ARCH-INSTALL

Download Arch on a UEFI machine with encryption while dual booting using this guide.

This is a manual configuration guide as the arch installation should be personal to you.

Note: If you're already familiar with the process of installing Arch Linux, feel free to open the SIMPLE-INSTALL file. It focuses on providing a more concise version of the instructions, with fewer details, as suggested by the name.

Excellent sources:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_entire_system
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxqU1G8hKWk
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXqk91R4RwU
• https://comfy.guide/client/luks/

If you are going to use the sources listed instead of this tutorial, I encourage you to start with the arch wiki page. But if it is to much for you, then just refer to the two youtube videos. (yes both of them, as one is only for dual boothing without encryption, and the other video is without dual booting but with encryption).

Intro

Firstly, set your keylayout. If you have a us keylayout, just copy the following command

(for more info https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Linux_console/Keyboard_configuration)

loadkeys us

Next start to connect to wifi with the following command

(for more info: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Iwd)

iwctl

Confirm the connection by pinging any website, for ex:

ping google.com

Create partitions

Firstly, check all the disks on your pc/laptop, and choose the disk that you want to partition.

lsblk

Then run the cfdisk command and the disk you will be partitioning.

(make sure you put the /dev/ and then the disk)

cfdisk /dev/sdb

I will be partitioning "sdb" but for you it might be "mmcblk0", "sdX" or "nvme0n1"

The Three partitions

• EFI ----- Size: 1G, Type: EFISystem, This is the bootloader partition
• ROOT - Size: 30G+, Type: Linux filesystem, This is the actual OS
• SWAP - Size: 8G+, Type: Linux swap, This is the virtual RAM

Make sure to write the changes and quit

Format partitions

For sdb3 sdb4 and sdb5 change them to whatever is your EFI, ROOT, and SWAP partition.

• EFI - For this partition type the following command:

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdb3

• ROOT - For this partition the following must be done:

Type and enter in a custom password for the encrypted partition.

cryptsetup luksFormant /dev/sdb4

Create the decrypted partition inside of the encrypted partition.

(you can change Croot to whatever you like (ex: cryptroot))

cryptsetup open /dev/sdb4 Croot

For the journaling-file-system ext4, run the following to format Croot:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/Croot

• SWAP - For this partition type the following command:

mkswap /dev/sdb5    

Mounting

Type the following:

mount /dev/mapper/Croot /mnt

^Croot is the decrypted partition^

mkdir /mnt/boot

mount /dev/sdb3 /mnt/boot

^sdb3 is the bootloader partition^

swapon /dev/sdb5

^sdb5 is the swap partition^

Edit package manager

In order to get faster download speeds for your installation, type:

nano /etc/pacman.conf

Uncomment #ParallelDownloads = 5 and make the number change according to the number of threads your pc has

To see how many threads your pc has exit the editor by doing ctrl+x and type:

nproc

or

grep -c processor /proc/cpuinfo

After uncommenting ParallelDownloads and setting a number, remember to save and exit out of nano by doing ctrl+o [enter] and ctrl+x

What enabling ParrallelDownloads does is it allows multiple downloads to occur at the same time

Packages to install

I would reccomend to install all of these, but if you are using an amd processor then change intel-ucode to amd-ucode

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel networkmanager lvm2 cryptsetup grub efibootmgr linux linux-firmware intel-ucode sudo  

Optional installs example:

pacstrap /mnt git neofetch vim 

Generate fstab file

genfstab -U  /mnt > /mnt/etc/fstab

Enter as root into arch

arch-chroot /mnt

You've successfully entered into your OS!!

