Preparation and Installation of the base system

1. Connect the USB drive and boot from the Arch Linux ISO
2. Make sure the system is booted in UEFI mode. The following command should display the directory contents without error
   • ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
3. Connect to the internet (if not already). Assuming wireless:
   • iwctl
   • station <interface> scan
   • station <interface> get-networks
   • station <interface> connect <network-name>
4. Run fdisk to create Linux partitions
   • fdisk /dev/<your-disk>
   • Create an empty GPT partition table using the g command
     • # WARNING: This will erase the entire disk.

Command (m for help): g
Created a new GPT disklabel (GUID: ...)
   • Create the EFI partition (/dev/<your-disk-efi>)
     • Command (m for help): n
Partition number: <Press Enter>
First sector: <Press Enter>
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P}: +250M

Command (m for help): t
Partition type or alias (type L to list all): uefi
   • Create the Boot partition (/dev/<your-disk-boot>)
     • Command (m for help): n
Partition number: <Press Enter>
First sector: <Press Enter>
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P}: +512M

Command (m for help): t
Partition type or alias (type L to list all): linux
   • Create the LUKS partition (/dev/<your-disk-luks>)
     • Command (m for help): n
Partition number: <Press Enter>
First sector: <Press Enter>
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P}: <Press Enter>

Command (m for help): t
Partition type or alias (type L to list all): linux
   • Print the partition table using the p command and check that everything is OK
     • Command (m for help): p
   • Write changes to the disk using the w command. (Make sure you know what you’re doing before running this command)
     • Command (m for help): w
5. Format the EFI and Boot Partitions
   • mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/<your-disk-efi>
mkfs.ext4 /dev/<your-disk-boot>
6. Set up the encrypted partition. You can choose any other name instead of cryptlvm
   • cryptsetup --use-random luksFormat /dev/<your-disk-luks>
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/<your-disk-luks> cryptlvm
7. Create an LVM volume group
   • pvcreate /dev/mapper/cryptlvm
vgcreate vg0 /dev/mapper/cryptlvm
8. Create LVM partitions; We create logical volumes for swap, root (/), and home (/home). Leave 256MiB of free space in the volume group because the e2scrub command requires the LVM volume group to have at least 256MiB of unallocated space to dedicate to the snapshot.
   • lvcreate --size 4G vg0 --name swap
lvcreate -l +100%FREE vg0 --name root
lvreduce --size -256M vg0/root
9. Format logical volumes
   • mkswap /dev/vg0/swap
mkfs.ext4 /dev/vg0/root
10. Mount new filesystems
    • mount /dev/vg0/root /mnt
mount --mkdir /dev/<your-disk-efi> /mnt/efi
mount --mkdir /dev/<your-disk-boot> /mnt/boot
swapon /dev/vg0/swap
11. Install the base system. We also install some useful packages like git, vim, and sudo
    • pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware openssh git vim sudo
12. Generate /etc/fstab. This file can be used to define how disk partitions, various other block devices, or remote filesystems should be mounted into the filesystem
    • genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
13. Chroot into the new system
    • arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
14. Set TimeZone
    • ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/<Region>/<City> /etc/localtime
15. Run hwclock(8) to generate /etc/adjtime
    • hwclock --systohc
16. Set Locale
    • vim /etc/locale.gen #uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
locale-gen
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
17. Set hostname
    • echo <new-hostname> /etc/hostname
18. Create a user
    • useradd -m -G wheel --shell /bin/bash <your-username>
passwd <your-username>
visudo # ---> Uncomment "%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL"
19. Configure mkinitcpio with modules needed to create the initramfs image
    • pacman -S lvm2
vim /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
# ---> Add 'encrypt' and 'lvm2' to HOOKS before 'filesystems'
mkinitcpio -P
20. Setup GRUB
    • pacman -S grub efibootmgr
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB
      
      In /etc/default/grub edit the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX as follows. Don’t forget to replace /dev/<your-disk-luks> with the appropriate path.
      
      GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="cryptdevice=/dev/<your-disk-luks>:cryptlvm root=/dev/vg0/root"
      
      Now generate the main GRUB configuration file
      
      grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
21. Install networkmanager package and enable NetworkManager service to ensure you have Internet connectivity after rebooting
    • pacman -S networkmanager
systemctl enable NetworkManager
22. Exit new system and unmount all filesystems
    • exit
umount -R /mnt
swapoff -a
      
      Arch has been installed! Reboot
      
      reboot

Configuration of NetworkManager

1. Run nmtui from console
2. Connect to desired WiFi network, supplying passphrase

Installation of yay (AUR)

1. sudo pacman -S base-devel git --needed
2. cd ~
3. git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
4. cd yay
5. makepkg -si

Installation of Cinnamon (optional)

1. After reboot, login
2. Install Cinnamon and some basic extras
   • sudo pacman -S cinnamon nemo-fileroller xdg-user-dirs gnome-terminal gnome-system-monitor gnome-screenshot lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings lightdm-slick-greeter
3. You can either roll with the default greeter, or install slick-greeter
   • sudo vim /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
   • Look for greeter-session and change its value
     
     greeter-session=lightdm-slick-greeter
   • Save and quit vim
4. Reboot

Installation of KDE (optional)

1. Install Plasma
   • sudo pacman -S plasma-meta kde-applications-meta kde-gtk-config
2. SDDM (KDE Display manager)
   • sudo pacman -S sddm sddm-kcm
   • sudo systemctl enable sddm
3. Enable Network and Bluetooth
   • sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager
   • sudo systemctl enable bluetooth
4. Reboot

And there you have it! Arch Linux with your Desktop of choice. Enjoy!