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Archlinux with Wayland

Date
Author
Yannick Breuer
Reading time
2 min
arch archlinux wayland install

Basic Setup

Load keyboard layout

loadkeys de

Perpare Disk

Partitioning

Target:

  • 1G Boot Partition
  • (RAM * 1.5) Swap Partition
  • Root Partition
cfdisk /dev/sda

Formatting

mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/sda1
mkswap /dev/sda2

Create encrypted ext4 root partition

cryptsetup -y -v luksFormat /dev/sda3
cryptsetup open /dev/sda2 cryptroot
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/root

Mount partitions

mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt

mount --mkdir /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

swapon /dev/sda2

Prepare pacman

Update download server

reflector --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist --country Germany --protocol https

Install arch

Install base arch packages

pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware bash nano polkit networkmanager man-db htop

Generate fstab file with mounts for the partitions

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

Change into new arch install

arch-chroot /mnt

System config

Timezone

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin /etc/localtime

Make sure hardware clock is in UTC

hwclock --systohc

Adjust locale settings

nano /etc/locale.gen
# uncomment de_DE.UTF-8
# uncomment en_US.UTF-8

locale-gen
nano /etc/locale.conf
LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Set Keymap for vconsole

nano /etc/vconsole.conf
KEYMAP=de-latin1

Adjust Hostname, choose a name

nano /etc/hostname
arch-vm

Make sure initramfs is configured for encryption

nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
# ...
HOOKS=(base systemd autodetect modconf kms keyboard sd-vconsole block sd-encrypt filesystems fsck)
# ...

Regenerate initramfs

mkinitcpio -P

Set root-User Password

passwd

Bootloader

Install Grup

pacman -S grub efibootmgr
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Get UUID for ROOT partition

blkid /dev/sda3 -o value | head -1
nano /etc/default/grub
GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="... rd.luks.name=<device-UUID>=cryptroot ..."

You can copy the uuid in the file by pipe it in to the file and then copy / past it with CTRL+K CTRL+U

eg:

blkid /dev/sda3 -o value | head -1 >> /etc/default/grub

Update grub config

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

Reset and reboot

exit
umount -R /mnt
swapoff /dev/sda2
reboot

Setup Arch

Ensure all needed systemd services are running

systemctl enable --now NetworkManager

Add user

Install doas (sudo alternative)

pacman -S opendoas

Create config

nano /etc/doas.conf
permit persist :wheel

Create user

useradd -m -g users -G wheel,audio,input,video <username>
passwd <username>
doas nano /etc/pacman.conf
...
ParallelDownloads = 5
...

Reboot and login into the newly created user

Setup sway

pacman -S sway swayidle swaylock xorg-xwayland noto-fonts kitty waybar otf-font-awesome fzf bash-completion jq network-manager-applet firefox xdg-desktop-portal-wlr pavucontrol grim slurp brightnessctl awesome-terminal-fonts ttf-font-awesome pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber tlp tlp-rdw smartmontools acpi ethtool reflector rsync
systemctl mask systemd-rfkill.service
systemctl mask systemd-rfkill.socket
systemctl enable --now tlp
systemctl enable --now reflector

todo: dotfiles