How to Install Arch Linux [Step by Step Guide]

Brief: This tutorial shows you how to install Arch Linux in easy to follow steps.

Arch Linux is a general-purpose rolling release Linux distribution which is very popular among the DIY enthusiasts and hardcore Linux users.

The default installation covers only a minimal base system and expects the end user to configure the system by himself/herself.

This is why installing Arch Linux is a challenge in itself but at the same time, it is a learning opportunity for intermediate Linux users.

I am going to show you how to install Arch Linux. Please follow the steps carefully and read the instructions properly.

How to install Arch Linux

The installation steps can differ at some points depending upon whether you have a UEFI or legacy BIOS system. Most new system come with UEFI these days.

I have written it here with focus on the UEFI system but I’ll also mention the steps that are different for the legacy BIOS systems.

The method discussed here wipes out existing operating system(s) from your computer and install Arch Linux on it. So if you are going to follow this tutorial, make sure that you have backed up your files or else you’ll lose all of it. You have been warned.

But before you see how to install Arch Linux from a USB, please make sure that you have the following requirements:

Requirements for installing Arch Linux:

– A x86_64 (i.e. 64 bit) compatible machine
– Minimum 512 MB of RAM (recommended 2 GB)
– At least 2 GB of free disk space (recommended 20 GB for basic usage with a desktop environment)
– An active internet connection
– A USB drive with minimum 2 GB of storage capacity
– Familiarity with Linux command line

Once you have made sure that you have all the requirements, let’s proceed to install Arch Linux.

Step 1: Download the Arch Linux ISO

You can download the ISO from the official website. Both direct download and torrent links are available.

Step 2: Create a live USB of Arch Linux

You will have to create a live USB of Arch Linux from the ISO you just downloaded.

You may use Etcher GUI tool to create the live USB. It is available for both Windows and Linux.

Alternatively, if you are on Linux, you can use the dd command to create a live USB. Replace /path/to/archlinux.iso with the path where you have downloaded the ISO file, and /dev/sdx with your USB drive in the example below. You can get your drive information using lsblk command.

Step 3: Boot from the live USB

Do note that in some cases, you may not be able to boot from live USB with secure boot enabled. If that’s the case with you, disable the secure boot first.

Once you have created a live USB for Arch Linux, shut down your PC. Plugin your USB and boot your system. While booting keep pressing F2, F10 or F12 key (depending upon your system) to go into boot settings.

In here, select to boot from USB or removable disk. Once you do that and the system boots, you should see an option like this:

Select Boot Arch Linux (x86_64). After various checks, Arch Linux will boot to login prompt with root user.

Not using US keyboard? Read this

The default keyboard layout in the live session is US. While most English language keyboards will work just fine, the same cannot be true for French, German and other keyboards.

If you face difficulty, you can list out all the supported keyboard layout:

And then change the layout to the an appropriate one using loadkeys command. For example, if you want German keyboard, this is what you’ll use:

Next steps include partitioning disk, creating the filesystem and mounting it.

Again, read all the instructions properly and follow each steps carefully. You miss one step or ignore something and you’ll have a difficult time installing Arch.

Step 4: Partition the disks

Use this command to list all the disk and partitions on your system:

Your hard disk should be labelled /dev/sda or /dev/nvme0n1. Please use the appropriate disk labeling for your system. I am using /dev/sda because that’s more common.

First, select the disk you are going to format and partition:

I suggest that you delete any existing partitions on the disk using command d. Once you have the entire disk space free, it’s time to create new partitions with command n.

Check if you have UEFI mode enabled

Some steps are different for UEFI and non-UEFI systems.You should verify if you have UEFI enabled system or not. Use this command:

If this directory exists, you have a UEFI enabled system. You should follow the steps for UEFI system. The steps that differ are clearly mentioned.

Create an ESP partition (For UEFI systems only)

If you have a UEFI system, you must create an EFI partition at the beginning of your disk. Otherwise, skip this step.

When you enter n, it will ask you to choose a disk number, enter 1. Stay with the default block size, when it asks for the partition size, enter +512M.

One important steps is to change the type of the EFI partition to EFI System (instead of Linux system).

Enter t to change type. Enter L to see all the partition types available and then enter its corresponding number to the EFI system.

Create root partition

You need to create root partition for both UEFI and legacy systems.

The common partitioning practice was/is to create root, swap and home partitions separately. You may just create a single root partition and create a swapfile and home under the root directory itself.

So, in this approach, we’ll have a single root partition, no swap, no home.

While you are in the fdisk command, press n to create a new partition. It will automatically give it partition number 2. This time keep on pressing enter to allocate entire remaining disk space to the root partition.

When you are done with the disk partitioning, enter w command to write the changes to the disk and exit out of fdisk command.

Step 4: Create filesystem

Now that you have your disk partitions ready, it’s time to create filesystem on it. Follow the steps for your system

Creating filesystem for UEFI system

So, you have two disk partitions and the first one is EFI type. Create a FAT32 file system on it using the mkfs command:

Now create an Ext4 filesystem on the root partition:

Creating filesystem for non-UEFI system

For non-UEFI system, you only have one single root partition. So just make it ext4:

Step 5: Connect to WiFi

You can connect to WiFi interactively using this helpful utility called wifi-menu. Just enter this command and follow the steps:

You should be able to see the active connections and connect to them using the password. Once you are connected, check if you could use internet by using the ping command:

If you get bytes in reply, you are connected. Use Ctrl+C to stop the ping reply.

Step 6: Select an appropriate mirror

This is a big problem with installing Arch Linux. If you just go on installing it, you might find that the downloads are way too slow. In some cases, it’s so slow that the download fails.

It’s because the mirrorlist (located in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist) has a huge number of mirrors but not in a good order. The top mirror is chosen automatically and it may not always be a good choice.

Thankfully, there is a fix for that. First sync the pacman repository so that you can download and install software:

Now, install reflector too that you can use to list the fresh and fast mirrors located in your country:

Make a backup of mirror list (just in case):

Now, get the good mirror list with reflector and save it to mirrorlist. You can change the country from US to your own country.

All good to go now.

Step 7: Install Arch Linux

Since you have all the things ready, it’s time to finally install the Arch Linux. You’ll be installing it on the root directory so mount it first.

Do you remember the name of the root partition? Use it to mount it:

With root mounted, it’s time to use the wonderful pacstrap script to install all the necessary packages:

It will take some time to download and install these packages. If the downloads get interrupted, no need to panic. You can run the above command once again and it resumed the download.

I have added Vim and Nano text editor to the list because you’ll need to edit some files post installation.

Step 8: Configure the installed Arch system

Generate a fstab file to define how disk partitions, block devices or remote file systems are mounted into the filesystem.

Now use arch-chroot and enter the mounted disk as root. Actually, now you are using the just installed Arch Linux system on the disk. You’ll have to do some configuration changes to the installed system so that you could run it properly when you boot from the disk.

Setting Timezone

To set up timezone on Linux, you can use timedatectl command. First find your time zone:

And then set it up like this (replace Europe/Paris with your desired time zone):

Setting up Locale

This is what sets the language, numbering, date and currency formats for your system.

The file /etc/locale.gen contains all the local settings and system language in a commented format.

Open the file using Vim or Nano editor and uncomment (remove the # from the start of the line) the language you prefer. I have used en_GB.UTF-8 (English with Great Britain).

Now generate the locale config in /etc directory file using the below commands one by one:

Both locale and timezone settings can be changed later on as well when you are using your Arch Linux system.

Network configuration

Create a /etc/hostname file and add the hostname entry to this file. Hostname is basically the name of your computer on the network.

In my case, I’ll set the hostname as myarch. You can choose whatever you want:

The next part is to create the hosts file:

And edit this /etc/hosts file with Vim or Nano editor to add the following lines to it (replace myarch with hostname you chose earlier):

Set up root passwd

You should also set the password for the root account using the passwd command:

Step 9: Install Grub bootloader

This is one of the crucial steps and it differs for UEFI and non-UEFI systems. Let me show it for the UEFI systems first.

Make sure that you are still using arch-chroot. Install required packages:

Create the directory where EFI partition will be mounted:

Now, mount the ESP partition you had created

Install grub like this:

Install grub on Non-UEFI systems

Install grub package first:

And then install grub like this (don’t put the disk number sda1, just the disk name sda):

Step 10: Install a desktop environment (GNOME in this case)

First step is to install X environment. Type the below command to install the Xorg as display server.

