Arch Linux is a general purpose GNU/Linux distribution that provides most up-to-date softwares by following the rolling-release model. Unlike fixed-point release Linux distributions, Arch Linux allows you to use updated cutting-edge softwares and packages as soon as the developers released them. Initially, It supported both 32bit and 64bit systems. But, now the Arch Linux developers have dropped 32-bit support. Starting from Arch Linux 2017.03.01 version, the computers with 64-bit processor can only support Arch Linux.

This guide provides the step by step installation guidelines to install latest Arch Linux 2017.03.01 version.

Step 1: Download latest Arch Linux version and boot your system

Download the latest version from the following location.

As of writing this tutorial, the latest version was 2017.03.01.

After downloading the ISO, make the bootable USB or DVD. To make bootable USB drive or SD cards, refer the following link.

And the, boot your system using the installation media.

You'll be greeted with the following installer screen. Choose 'Boot Arch Linux (x86_64)' option and Hit ENTER key.

Once your system is booting, you'll be automatically logged in as root user by default.

Step 2: Configure Network

You must need an working Internet connection in order to install Arch Linux. Check if your Internet connection is working:

ping ostechnix -c 4

If you get reply, you're good to go. If you don't have DHCP enabled, you need to manually configure a static IP address as shown in the below link.

If you're using Wifi, run the following command to connect with your wifi networks.

wifi-menu -o wlp9s0

Replace wlp9s0 with your wireless network card name.

Step 3: Partition Hard drive

Next, we need to partition the hard drive.

To check the partition table, run:

fdisk -l

As you see above, I have 20 GB hdd. Let us go ahead and partition the hard disk. You can either use 'Fdisk' or Cfdisk' utilities to partition the hard drive.

For the purpose of this guide, I am going to use cfdisk.

We're going to create three partitions.

Root partition, /dev/sda1 , as primary bootable with size 10 GB and ext4 formatted.

, as primary bootable with size 10 GB and ext4 formatted. Swap partition, /dev/sda2 , as primary with size 2xRAM size.

, as primary with size 2xRAM size. Logical partition, Home, /dev/sda5, rest of the space and ext4 formatted.

Type cfdisk in the command prompt. You should see the following screen.

cfdisk

Select label type as dos.

A. Create Primary partition

Select 'New'.

Enter partition size, in our case it is 10G (for 10 GB). You can specify size in MB using letter 'M'.

Then, we need to choose the type of the partition, primary, logical, swap etc. As I mentioned earlier, we make this partition as primary with bootable and ext4 formatted.

Next select 'Bootable' to make this partition as bootable partition.

Then, select 'Write' using left/right arrow button to write the partition changes.

Type 'Yes' to save the changes.

B. Create Swap partition

Select the free space using up/down arrow and select 'New'.

Enter Swap partition size, 2XRAM size. I have 1GB RAM, so I assigned 2048M as my swap partition size.

Select partition type as 'Primary'.

Select 'Write'.

Type 'Yes' to save the changes.

C. Create Logical (Extended) partition

Again, select the free space using up/down arrow key. And select 'New'.

Enter the partition size. Since It's my last partition, I want to assign the entire free space for this partition.

Hence It's my logical partition, so I chose 'Extended' option.

Then select the free space using down arrow for the Home partition and select 'New'.

Again partition size for the Home.

Finally save the partition changes by selecting the 'Write' option.

Type 'Yes' again to confirm the changes.

After creating the necessary partitions, select 'Quit' option and exit the partition manager.

You can verify the partition details using command:

fdisk -l

D. Format partitions

We have created the necessary partitions, but we didn't format them yet.

Format the primary partition using command:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

Similarly, format the logical partition using ext4 file system.

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda5

Then format and activate the Swap partition using the following commands:

mkswap /dev/sda2

swapon /dev/sda2

Step 4: Installing Arch Linux base system

We have created necessary partitions and formatted them. Now, we need to mount them in order to install Arch Linux base system.

I am going to mount Primary partition (/dev/sda1) in /mnt and Home partition in /mnt/home.

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

mkdir /mnt/home

mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/home

Now, it is time to install Arch Linux base system.

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

This will take while depending upon your Internet speed.

Congratulations! Arch Linux base installation is completed.

After base system installation, create fstab file using command:

genfstab /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Then verify the fstab entries using command:

cat /mnt/etc/fstab

Sample output:

Step 5: Arch Linux basic Configuration

Now, let us switch to the newly installed Arch Linux base system using command:

arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

The next step is to configure the system language.

To do that, edit /etc/locale.gen file:

vi /etc/locale.gen

Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8, as well as other needed localisations.

Save and close the file.

Then, generate the new locales using command:

locale-gen

Create /etc/locale.conf file,

vi /etc/locale.conf

Add the following line:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Save and close the file.

Then, we need to assign system's timezone.

List out the available timezones using command:

ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/

Since my time region is Asia/Kolkata, I ran the following command:

ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata /etc/localtime

Set the time standard to UTC using command:

hwclock --systohc --utc

Set 'root' user password with command:

passwd

Step 6: Network configuration

Edit /etc/hostname file,

vi /etc/hostname

Set your Arch linux system name:

server

Save and close the file. Then, edit /etc/hosts file and set the hostname as well. Be mindful that you need to set the same hostname in the both files.

Then make Network connections persistent using commands:

systemctl enable dhcpcd

Step 7: Grub installation

We reached the final stage. Now, we need to install the boot loader for the newly installed Arch system.

To do that, run:

pacman -S grub os-prober

grub-install /dev/sda

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Finally, exit from the chrrot, unmount the partitions and reboot your Arch Linux. Make sure you have removed the installation media too.

exit

umount /mnt

umount /mnt/home

reboot

Select Arch Linux from the boot menu.

Log in to your newly installed Arch system as root user and password that you made during installation.

Congratulations! The Arch Linux system is ready to use.

Refer our next article to know about the basics things to do after Arch Linux fresh installation.

Also, check our Arch Linux maintenance guide.

If you are a beginner, then Arch Linux installation might be bit difficult for you. No worries, there is an another distro, called Arch anywhere, that has a graphical installer script that allows the users to easily install Arch Linux with a simple menu system.

Similarly, there is yet another Arch Linux graphical installer script called "Revenge installer" that helps you to easily install Arch Linux with GUI and other useful softwares.

That's all for now. If you find this tutorial useful, please share it on your social networks and support our site.

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