Just like the title says, I attempted to set up Arch Linux on a couple of throwaway potato laptops. Here’s how I went about it, in case it might help anyone else doing something similar. Tons of credit to the folks who were here before me and helped guide me through this process/get me over the hurdles to the finish line.
Disclaimer: I had an issue with the graphics drivers, and what I used may not be helpful or ideal for everybody. It did get me past my, “blank screen w/ cursor on reboot after arch install,” issue twice, though, so I’m including it just in case.
Note: There may be extraneous/unnecessary steps in this write-up. Also, you may need to use sudo before some of these pacman commands - just be aware and don’t get frustrated.
Helpful Links:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Network_configuration/Wireless
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Iwd
For reference, I’m using Intel Atom laptops for this project.
Info:
“lscpu ” command yields the following info:
Architecture: x86_64
Model: Intel® Atom™ CPU N470 @ 1.83 GHz
“lspci ” command yields:
VGA compatible controller | Display controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor D4xx/D5xx/N4xx/N5xx Integrated Graphics Controller
**I used Rufus to create bootable media for Arch, and then dropped the ISO onto my USB. Distro:
archlinux-2024.08.01-x86_64
Once I had this, I plugged into my laptop and hit F12 to get into the boot menu so I could select my boot media.
Once I was logged in, I needed to ensure that my wifi was connected. The command:
ip link
Showed that my wlan0 interface was in a DOWN status, so I needed to connect this first. The following command gave me an interactive prompt to do so:
iwctl
If the wifi device shows as powered off via:
device list
You should be able to use the following, replacing “name” for your interface (such as wlan0):
device name set-property Powered on
To initiate scan for networks (will not show any output):
station name scan
To list available networks:
station name get-networks
To connect to your network:
station name connect SSID
Enter passkey/phrase as required. You should now be able to type, “exit” and then use the “ip link” command to verify that your wifi connection status shows as UP.
–
At this point, I performed:
pacman -Sy git
Then was ready to begin my Arch Linux installation. To do so, I used the following command:
archinstall
From here, there are several configurable options that are important to consider. Really, most that aren’t set should be, but some (like Additional packages) aren’t completely necessary to accomplish the installation:
*Mirrors → Mirror Region → select your region (United States is at the bottom, naturally). Use tab then enter to choose, then you can select Back.
*Disk Configuration → Partitioning → Use a best-effort default partition layout → Choose your HDD device (tab then enter), and choose ext4 for your filesystem. When asked if you would like to create a separate partition for /home, this is unnecessary even though yes is the default.
*I did not set Disk encryption initially so it’s not necessary for installation, but may be a good idea depending on your needs.
*Bootloader was already set up with Grub.
*Swap was already set to true.
*Hostname can be set to whatever you wish to name your computer.
*Make sure to set up a root password.
*Make user → Add a user → name your user and set its password immediately after. If you don’t set a password, you may not get an option to make this user a superuser (for sudo privileges).
*Audio → Pipewire
*Kernels → linux
**Network configuration → Use NetworkManager (make sure you set this!)
*Set your timezone, and you should be good to go to begin configuration/select Install!
–
From this point, let the install program do its thing (pressing “y” where appropriate). Once it has completed, you should be able to use the, “reboot” command to do just that.
*Make sure that you do not pull out the USB drive that you booted from until the computer fully reboots, otherwise you may screw up your installation and have to do it again like I did.
At this point, hopefully you don’t run into any graphics driver issues like I did. If so, though, you may need to install something additional once your computer has successfully completed rebooting. Since I got a blank screen, I had to use:
ctrl + alt + F3
To get to a terminal.
Once at the terminal, you should be able to log in with the user/password you just created. You may need to set up your wifi again from the command line, but using NetworkManager (at least in my case) seemed to take away the “iwctl” setup options I described above. Luckily, there’s another command you should be able to use:
nmcli device wifi connect SSID password yourpassword
You should still be able to utilize the “ip link” command to verify your DOWN/UP status.
From there, I used:
sudo pacman -S xf86-video-intel
To get the drivers I needed. Your needs may vary here, especially if you’re not using a potato.
Once this was complete, I rebooted again and was greeted with an actual login screen.
Once logged in, I started up a terminal and started a root shell:
sudo bash
From here, I installed firefox:
pacman -S firefox
After this was complete, I minimized my terminal and opened the firefox browser. I navigated to:
aur.chaotic.cx
and proceeded to follow the installation instructions after selecting, “Start using now.” This should get you the repositories necessary to perform the rest of the installation (or at least, some of them). For one of the steps, be sure you know how to insert/write files just in case you need to do it via command line (though, with a GUI, this shouldn’t be much of an issue). I used nano and vim (one for each laptop I set up), and neither caused me any issues.
Once completed, there were a couple more installations I performed:
pacman -S vesktop
pacman -S yay
There will likely be others that need to be installed, but this should get you up and mostly running. The way it was explained to me, yay is just like pacman except you shouldn’t have to use sudo.
Good luck! Hopefully I know enough to answer some basic questions, but most of this information was obtained by talking to the wonderful folks here at SDS. I highly suggest you engage in that activity. =)