arch-install

This is a set of scripts that I use to easily install and setup Arch. I highly recommend doing it yourself with the Arch wiki as a guide in order to learn what goes into the install process, but once you figure out how it all works, it's nice to have a script.

Usage

1. Boot an Arch install USB/CD in UEFI mode.
2. Connect to the internet. (Sometimes I have had DNS issues here. Telling systemd-resolved to use a different DNS server (e.g. resolvectl dns LINK 1.1.1.1) and then restarting it (systemctl restart systemd-resolved) usually does the trick.)
3. Install git: pacman -Sy git
4. Clone this repo: git clone https://github.com/jasonccox/arch-install.git
5. Change directory to the cloned repo: cd arch-install
6. Run the script: USAGE: ./install.sh DEVICE HOSTNAME [options]
   • DEVICE is the device to which Arch should be installed, such as /dev/sda. (Use lsblk or fdisk -l to see available disks.)
   • HOSTNAME is the hostname of the computer to which Arch is being installed
   • Options:
     • -s SIZE sets the size of the swap partition to SIZE GiB (default 8)
7. After the reboot, log in as root and run the /arch-install/first-boot.sh USER, where USER is the username of the non-root user you'd like to create.
8. Once the script is done, log out and log back in as the new user.
9. Enjoy using Arch!

Customization

You probably don't want your Arch install to look exactly like mine. The script already forces you to customize two key parts of the system: the device to which you will install Arch and the username of the non-root user to be created. However, you can customize anything else by editing the scripts. Here are some things you're likely to want to change:

• partition layout (the create partitions, format partitions, and mount partitions sections of install.sh) - I setup an EFI partition and an encrypted BTRFS partition with volumes for root, home, the package cache, snapshots, and a swapfile.
• mirror list (the mirrorlist file) - I use all the U.S. mirrors. If you're not in the U.S., you probably want to do something else. You can generate your own mirrorlist file on the Arch Linux website.
• timezone (the set timezone section of chroot.sh)
• locale (the set locale section of chroot.sh)
• keyboard layout (the save keyboard layout section of chroot.sh) - I use the Colemak layout. If you use something else, you'll want to change this or you might have a tough time typing :)
• microcode (the set up bootloader section of chroot.sh) - Change intel-ucode to amd-ucode if you have an AMD processor.
• installed software (packages.list and aur-packages.list)
• config files (the Dotfiles section of user.sh) - These are some of my personal configs, and I doubt that you want them.