Now, you can install GNOME desktop environment on Arch Linux using:

The last step includes enabling the display manager GDM for Arch. I also suggest enabling Network Manager

Now exit from chroot using the exit command:

And then shutdown your system

Don’t forget to take out the live USB before powering on the system again. If everything goes well, you should see the Grub screen and then the GNOME login screen.

If you want KDE desktop, please follow this tutorial about installing KDE on Arch Linux.

Final Words on Arch Linux installation

A similar approach has been demonstrated in this video (watch in full screen to see the commands) by It’s FOSS reader Gonzalo Tormo:

You might have realized by now that installing Arch Linux is not as easy as installing Ubuntu. However, with a little patience, you can surely accomplish it and then tell the world that you use Arch Linux.

Arch Linux installation itself provides a great deal of learning. I recommend a few essential things to do after installing Arch Linux where you’ll find steps to install various other desktop environments and learn more about the OS. You can keep playing with it and see how powerful Arch is.

Let us know in the comments if you face any difficulty while installing Arch Linux.

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Installation guide

This document is a guide for installing Arch Linux using the live system booted from an installation medium made from an official installation image. The installation medium provides accessibility features which are described on the page Install Arch Linux with accessibility options. For alternative means of installation, see Category:Installation process.

Before installing, it would be advised to view the FAQ. For conventions used in this document, see Help:Reading. In particular, code examples may contain placeholders (formatted in italics ) that must be replaced manually.

For more detailed instructions, see the respective ArchWiki articles or the various programs’ man pages, both linked from this guide. For interactive help, the IRC channel and the forums are also available.

Arch Linux should run on any x86_64-compatible machine with a minimum of 512 MiB RAM, though more memory is needed to boot the live system for installation.[1] A basic installation should take less than 2 GiB of disk space. As the installation process needs to retrieve packages from a remote repository, this guide assumes a working internet connection is available.

Contents

Pre-installation

Acquire an installation image

Visit the Download page and, depending on how you want to boot, acquire the ISO file or a netboot image, and the respective GnuPG signature.

Verify signature

It is recommended to verify the image signature before use, especially when downloading from an HTTP mirror, where downloads are generally prone to be intercepted to serve malicious images.

On a system with GnuPG installed, do this by downloading the PGP signature (under Checksums in the Download page) to the ISO directory, and verifying it with:

Alternatively, from an existing Arch Linux installation run:

Prepare an installation medium

The installation image can be supplied to the target machine via a USB flash drive, an optical disc or a network with PXE: follow the appropriate article to prepare yourself an installation medium from the chosen image.

Boot the live environment

1. Point the current boot device to the one which has the Arch Linux installation medium. Typically it is achieved by pressing a key during the POST phase, as indicated on the splash screen. Refer to your motherboard’s manual for details.
2. When the installation medium’s boot loader menu appears, select Arch Linux install medium and press Enter to enter the installation environment.

To switch to a different console—for example, to view this guide with Lynx alongside the installation—use the Alt+arrow shortcut. To edit configuration files, mcedit(1) , nano and vim are available. See packages.x86_64 for a list of the packages included in the installation medium.

Set the keyboard layout

The default console keymap is US. Available layouts can be listed with:

To modify the layout, append a corresponding file name to loadkeys(1) , omitting path and file extension. For example, to set a German keyboard layout:

Console fonts are located in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/ and can likewise be set with setfont(8) .

Verify the boot mode

To verify the boot mode, list the efivars directory:

If the command shows the directory without error, then the system is booted in UEFI mode. If the directory does not exist, the system may be booted in BIOS (or CSM) mode. If the system did not boot in the mode you desired, refer to your motherboard’s manual.

Connect to the internet

To set up a network connection in the live environment, go through the following steps:

• Ensure your network interface is listed and enabled, for example with ip-link(8) :
• For wireless and WWAN, make sure the card is not blocked with rfkill.
• Connect to the network:
  • Ethernet—plug in the cable.
  • Wi-Fi—authenticate to the wireless network using iwctl.
  • Mobile broadband modem—connect to the mobile network with the mmcli utility.
• Configure your network connection:
  • DHCP: dynamic IP address and DNS server assignment (provided by systemd-networkd and systemd-resolved) should work out of the box for Ethernet, WLAN and WWAN network interfaces.
  • Static IP address: follow Network configuration#Static IP address.
• The connection may be verified with ping:

Update the system clock

Use timedatectl(1) to ensure the system clock is accurate:

To check the service status, use timedatectl status .

