strength is that ArchLinux has no release versions, it is rolling released distribution, and if you update weekly or monthly, you’ll always have latest versions of your applications and ArchLinux respectively. Another strength (that is for someone is weakness) is that mostly ArchLinux packages are latest stable releases of software, and even this can get you to dependency hell, in most cases, you’ll end up with latest software with all new features and bug fixes immediately, and not waiting for next version release of OS distribution.

Note:

I use Dvorak keyboard layout and it is throughout the installation, if you use us layout ignore all of it, but if you use some other layout e.g. hr then replace where dvorak to hr!

VirtualBox Pre-installation

• Download, install and create new VirtualBox machine, for ArchLinux x64.
• Download “dual” ISO from ArchLinux mirrors.
• Add ISO to VirtualBox and set it for CD/DVD.

Installation

Choose x86_64 version.
Change to Dvorak layout:

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loadkeys dvorak

Ping google.com to see if there is Internet connection, if not run:

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dhcpcd

Update pacman package manager repository:

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pacman -Sy

Install vim as a default editor for installation (even though you can use installed plain old vi or nano):

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pacman -S vim

See what disk structure there is:

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lsblk

For MBR installation use cfdisk:

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cfdisk /dev/sda

Create new partition with choosing [ New ] with 1024 Mb for boot directory (not necessary!).

Make it bootable by choosing [ Bootable ].

Create new partition with choosing [ New ] with rest of your disk space for root folder.

Create filesystems:

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mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

Mount partitions and create boot dir, for boot partition:

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mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

Change mirror for pacman, I use anything in Germany, and paste to top of mirrorlist:

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vim /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Install base and devel system (this can take for while, so better choose good mirror to be fast as possible!):

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pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel

Generate fstab and check it:

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genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
vim /mnt/etc/fstab

Chroot and configure system

Chroot to mnt:

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arch-chroot /mnt

Create custom Keyboard Layout in vconsole.conf, and and add keyboard map for Dvorak:

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vim /etc/vconsole.conf

 # add content to it 

"KEYMAP=dvorak"

Update with pacman and install vim (again, omit if you’re using vi or nano):

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pacman -Sy
pacman -S vim

Set up locale, for me uncomment en_US UTF-8 in locale.gen:

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vim /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen

Create locale.conf and export locale:

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echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Set Time Zone by linking to time zone info to localtime:

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 # use to see all zone infos
ls /usr/share/zoneinfo

 # use to see all zone sub infos
ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe

ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Zagreb /etc/localtime

Set Hardware Clock to UTC:

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hwclock --systohc --utc

Set Hostname:

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echo vbox-arch > /etc/hostname

Configure Network:

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systemctl enable dhcpcd.service

Root passwd and new sudo user

Set root password:

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passwd

Create new user that will be sudo:

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useradd -m -g users -G wheel,video -s /bin/bash <username>

Install sudo with pacman:

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pacman -S sudo

Uncomment wheel group from sudoers ”%wheel ALL=(ALL)”, so that user just created can be sudo:

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visudo

Set password to created user:

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passwd <username>

Bootloader

Since we use MBR not GPT lets install GRUB BIOS bootloader:

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pacman -S grub-bios

Install and configure GRUB to /dev/sda:

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grub-install --recheck /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Exit chroot, unmount mounted partitions and reboot:

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exit
umount -R /mnt/boot
umount -R /mnt
reboot

Post Install

Install Yaourt from archlinuxfr, for easier interaction/installation from AUR.
Add archlinuxfr repository to /etc/pacman.conf:

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[archlinuxfr]
SigLevel = Never
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch

Update pacman and install yaourt:

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pacman -Sy yaourt

GUI

Install X server:

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pacman -S xorg-server xorg-server-utils xorg-xinit

Install mesa for 3D support

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pacman -S mesa

VirtualBox

Install Guest additions:

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pacman -S virtualbox-guest-utils
modprobe -a vboxguest vboxsf vboxvideo

Create virtualbox.conf in /etc/modules-load.d

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vim /etc/modules-load.d/virtualbox.conf

Add modules guest and video to virtualbox.conf:

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vboxguest
vboxsf
vboxvideo

Log or su as created user. Copy .xinitrc and add following content:

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cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc
vim ~/.xinitrc

 # add this inside .xinitrc (at the top!)

/usr/bin/VBoxClient-all

Setup keyboard (non US)

We did setup for console now we need to set up for X:

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localectl set-x11-keymap dvorak

Test X

Install xterm, xclock and lwm:

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pacman -S xorg-twm xorg-xclock xterm

Start X

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startx

This is a first part of ArchLinux covering installation, configuration and testing that X or GUI is functioning properly. Next part is installing and configuring Window Manager. And since the Gnome and KDE are most popular, we will not use them at all! Intention is to use Tiled Window Manager…