How to Install Arch Linux
Arch Linux, as the name implies, is a Linux distribution. Most of the more popular Linux distributions offer some sort of installer, graphical or CLI. Arch does not, what you do get are a set of scripts. The installation ISO contains a very basic system with the basic tools required to install a new system.
Below I will try and show you how to install Arch on your system. This is a minimal UEFI base system installation. You will have to configure the rest of your system yourself. This will get you up and running.
Step 1: Download Arch Linux
You can download the iso here.
Step 2: Create a live USB
Use Etcher to create the live USB.
Step 3: Boot from the live USB
You might have to disable secure boot on your system's bios to boot from USB. Once your system boots, select the Boot Arch Linux option from the menu.
Step 4: Disk Partition
Use fdisk to partition your disk(s).
To list the partitions use the command:
fdisk -lThe hard disk should be labelled /dev/sda or /dev/nvme0n1. Please use the appropriate disk labelling for your system. I'll be displaying all commands with /dev/sda.
Select the disk to format and partition.
fdisk /dev/sdaDelete any existing partitions with the command d. Now, let's create new partitions.
On UEFI systems, you must create an EFI partition at the beginning of your disk. Create an ESP partition by entering the command n. It will ask you to choose a disk number, enter 1. When it asks for First Sector press enter. For last sector (partition size), enter +512M.
Change the type of the EFI partition to EFI System (instead of Linux system) by using the command t. Partition type = 1.
Create the root partition. Usually most people create separate root, swap and home partitions. To keep it simple we will be creating a single root partition and put the home directory under the root directory. We will not be creating a swap partition. You could use a swapfile if you need to use swap.
Create the root partition with command n. Select p for primary partition. Select 2 for partition number. Press enter for first sector and press enter for last sector, this will use up all remaining space. When you are done with partitioning, enter command w, to write the changes to disk and exit out of fdisk.
Step 5: Create the filesystem
You should now have 2 partitions, EFI and root. Create a FAT32 file system on the first one (EFI). (Remember to replace /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 with your own system's partition labels.)
mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1Create an EXT4 file system for the root partition.
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2Step 6: Connect to the Internet
If you are installing on a laptop or you don't have a wired connection, you can connect to WiFi using wifi-menu.
wifi-menuTest your internet connection with:
ping