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Requirements

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Download the latest Arch Linux ISO from the official site. Create a bootable USB using one of:

• Windows: Rufus
• Any OS: Ventoy
• Linux CLI: dd

DD Command

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dd bs=4M if=path/to/arch.iso of=/dev/usb conv=fsync oflag=direct status=progress

Booting into ISO

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Network + UEFI check

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After booting the ISO, verify we have internet:

ping archlinux.org

Verify we are in UEFI mode:

efivar -l

If efivar -l outputs entries, the system is in UEFI mode.

Creating partitions

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Identify the target disk:

lsblk

You should see something like /dev/sdx or /dev/nvme1nx.

Wipe GPT:

gdisk /dev/sdx

In gdisk, type x for expert, then z to zap (delete), then y and another y to delete everything.

Then create partitions:

cgdisk /dev/sdx

Example layout for a 1TB SSD (On the first block, always keep empty and hit enter):

1024MiB  EF00  boot
16GiB    8200  swap
100GiB   8300  root
*GiB     8300  home  # rest of disk

We can now write the changes. Just write yes to confirm and then quit. Writing lsblk we can see the new drive is ready to be formatted and used.

Formatting partitions

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Use lsblk as reference for /dev/sdx or /dev/nvme1nx. Format first partition into FAT32. This will be our boot partition:

mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/sdx1

Now we are gonna create a swap partition. This will be our second partition:

mkswap /dev/sdx2

Turn on the swap:

swapon /dev/sdx2

For the third partition, which is our root, we wipe it using ext4:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdx3

Same for fourth, which is our home partition:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdx4

Run lsblk again to confirm you see 4 partitions:

Mounting filesystems

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Mount root, then create and mount boot and home. To mount root, we do the following:

mount /dev/sdx3 /mnt

Now we can create our boot folder in /mnt:

mkdir /mnt/boot

Followed by home folder in /mnt:

mkdir /mnt/home

All that is left now is to mount boot:

mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt/boot

Lastly, mount home:

mount /dev/sdx4 /mnt/home

Check with lsblk that root, boot, home and swap are correct.

Installing Arch Linux

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Updating mirror list

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Backup mirrors:

cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.backup

Refreshing mirrors (in this example for NL):

reflector --verbose -n 20 -p https --sort rate --country NL --latest 200 --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Install base system:

pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware linux-headers base-devel amd-ucode 

Generate fstab:

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

Chroot to finish the installation

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Enter the new system:

arch-chroot /mnt

Base tools

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Install common tools:

pacman -S nano bash-completion man-db tealdeer ntfs-3g networkmanager nm-connection-editor networkmanager-openvpn

Enable NetworkManager:

systemctl enable NetworkManager.service

Locale, Timezone and hostname

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Open locale.gen with nano:

nano /etc/locale.gen

In this file, look for #en_US-UTF.8 UTF-8 and uncomment it (remove the # from the start of it).

After saving the file (CTRL + S then CTRL + X), we run the following:

locale-gen

Echoing LANG to locale.conf:

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

Export LANG:

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Syslink your timezone with /etc/localtime. For me, this is Europe/Amsterdam:

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Amsterdam > /etc/localtime

Sync to hardware clock:

hwclock --systohc

Configure NTP (clock sync etc):

nano /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf

Make changes to this file like the below:

[Time]
NTP=0.arch.pool.ntp.org 1.arch.pool.ntp.org 2.arch.pool.ntp.org 3.arch.pool.ntp.org
FallbackNTP=0.pool.ntp.org 1.pool.ntp.org

Enable timesyncd:

systemctl enable systemd-timesyncd.service

Hostname (example: tomoko. Can be anything, keep it to lowercase + 1 word):

echo tomoko > /etc/hostname

Enable SSD/NVMe TRIM (for SSD/NVMe only):

systemctl enable fstrim.timer

Configure pacman

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Lets configure pacman to use 32-bit, Edit pacman.conf:

nano /etc/pacman.conf

• Optionally enable Color by uncommenting it
• Optionally add ILoveCandy under ParallelDownloads
• At the bottom, uncomment [multilib] and its Include line

Then update package database:

pacman -Sy

Create user, set passwords

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Set root (admin) password:

passwd

Create a normal user (example: pura):

useradd -m -G wheel,storage,power -s /bin/bash pura

Change password for user (in this case pura):

passwd pura

Configure sudo, giving pura admin abilities:

EDITOR=nano visudo

• Uncomment the %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL line
• Add at bottom:

Defaults rootpw

Bootloader

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Install systemd-boot:

bootctl install

Create loader entry:

nano /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf

In that file, put the following content:

title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /initramfs-linux.img

Run the following command after:

echo "options root=PARTUUID=$(blkid -s PARTUUID -o value /dev/sdx3) rw" >> /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf

Verify with:

cat /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf

Initramfs for NVIDIA (optional)

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Edit mkinitcpio.conf:

nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

Set modules to the following (has to be in that order):

MODULES=(nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm)

Update boot entry to enable modeset:

nano /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf

On this file, add the the end of rw the following:

... rw nvidia-drm.modeset=1

Create a pacman hook to rebuild initramfs on NVIDIA changes:

mkdir -p /etc/pacman.d/hooks

open nvidia.hook file:

nano /etc/pacman.d/hooks/nvidia.hook

Inside this nvidia.hook file, we write the following content:

[Trigger]
Operation=Install
Operation=Upgrade
Operation=Remove
Type=Package
Target=nvidia

[Action]
Depends=mkinitcpio
When=PostTransaction
Exec=/usr/bin/mkinitcpio -P

Lets run the following to finish up:

mkinitcpio -P

Running the above command might show errors about nvidia, you can safely ignore those, as we have not installed nvidia drivers yet. In KDE Plasma 6 section, we will install those.

Finished!

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Exit:

exit

Unmount (command is umount not unmount btw!!!):

umount -R /mnt

Reboot:

reboot

After reboot you will land in a TTY login without a GUI. This is a minimal Arch install. In the next section you can install a desktop environment (for example, KDE Plasma 6.