Partition the disks

When recognized by the live system, disks are assigned to a block device such as /dev/sda , /dev/nvme0n1 or /dev/mmcblk0 . To identify these devices, use lsblk or fdisk.

Results ending in rom , loop or airoot may be ignored.

The following partitions are required for a chosen device:

If you want to create any stacked block devices for LVM, system encryption or RAID, do it now.

Use fdisk or parted to modify partition tables. For example:

Example layouts

BIOS with MBR

Mount point	Partition	Partition type	Suggested size
[SWAP]	/dev/swap_partition	Linux swap	More than 512 MiB
/mnt	/dev/root_partition	Linux	Remainder of the device

UEFI with GPT

Mount point	Partition	Partition type	Suggested size
/mnt/boot or /mnt/efi	/dev/efi_system_partition	EFI system partition	At least 260 MiB
[SWAP]	/dev/swap_partition	Linux swap	More than 512 MiB
/mnt	/dev/root_partition	Linux x86-64 root (/)	Remainder of the device

Format the partitions

Once the partitions have been created, each newly created partition must be formatted with an appropriate file system. For example, to create an Ext4 file system on /dev/root_partition , run:

If you created a partition for swap, initialize it with mkswap(8) :

Mount the file systems

Mount the root volume to /mnt . For example, if the root volume is /dev/root_partition :

Create any remaining mount points (such as /mnt/efi ) using mkdir(1) and mount their corresponding volumes.

If you created a swap volume, enable it with swapon(8) :

genfstab(8) will later detect mounted file systems and swap space.

Installation

Select the mirrors

Packages to be installed must be downloaded from mirror servers, which are defined in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist . On the live system, after connecting to the internet, reflector updates the mirror list by choosing 20 most recently synchronized HTTPS mirrors and sorting them by download rate.[2]

The higher a mirror is placed in the list, the more priority it is given when downloading a package. You may want to inspect the file to see if it is satisfactory. If it is not, edit the file accordingly, and move the geographically closest mirrors to the top of the list, although other criteria should be taken into account.

This file will later be copied to the new system by pacstrap, so it is worth getting right.

Install essential packages

Use the pacstrap(8) script to install the base package, Linux kernel and firmware for common hardware:

The base package does not include all tools from the live installation, so installing other packages may be necessary for a fully functional base system. In particular, consider installing:

• userspace utilities for the management of file systems that will be used on the system,
• utilities for accessing RAID or LVM partitions,
• specific firmware for other devices not included in linux-firmware ,
• software necessary for networking,
• a text editor,
• packages for accessing documentation in man and info pages: man-db , man-pages and texinfo .

To install other packages or package groups, append the names to the pacstrap command above (space separated) or use pacman while chrooted into the new system. For comparison, packages available in the live system can be found in packages.x86_64.

Configure the system

Fstab

Generate an fstab file (use -U or -L to define by UUID or labels, respectively):

Check the resulting /mnt/etc/fstab file, and edit it in case of errors.

Chroot

Change root into the new system:

Time zone

Run hwclock(8) to generate /etc/adjtime :

This command assumes the hardware clock is set to UTC. See System time#Time standard for details.

Localization

Edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and other needed locales. Generate the locales by running:

If you set the keyboard layout, make the changes persistent in vconsole.conf(5) :

Network configuration

Add matching entries to hosts(5) :

If the system has a permanent IP address, it should be used instead of 127.0.1.1 .

Complete the network configuration for the newly installed environment, that may include installing suitable network management software.

Initramfs

Creating a new initramfs is usually not required, because mkinitcpio was run on installation of the kernel package with pacstrap.

For LVM, system encryption or RAID, modify mkinitcpio.conf(5) and recreate the initramfs image:

Root password

Boot loader

Choose and install a Linux-capable boot loader. If you have an Intel or AMD CPU, enable microcode updates in addition.

Reboot

Exit the chroot environment by typing exit or pressing Ctrl+d .

Optionally manually unmount all the partitions with umount -R /mnt : this allows noticing any «busy» partitions, and finding the cause with fuser(1) .

Finally, restart the machine by typing reboot : any partitions still mounted will be automatically unmounted by systemd. Remember to remove the installation medium and then login into the new system with the root account.

Post-installation

See General recommendations for system management directions and post-installation tutorials (like setting up a graphical user interface, sound or a touchpad).

For a list of applications that may be of interest, see List of applications.