How To - Set Up Arch Linux

Official guide: Arch Linux installation guide

These are the steps that I had taken when installing Arch Linux on my Intel laptop!

Start Here

Console Keymap

Start by setting up console keyboard layout. This command lists all the available keyboard maps.

ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz 

/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/amiga/amiga-de.map.gz         /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt4-fi-latin1.map.gz
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/amiga/amiga-us.map.gz         /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt4-no-latin1.map.gz
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/atari/atari-de.map.gz         /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt5-cz-us.map.gz
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/atari/atari-se.map.gz         /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt5-de-latin1.map.gz
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/atari/atari-uk-falcon.map.gz  /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt5-es.map.gz
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/atari/atari-us.map.gz         /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt5-fi-latin1.map.gz
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/pine/en.map.gz                /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt5-fr-latin1.map.gz
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sundvorak.map.gz          /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt5-ru.map.gz
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunkeymap.map.gz          /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt5-uk.map.gz
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sun-pl-altgraph.map.gz    /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt5-us-cz.map.gz
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sun-pl.map.gz             /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt6-uk.map.gz
/usr/share/kbd/keymaps/sun/sunt4-es.map.gz

This may be confusing to look at, so we can filter them using grep.

ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz | grep <layout> 

BUT, this may still look really confusing. So, for a much user-friendly view, use localectl list-keymaps. Again, you can use grep to look for the desired layout.

localectl list-keymaps | grep us

amiga-us
atari-us
br-latin1-us
cz-us-qwertz
is-latin1-us
mac-us
mod-dh-ansi-us
mod-dh-ansi-us-awing
mod-dh-ansi-us-fatz
mod-dh-ansi-us-fatz-wide
mod-dh-ansi-us-wide
mod-dh-iso-us
mod-dh-iso-us-wide
mod-dh-matrix-us
sunt5-cz-us
sunt5-us-cz
us
us-acentos
us1

I’m sticking with U.S. QWERTY so it looks like this for me,

loadkeys us

Keep in mind that the value should be just the name without the path and extension.

Internet Connection

Ping Arch Linux to see if you have Internet connection

ping -c 4 archlinux.org

System Clock

Check if the Network Time Protocol (NTP) is alive and active, and the validity of time.

timedatectl

               Local time: Sun 2025-12-14 16:50:51 +08
           Universal time: Sun 2025-12-14 08:50:51 UTC
                 RTC time: Sun 2025-12-14 08:50:51
                Time zone: Asia/Kuala_Lumpur (+08, +0800)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no

Why?

This is important to ensure that there is no issue with logs, certificates, or scheduled tasks. It’s a protocol designed to synchronise the clocks of computers over a network.

If the protocol is NOT active, use either command.

timedatectl set-ntp true
 
systemctl enable systemd-timesyncd.service

Disks

Partitioning

It’s a good practice to separate the bootloader and start-up files. Generally, 512MB for EFI is enough. (You can go with 200MB if storage is scarce)

For most people, 2 partitions are enough, so this example will only create 2 partitions. You can make more partitions if you like, but remember that this risks losing data if you don’t do it properly.

First, look for the drive name,

fdisk -l

In my case, it is named /dev/nvme0n1.

You can also list drives and partitions with lsblk-l

# I have already partition the disks
 
NAME      MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda         8:0    0 931.5G  0 disk 
sda1        8:1    0   750G  0 part /mnt/nextcloud
sda2        8:2    0 181.5G  0 part /mnt/music
nvme0n1   259:0    0 238.5G  0 disk 
nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   512M  0 part /efi
nvme0n1p2 259:2    0   238G  0 part /home
                                    /

It is much easier and less of a headache to use cfdisk to perform partitioning (TUI wrapper). BUT, if you still want to make your life difficult,

# Invoke the drive for partitioning
fdisk <drive name>
 
#fdisk /dev/nvme0n1

Create the first partition

Command (m for help): g
Command (m for help): n
Partition number (1-128, default 1): ENTER
First sector: ENTER
Last sector: +512M
Command (m for help): t
Selected parition 1
Hex code or alias: 1 # This changes the partition from 'Linux filesystem' to 'EFI System'

Create the second partition

Command (m for help): n
Partition number (1-128, default 1): ENTER
First sector: ENTER
Last sector: ENTER # Uses the remaining spaces
Command (m for help): p # Prints partition table 
 
# Check if the partition is right
 
# ONLY DO THIS IF THE CHANGES ARE WHAT YOU WANT
Command (m for help): w
 
# Quit without saving
Command (m for help): q

If you have additional disks (e.g. external HDDs and SSDs), you can repeat these steps, but without the commands to change the type to EFI.

Formatting

EFI partition requires fat for it to work properly.

mkfs.fat -F 32 <partition name>
 
# mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/nvme0n1p1

The are multiple popular filesystems on Linux today: Ext4, XFS, Btrfs, and ZFs/OpenZFS. You can look each of them up to find out which suits you the best. I went with btrfs.

mkfs.btrfs <parition name>
 
# mkfs.btrfs /dev/nvme0n1p2

Mount the root file system (not the EFI) to make it accessible

mount <partition name> /mnt
 
# mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt

Disk Mounting

These are done with the assumption that btrfs file system is used.

