Arch Linux is one of the most famous members of the Linux Distro family. The fanbase of Arch Linux did not limit to the coders and developers but also regular PC users.
Due to its user-friendly interface and a wide range of features, the operating system got quickly famous. The design interface of the Arch Linux follows the KISS principle (“keep it simple, stupid”).
Today we will discuss how to install Arch Linux into your personal computer. But before that lets us look into some of the cool features of Arch Linux.
Arch Linux:
Composed of a free and open-source platform, Arch Linux is one of the most capable members of the Linux Distro family. With this operating system, Linux has mainly focused on simplicity and ease of use.
It is open-source software that is supported on both x64 and x86 architectures. The operating system provides a command-line interface with GNU core utilities. Apart from all these, you will be happy to know that Arch Linux is that means it has no bloatware and unnecessary services.
Installation guide for Arch Linux:
Now that you have gained some prerequisite knowledge about what an Arch Linux is and how it looks like, we can now move to the installation section.
But first things first let us see the system requirements for Arch Linux.
System requirements to install Arch Linux:
- A Personal Computer with a 2GB x86 or x64 architecture.
- Minimum of 512MB of system RAM
- Active Internet Connection.
- External USB Drive of minimum 2GB capacity.
- And 1GB of system disk space.
Got that all in your computer? Now follow the steps to install Arch Linux into your PC.
Step 1: Download the Arch Linux ISO
Before installing Arch Linux into your computer you need to download the ISO file from the internet. The ISO image is available for download on the official Linux website.
On that website, you will see a list of mirrors. Choose the relevant mirror closet and download the Arch Linux ISO file.
Make sure that your downloaded ISO is not corrupted or tampered. Otherwise, you won’t be able to install Arch Linux on your system.
Step 2: Burn the Arch Linux ISO into a USB Drive or in a DVD drive.
After you are done with the downloading and installation process the next thing you need to do is to burn the downloaded ISO file into a DVD drive or USB drive.
To burn the ISO file into a drive you will be needing software to do so. There are several software tools available on the internet via which you can easily perform this task.
Some of the recommended software includes Rufus, Power ISO, Brasero and many many more.
After you are done with burning the ISO file into a USB or DVD drive you need to boot up your system while keeping the DVD or USB drive inside your system.
Once you reboot your system the boot manager will give you an options page where you can select the option to boot from that external drive.
Step 3: Configure your network connection
In order to freshly install Arch Linux in your computer system, you will need an active internet connection. That is why to get a proper and smooth installation you should check your internet connection is working.
In the command box type the command,
ping ostechnix -c 4
If you get a reply then you are just fine and good to go with your installation procedure. Now if you don’t have an enabled DHCP, then you need to manually a static IP address.
But if you are using a WiFi connection then you can use the following command to connect to your WiFi connection
wifi-menu -o wlp9s0
After you this command you need to replace your wifi card name with wlp9s0.
Step 4: Hard Drive Partition
This is one of the major steps if you are installing any kind of operating system freshly in your computer system.
In the case of Arch Linux to check the partition table open the command box and type,
fdisk -1
For partitioning purposes, you can either use “Fdisk” or “Cfdisk” utilities. In this step, I will show you how to partition your hard drive into three different sections. So let me show a bulletin procedure of how to divide your hard drive into three partitions.
- Root partition, /dev/sda1, as primary bootable size 10GB and ext4 format.
- Swap partition, /dev/sda2, as primary size 2xRAM size.
- logical partition, Home, /dev/sda5, rest of the space and ext4 formatted.
Step 5: Create a Filesystem
Now that you are done with the partition procedure, the next thing you need to do is create the filesystem.
There are several options available to create a filesystem. In this guide, I am going to use the ext4 filesystem.
Therefore to create a filesystem, use:
# mkfs.ext4/dev/sdx1
Step 6 Create Swap Space
After creating a Filesystem you need to follow this step. Swap space in Linux is the hard drive space that behaves as an extra RAM.
Therefore in order to create a swap space in the command prompt, you need to write
# mkswap /dev/sdx2
Step 7: Mount the Swap Space and Filesystem
After creating both the Swap System and Filesystem, these two need to get mounted in your system. To do that follow the below-mentioned commands to activate and mount both the Swap Space and Filesystem.
# mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt
# swapon /dev/sdx2
Step 8: Install the Base System
To download all the necessary components of Arch Linux we are going to use pacstrap utility. Now to use pacstrap run the following command
# pacstrap /mnt bae base-devel
This process might take some time, therefore you have to patient enough.
Step 9: Generate Locale File
Now we have to generate locale file and to do this uncomment “en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8” and all the other locales you wish to use in /etc/locale.gen, and then run the following command on the command prompt box.
# locale-gen
Step 10: Create Locale Configuration File
After you have successfully generated a locale file, now you need to create a locale configuration file. So follow the command to create one
# echo “LANG=en_US.UTF-8”>/etc/locale.conf
Step 11: Create a Hostname File and Enable DHCP
At this point of installation, we need to create a Hostname File and Enable DHCP. To do this run,
# echo “HOSTNAME” > /etc/hostname
Here in the above command, the hostname is the name that you are going to choose for your system host. And then enable DHCP.
Step 12: Set the root password
Setting a password for the root account is necessary. Therefore to do so use the below-mentioned command
# passwd
Step 13: Install a Boot Loader
Finally, at the end, you will have to install a Boot loader. In this guide, I am using the GRUB bootloader.
To run the GRUB bootloader here we are going to use Pacman( the package manager for Arch Linux).
In the command box type the below command as per to install the bootloader.
# pacman -S grub os-prober
Now to install GRUB in the system, type
# grub-install /dev/sdx
Then you will need to configure it by the command
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Step 14: Exit from the installer and Reboot
This is the final step of the whole installation procedure. After following all the steps we will exit the arch-chroot environment by
# exit
Then reboot the system
# reboot
Step15: Login to Arch Linux
After the system gets rebooted the GRUB will load. From there you can enter your new Arch Linux and Login to your operating system as root
So Finally…
Throughout the whole article, we have seen ech and every thorough step of how to install Arch Linux operating system into your personal system.
I hope that this blog will help those readers who are planning to switch to Arch Linux form their current operating system. Blindly follow each and every step mentioned above to get a smooth and proper installation procedure.
