Network and Filesystem setup

• Connecting to WiFi

  sudo wifi-menu
  # follow the steps to connect to a network (might be difficult in case of complex university networks)

  ping www.google.com
  # check if the packet loss is 0%

• Check the current partitions using cfdisk (GUI enhancement to fdisk)
• Delete existing partitions (if not dual-booting) and create new partitions. Create a new primary (and bootable) partition → SWAP partition → logical extended partition

• Check the partition id and if they are correctly created

  fdisk -l

• Format the partitions (primary, logical)

  mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda<id>
  # process to format the partition /dev/sda<id>

• Declare the swap partition

  mkswap /dev/sda<id>
  swapon /dev/sda<id>

Copying the required files

• Mounting the primary and the logical partition

  mount /dev/sda<primaryId> /mnt
  
  # home is where my personal files lie
  mkdir /mnt/home
  
  # home is where I mount the logical partition
  mount /dev/sda<logicalId> /mnt/home

• Installing the base system

  pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

Adding to fstab (auto-mounting)

• We add the primary, swap and home partition to fstab. This means that these partitions will now be auto-mounted on boot.

  genfstab /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
  
  # then, we verify if the details were successfully added
  cat /mnt/etc/fstab

New system setup (chroot-ed)

• chroot into the system. Specifying the shell in the command is optional.

  arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash # the last shell argument can be skipped

• Set the system location and language

  nano /etc/locale.gen
  # uncomment the required locale that you need to be (e.g. en_US.UTF-8)
  locale-gen # generates according to this configuration file
  
  nano /etc/locale.conf
  echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" >> /etc/locale.conf

• Set the timezone and the system time

  # check out which all timezones are available
  ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/
  
  
  # se the symlink
  ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata /etc/localtime

• Set up a new password and network connections

  # the same info of the hosts file needs to added to these two files
  
  nano /etc/hostname
  nano /etc/hosts

Grub - the bootloader setup

• Install grub and its dependencies

  pacman -S grub os-prober

• Install grub for the system

  # for a UEFI-based installation
  grub-install /dev/sda
  
  # for a DOS-based installation
  grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda
  
  # generate the config file for grub
  grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Restarting to the installed system

• Close the chroot

  exit

• Unmount the mounted partitions

  umount /mnt
  umount /mnt/home

• Finally, reboot

  reboot