How to Install Arch Linux

In this Guide I will show you how to Install Arch Linux first of all you will need to go to Arch Linux Official website and download the correct .ISO image for your CPU Architecture you can download these files via HTTP in your web browser or by Torrent using a Torrent Client.

In this guide I will use the .Torrent download as I find its more stable and can download a lot fast due to independent seeders if you don’t have a Torrent client installed you may like to try Deluge a free and Open-Source Torrent Client.

Download Arch Linux from: https://www.archlinux.org/download/

After your .ISO File has finished downloading Burn it to a CD/DVD or USB Stick you can also set your .ISO up in a virtual machine if your prefer.

Boot in to the Arch Linux OS.

when your see the CLI type the following command:

root@archlinux ~ # cfdisk -l

After the prompt shows select dos from the drop down menu you will now see a table of your hard drive partitions click on New and enter a size for your partition and select “Primary” and make your partition “Bootable” when your have finished go to “wirte” to makes changes.

Below you will see another drop down of what free space is remaining click on free space and create a new partition and make it a primary partition as you did in the last section you should now have 2 partitions called /dev/sda1 & /dev/sda2.

Now with the free space remaining create a third partition but this time make it “extended” and write your new partition and go to “quit”.

Now type in your terminal

root@archlinux ~ # mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda5

This will tell the partition what partition format to use now type the following commands.

root@archlinux ~ # mkswap /dev/sda2

root@archlinux ~ # swapon /dev/sda2

Now mount sda1 using the following command.

root@archlinux ~ # mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

How you will need to make a home directory we will do this by typing.

root@archlinux ~ # mkdir /mnt/home

Now mount /dev/sda5 to your newly created directory.

root@archlinux ~ # mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/home

Now we will download packages to our new /mnt directory.

root@archlinux ~ # pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

Wait for the packages to download and type the following command in the terminal.

root@archlinux ~ # genfstab /mnt/ >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Now chroot rhw /mnt/ directory by using the following command.

root@archlinux ~ # arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

Now we will set the keyboard layout first install nano.

root@archlinux ~ # pacman -S nano

root@archlinux ~ # nano /etc/locale.gen

Locate your keyboard language and comment out # and save the locale.gen file.

Now open up locale.conf and add your desired language.

root@archlinux ~ # nano /etc/locale.conf

Add your language to the first line for example:

LANG=en_US.UTF8

and save your file.

root@archlinux ~ # ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/

Now set your systems clock.

root@archlinux ~ # hwclock --systohc --utc

Now your clock is set up you will want to make a user account and give it a password.

root@archlinux ~ # passwd After your have set your new password will add a default hostname.

root@archlinux ~ # nano /etc/hostname

and add your hostname to the first line and save the file.

Now we will add dchp.

root@archlinux ~ # systemctl enable dhcpcd

Now we will download and configure Grub.

root@archlinux ~ # pacman -S grub os-prober

Now install Grub.

root@archlinux ~ # grub-install /dev/sda

root@archlinux ~ # grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

root@archlinux ~ # umount /mnt

Now your have successfully installed your Arch Linux system in the next part I will show you how to install your Display manager and Desktop Environment.

First update your new Arch Linux Install using pacman.

root@archlinux ~ # pacman -Syu

Now install xorg and xorg server.

root@archlinux ~ # pacman -S xorg xorg-server

root@archlinux ~ # pacman -S lxdm

root@archlinux ~ # systemctl enable lxdm.service

Now install your Desktop Environment there are many great environments in this guide I will use XFCE4.

root@archlinux ~ # pacman -S xfce4

We have now come to the end of this guide I hope you enjoyed it.