Set timezone & clock

To see the available timezones:

ls /usr/share/zoneinfo

To set a timezone

(Change /America/Los_Angeles to your timezone):

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles /etc/localtime

To set the hardware clock:

hwclock --systohc

Do the following to confirm the date:

date

Set the locale

Uncomment your locale in this file:

Ex:en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

nano /etc/locale.gen

remember to save and exit out of nano by doing ctrl+o [enter] and ctrl+x, now type:

locale-gen

To set your language, edit and type "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" in the following file:

nano /etc/locale.conf

Change Hostname

Edit and enter name for your hostname in the following file

nano /etc/hostname

If you don't care about this just type Arch or skip this step

Passwords

Root

To change the password for Root, run this command and enter a password:

passwd

Custom users

A Custom user is a daily used user

To allow the wheel group to have root privileges:

EDITOR=nano visudo 

^Uncomment "%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL"^

Save & exit the file and type the following, with the last word being whatever you want the custom user's name to be:

useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash User1

Next add a password to that user:

passwd User1

Configure initcpio & Grub

Initcpio

Edit this file by going to the HOOKS section and adding ecrypt & lvm2 after the word "block"

nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

After that save & exit the file and run this command:

mkinitcpio -P 

Grub with encrypted setup

Install:

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB

Encryption with Grub

Run this command to see the UUID of your encrypted partition:

blkid -o value -s UUID /dev/sdb4

Now send the UUID of sdb4(encrypted) and Croot(decrypted) to grub

blkid -o value -s UUID /dev/sdb4 >> /etc/default/grub

blkid -o value -s UUID /dev/mapper/Croot >> /etc/default/grub

Notice that on the second command /dev/sdb4 was changed to /dev/mapper/Croot, change those paths to the your own devices names.

Now type

nano /etc/default/grub

PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION, AND BE SURE THAT WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS CORRECT

IF YOU ARE NOT SURE ON WHETHER YOU ARE DOING IT RIGHT, PLEASE LOOK UP THE ISSUE ON TRUSTED SOURCES

FOR MORE DETAIL ABOUT THE NEXT PROCESS, REFER TO THE "GRUB Setup" SECTION OF THIS LINK (https://comfy.guide/client/luks/)

Step 1 - In this file scroll down to the very bottom and look for the UUID of the encrypted and decrypted device

Ex:

4d8a927c-93b7-4bfa-a2b6-d9b497ff6a78

8fada6ed-545a-4021-9c21-c3c9b847593e

That is an example of what the two UUID's will look like at the bottom of your file. Remember that the top UUID is the encrypted device, and that the bottom one is the decrypted device

Step 2 - copy the two UUID's to the top of the file, after the word "quiet", where it says "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 quiet""

The line should now look something like this Ex:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 quiet 4d8a927c-93b7-4bfa-a2b6-d9b497ff6a78 8fada6ed-545a-4021-9c21-c3c9b847593e"

Step 3 - Define the name's for each UUID

Ex:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 quiet cryptdevice=UUID=4d8a927c-93b7-4bfa-a2b6-d9b497ff6a78:Croot root=UUID=8fada6ed-545a-4021-9c21-c3c9b847593e"

Make sure that everything is in one line.

Notice how these were added

• cryptdevice=UUID=
• :Croot
• root=UUID=

Remember to save and exit out of nano by doing ctrl+o [enter] and ctrl+x

Now you can run the following:

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

On start programs

Normally applications would not run at the start of powering on your pc/laptop, but when using "systemctl enable [The program you choose]" it them allows for that program to run at start

Recommendation:

system enable NetworkManager

systemctl enable bluetooth

Remember that Linux is case-sensitive

THE END

You can now exit with the following commands:

exit

umount -lR /mnt

shutdown now

##################################################################

WHILE THE COMPUTER IS IN SHUTDOWN MODE UNPLUG THE USB STICK

##################################################################

After your computer shutsdown, you can now restart your pc/laptop.

If you can see the Grub menu at startup then that most likely means that you have successfully installed Arch-Linux/GNU on your pc/laptop while dual booting!!

As you can see chooseing Arch Linux from the grub menu will prompt you with a password to login into the decrypted device, and later it will ask for a user login with a password.

What to do after?

First of all, props to you for making it this far, but as you can see Arch linux is basically a black void right now. What you need to do now is to choose a way to display your files, applications, and programs.

Below are documents that I have written or which are in progress, that handle the display and management of files, applications, and programs:

• Hyprland (In Progress)
• KDE plasma (In Progress)

For more information about window managers or desktop environments please refer to other trusted sources.