Creating sub-volumes in btrfs allows snapshots, rollbacks, and flexible volume management without the need for separate partitions.

# Root filesystem
btrfs subvolume create /mnt/@
 
# User home directory
btrfs subvolume create /mnt/@home
 
# You can add more subvolumes if needed. 

For compression, we will use zstd.

Why?

Compressing those sub-volumes let us:

1. Save disk space
2. Improve performance
3. Reduce write amplification

umount /mnt
mount -o compress=zstd,subvol=@ <partition name> /mnt
# mount -o compress=zstd,subvol=@ /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt
 
mkdir -p /mnt/home
mount -o compress=zstd,subvol=@home <partition name> /mnt/home
# mount -o compress=zstd,subvol=@ /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt/home

Mount EFI partition.

mkdir -p /mnt/efi
mount <partition name> /mnt/efi
# mount /dev/nvme0n1p1/ /mnt/efi

Package Installation

Arch Linux’s official documentation provides a comprehensive list of applications that you should definitely checkout. However, since we’re still installing, there’s really no need to install every essential applications yet.

These are the packages that I installed:

Packages	Description
base, linux, linux-firmware	These are must-haves Swap linux with linux-lts for a more stable kernel
base-devel	Base development packages
git	git vcs
btrfs-progs	File system management
grub	Bootloader
efibootmgr	Needed to install grub
grub-btrfs	btrfs support for grub bootloader and allows direct boot from snapshots
inotify-tools	Used by grub btrfsd daemon to automatically spot new snapshots and update grub entires
timeshift	Create, plan and restore snapshots using btrfs
intel-ucode	Microcode updates for the CPU Use amd-ucode if you are on an AMD CPU
vim	Editor
networkmanager	Manage Internet connections
pipewire, pipewire-also, pipewire-pulse, pipewire-jack	Audio framework
wireplumber	pipewire session manager
reflector	Manage mirrors for pacman
openssh	Use ssh and manage keys
man	Manual pages
sudo	Lets you run commands as root temporarily

pacstrap -K /mnt <packages>

Do note that there are alternatives to the packages listed above (e.g. pulse and jack for audio frameworks). You should look these up to check for compatibility.

fstab

This fetches the disk mounting points and instructs the system to mount the disks automatically.

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
 
# Sanity check
cat /mnt/etc/fstab

Context Switch

Access the new system with arch-chroot /mnt

Time Zone

The next thing to do is setting up out local time zone. To find the correct time zone information, use ls /usr/share/zoneinfo. This will give us a list of time zones to pick from.

ls /usr/share/zoneinfo

frica      CET      Etc      Greenwich    Japan              Navajo      PST8PDT    Universal
America     Chile    Europe   Hongkong     Kwajalein          NZ          right      US
Antarctica  CST6CDT  Factory  HST          leapseconds        NZ-CHAT     ROC        UTC
Arctic      Cuba     GB       Iceland      leap-seconds.list  Pacific     ROK        WET
Asia        EET      GB-Eire  Indian       Libya              Poland      SECURITY   W-SU
Atlantic    Egypt    GMT      Iran         MET                Portugal    Singapore  zone1970.tab
Australia   Eire     GMT+0    iso3166.tab  Mexico             posix       Turkey     zonenow.tab
Brazil      EST      GMT-0    Israel       MST                posixrules  tzdata.zi  zone.tab
Canada      EST5EDT  GMT0     Jamaica      MST7MDT            PRC         UCT        Zulu

ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia

Aden       Barnaul     Dili         Jayapura      Kuwait        Pontianak  Srednekolymsk  Urumqi
Almaty     Beirut      Dubai        Jerusalem     Macao         Pyongyang  Taipei         Ust-Nera
Amman      Bishkek     Dushanbe     Kabul         Macau         Qatar      Tashkent       Vientiane
Anadyr     Brunei      Famagusta    Kamchatka     Magadan       Qostanay   Tbilisi        Vladivostok
Aqtau      Calcutta    Gaza         Karachi       Makassar      Qyzylorda  Tehran         Yakutsk
Aqtobe     Chita       Harbin       Kashgar       Manila        Rangoon    Tel_Aviv       Yangon
Ashgabat   Choibalsan  Hebron       Kathmandu     Muscat        Riyadh     Thimbu         Yekaterinburg
Ashkhabad  Chongqing   Ho_Chi_Minh  Katmandu      Nicosia       Saigon     Thimphu        Yerevan
Atyrau     Chungking   Hong_Kong    Khandyga      Novokuznetsk  Sakhalin   Tokyo
Baghdad    Colombo     Hovd         Kolkata       Novosibirsk   Samarkand  Tomsk
Bahrain    Dacca       Irkutsk      Krasnoyarsk   Omsk          Seoul      Ujung_Pandang
Baku       Damascus    Istanbul     Kuala_Lumpur  Oral          Shanghai   Ulaanbaatar
Bangkok    Dhaka       Jakarta      Kuching       Phnom_Penh    Singapore  Ulan_Bator

ln -sf /usr/share/info/<Continent>/<Country> /etc/localtime
 
# ln -sf /usr/share/info/Asia/Kuala_Lumpur /etc/localtime

Once the time zone is selected, sync the system time to the hardware clock

hwclock --systohc

Localisation

The next thing to do is to configure our system’s region and language. Uncomment entries in /etc/locale.gen according to your locale. You have to uncomment those lines before generating locales.

