I use iwctl to connect to WiFi. It is a command line tool for connecting to WiFi networks.
$ iwctl
$ device list
$ station wlan0 get-networks
$ station wlan0 connect wifiName
$ ping www.google.com
To list the available partitions and disks:
lsblk
I use cfdisk to partition my disk. I have a 250 SSD, so I will use the entire disk for Arch Linux.
$ cfdisk /dev/nvm30n1
I create 3 partitions:
- EFI System Partition (512MB)
/dev/nvme0n1p1 - Swap Partition (2GB)
/dev/nvme0n1p2 - Root Partition (Rest of the disk)
/dev/nvme0n1p3
I format the partitions using the following commands:
$ mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1
$ mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p3
$ mkswap /dev/nvme0n1p2
$ swapon /dev/nvme0n1p2
This will format the root partition as ext4, the swap partition as Linux swap, and the EFI system partition as FAT32. It will also activate the swap partition.
Mount the root partition using the following command:
mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 /mnt
Creating necessary directories:
$ mkdir /mnt/boot
$ mkdir /mnt/boot/efi
Mounting the EFI system partition:
$ mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot/efi
Install the base system and essential packages using the pacstrap.
pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware sudo vim git
Generate an fstab file to define how disk partitions, block devices, or remote filesystems should be mounted into the filesystem.
$ genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
Change root into the new system that we just installed.
$ arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
Uncomment the en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 line in /etc/locale.gen and generate the locale.
$ locale-gen
Create the locale.conf file and set the LANG variable accordingly.
$ echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf
Set the time zone.
$ ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Africa/City /etc/localtime
To set the time for the system, run this command:
$ hwclock --systohc
And check the time:
$ date
Create the hostname file and set the hostname.
$ echo "arch" > /etc/hostname
You also need to add this name to the /etc/hosts file.
$ vim /etc/hosts
and add the following lines:
127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost
127.0.1.1 arch
$ passwd
Install the NetworkManager package.
$ pacman -S networkmanager
Enable the NetworkManager service.
$ systemctl enable NetworkManager
Now the NetworkManager service will start automatically at boot and you can use the nmcli command to connect to WiFi networks.
Install the grub and efibootmgr packages.
$ pacman -S grub efibootmgr
Using those packages, we can install the bootloader.
$ grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB
Generate the grub configuration file.
$ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Enable os-prober
To enable os-prober to detect other operating systems,and add them to the boot menu :- Open the GRUB configuration file:
sudo vim /etc/default/grub - Uncomment the
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=falseline in /etc/default/grub - Regenerate the grub configuration file :
sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
After regenerating the configuration file, the "os-prober" will be enabled in GRUB. It will now detect other bootable partitions during the boot process and add them to the boot menu.
To make the new system usable, install X Window System
pacman -S xorg xorg-xinit xorg-server
Apply the default settings.
$ pacman -S gnome
Install the lightdm package.
$ pacman -S lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter
Enable and start the lightdm service.
$ systemctl enable lightdm.service
$ systemctl start lightdm.service
Create a new user.
$ useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash username
Set the password for the new user.
$ passwd username
Give the new user sudo privileges.
Open the /etc/sudoers file using the visudo command.
$ EDITOR=vim visudo
and uncomment the following line:
%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL