Arch Linux

Written on 2023-09-07

Prepare

I decided I needed to use a recent version of KDE for fractional scaling, since I have a 4k monitor.

This guide follows https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/installation_guide. Refer to this document for more information.

Use Ventoy if you would like to try other distributions as well. Ventoy has to be written once to an empty usb-stick. Mount the Ventoy USB-stick. Drop the ISO image on the usb-stick.

Boot the USB. Configure time zone and keyboard.

localectl set-keymap be-latin1
timedatectl

Follow the instructions from Arch Linux to install the Linux kernel.

pacstrap linux

Mounts

To be able to specify the uuid of the root disk partition to mount, you have to use lsblk

lsblk -dno UUID /dev/nvme0n1p4

Follow Arch instructions to generate fstab.

Then enter your future installation as guest using arch-chroot.

arch-chroot /mnt

Make sure the keyboard and time zone is correct.

localectl set-keymap be-latin1

Preparing for Boot

Install refind

Then configure it using

refind-install

Later, in case there are problems, you can repeat the previous and then vim /boot/EFI/refind/refind.conf You can add the root partition UUID then to fix boot problems.

root=PARTUUID=.... # to refind entry  

Install SUDO

Add an unpriviliged user. Then you have to install sudo, since it is not default in Arch.

pacman -S sudo
visudo

Uncomment the wheel group

adduser -aG wheel wvhulle

Install desktop environment

In case, you want to go for plasma:

pacman -S sddm kde-applications plasma-desktop plasma-wayland networkmanager bluez-utils

You have to enable the network manager

systemctl enable networkmanager sddm enable bluetooth

Replace enable with start in the previous to start it immediately.

For X11 and SDDM you have to set the keymap externally with:

localectl --no-convert set-x11-keymap be

Install bluetooth management for KDE

sudo pacman -S bluez-utils

Open the configuration for bluetooth

sudo vim /etc/bluetooth/main.conf

Find the line about autoconnect, and uncomment it.

In case you have Fish installed, adjust the Fish configuration with fish_config and switch the prompt to a VCS compatible prompt.

File sharing

For file system mounts

sudo pacman -S fuse2

Node

In case you will be developing Node.JS software, you need PNPM for efficient package management.

sudo pacman -S pnpm
pnpm env use --global 19.4

This will install the version of node that is specified. No need to install Node.JS separately.

For other software, you can install yay and octopi.

sudo pacman -S yay octopi

yay -S vscodium