Locales are generally named as such: \[_territory][.codeset][@modifier]

Since I installed vim, I will be using that to edit the file.

vim /etc/locale.gen

Since I’m in Malaysia, I enabled:

1. en_US.utf8
2. ms_MY.utf8
3. zh_CN.utf8

Once the desired entries have been enabled, we can generate the locales.

locale-gen

Although the locale has been generated, they’re not applied; so, we’ll create a configuration file, /etc/locale.conf, and set the locale to the want we want.

touch /etc/locale.conf
vim /etc/locale.conf

We set the LANG variable to the desired one. In my case, I went with en_US.UTF-8.

LANG=en_US.UTF-8

You can find more information about locale here

To make the console keymap permanent across multiple tty sessions, we can make adjustments to /etc/vconsole.conf. The value should be the same as the one you set earlier in here.

KEYMAP=us

Host

Now we create a hostname for you to go by. We achieve this by creating and editing /etc/hostname. The hostname should be in the first line.

touch /etc/hostname
nvim /etc/hostname

One other important thing to do is creating a /etc/hosts file. This is necessary because it allows hostnames to be resolved locally instead of relying on DNS.

Why it matters

1. This is faster and avoids over-dependence on network connectivity.
2. Entries in /etc/hosts takes priority over DNS lookups, meaning a hostname can be forced to resolve to a specific IP address, even if DNS says otherwise.
3. If DNS servers are unavailable or misconfigured, /etc/hosts ensures localhost still resolves correctly.
4. You can block or redirect unwanted domains by mapping them to a loopback IP.

Simply do,

127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost
127.0.1.1 <hostname> # the one set earlier

Root

Use passwd to set-up root and add a new user.

passwd
 
useradd -mG wheel <root_name>
passwd <root_name>

• m creates the home directory
• G adds the user to the wheel group (administration group)

Boot Loader

You can select your choice of bootloader here. I decided to with grub.

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

Generate grub configuration file with,

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

I do not recommend writing your own grub configuration file unless you genuinely know what you’re doing.

Finalising

Enable network manager before rebooting.

systemctl enable NetworkManager

Simply exit the chroot environment with exit or ctrl+d. Follow this up by unmounting all the partitions using umount -R /mnt. Doing this lets you find busy partitions.

Reboot the system, unplug the installation media, and now you have an Arch Linux device!

reboot

Log in with the username and password set here and start the time synchronisation service.

timedatectl set-ntp true

The remaining chapters are optional, but highly recommended.

Snapshots

Remember that we installed [[How To - Set Up Arch Linux#^f4acd3|timeshift]]?

Normally, every time the tool takes a system snapshot, we would have to regenerate the grub configuration manually; however, this can be avoided with a neat tool called grub-btrfs, which automatically updates the grub boot entries.

This line will let you edit grub-btrfs; since I’m using timeshift, the value of ExecStasrt will be /usr/bin/grub-btrfsd --syslog --timeshift-auto. If you decided to use any other snapshot tools, refer to this

sudo systemctl edit --full grub-btrfsd

Arch User Repository

One of the great features of Arch Linux is the vast user repository. But, to access the user repository, yay has to first be installed.

sudo pacman -S --needed git base-devel && git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git && cd yay && makepkg -si
 
# Optional: This allows snapshots before pacman upgrades.
yay -S timeshift-autosnap

Final Finalising

Simply reboot and voilà, you’re now using Arch Linux! You can keep messing up your laptop or pc until you have to reinstall.

Don’t forget to occasionally run sudo pacman -Syu to update your packages!

Video Drivers

If you want to use Arch Linux on a graphical environment, you would have to install video drivers. Since my laptop only has Intel iGPU, this section only covers the packages needed for my case. If you have NVIDIA GPUs, I recommend referring to this site for more information.

For backward compatibility, I decided to add 32bit support. However, for this to work, we have to first edit /etc/pacman.conf and uncomment the [multilib] section.

yay
 
sudo pacman -S mesa lib32-mesa vulkan-intel lib32-vulkan-intel xorg-server intel-media-driver

For AMD laptops or pcs, installation looks almost identical; just replace intel with radeon. I highly recommend reading this first though.

Setting up a graphical environment

I installed Hyprland. You can check out their master tutorial

pacman -S --needed hyprland hyprlock hyprpaper rofi waybar dolphin kitty

Packages	Description
hyprland	The tiling WM
hyprlock	Screen-lock for Hyperland
hyprpaper	Wallpaper utility for Hyprland
rofi	Window switcher, application and dmenu replacement
waybar	Status bar
dolphin	File manager
kitty	Terminal emulator

If you’re looking for inspiration on customising your device, check out this subreddit or my dotfiles.