Install Arch Linux

Installing Arch Linux is a thing that you hope you’ll do once and then never again. Despite this hope, I bricked my system and was forced install it again. With this blog post I document the process of installing Arch Linux.

Reflect

Reinstalling an operating system (OS) is also a good chance to reflect on the setup. When I did my last installation I forgot to enable LUKS encryption on the main disk. This is very difficult once the OS installed. During the installation I want to give it another try.

Choose compatible hardware

I am very happy with the TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 - Gen10 and luckily it is also on the comparability list of Arch wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/TUXEDO_InfinityBook_14_Gen10. This gives some assurance that the hardware/drivers will work nice with Arch.

Select an installation path

There are many Arch installation guides. I did not want to create another one. To cover the topic I look at these guides:

• https://jpetazzo.github.io/2024/02/23/archlinux-luks-tpm-secureboot-install/
• https://github.com/rickellis/Arch-Linux-Install-Guide
• https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/de/Arch-Linux-und-Manjaro-auf-TUXEDO-Computern.tuxedo
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archinstall

I decided to for the archinstall path. Instead of learning obscure Linux command to format the UEFI partition, you are guided by wizard to make the installation.

Setup the USB drive

In order to install an OS you need to get the .iso file on an USB drive. The relevant guide is https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/USB_flash_installation_medium.

I download the Arch Linux image from a Swiss mirror https://mirror.arch-linux.ch/archlinux/iso/2026.09.01/ on another computer. This other computer is also running Linux and so I could use dd utility to flash the image to the USB drive:

dd bs=4M if=archlinux-x86_64.iso of=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-TUXEDO__0501010243450976990623-0:0 conv=fsync oflag=direct status=progress

Also not that writing the image to USB drive will delete all existing data.

Boot the USB drive

I plugged the USB drive into the laptop and booted the machine. On the boot screen I pressed del and entered the BIOS menu. In the boot settings I made sure that the “USB/CD/DVD” is prioritized. After saving an exit I was greeted with the option to boot into “Arch Linux install medium”.

So far so good. The image is copied into the RAM and you should enter a terminal session.

Run archinstall

On the terminal I entered archinstall and this started the configuration wizard. For each section I made these settings:

• Mirrors and repositories:
  • Selected mirror regions: Switzerland
• Disk configuration:
  • Partitioning:
    • Configuration type: Use a best-effort default partition layout
  • Disk encryption:
    • Encryption type: LUKS
• Hostname:
  • Hostname: tuxedo
• Authentication:
  • username: janikvonrotz
  • sudo: True
• Profile
  • Profiles: KDE Plasma
• Applications:
  • Audio: pipwire
  • Print service: Enabled
• Network configuration:
  • Network configuration: Use Network Manager (default backend)
• Timezone:
  • Timezone: Europe/Zurich

Then I saved the configuration and the script started the installation process. The installation process took about 2 minutes. At the end I chose to reboot.

Note: Even though I configured the disk encryption, the installer would not pick it up. Maybe next time.

Boot into Arch Linux

I entered the BIOS menu again and changed the boot order. Then I removed the USB stick and booted the system.

I was welcomed by the KDE Plasma login screen and was able to log in.

Do it all over again

Be prepared to repeat the installation. In my case I had problem with the Wifi connection.

Originally I had set the network configuration set to “Copy ISO network configuration to installation”. This did not work and on a second installation I replaced it with “Use Network Manager (default backend)”.

Install applications

Finally, I was able to connect to the Wifi and ready to install my packages, tools, and configurations. I have my https://codeberg.org/janikvonrotz/dotfiles repo to bootstrap the work environment.

To get started I required terminal and a browser. I choose to install “Konsole” and “LibreWolf” from flathub. In order to clone the dotfiles repo I installed git with sudo pacman -S git.

Access secrets and keys

My work environment depends on several git repositories. To clone them I had to regain access to my SSH key. My situation looked like this:

• The SSH key is stored in my private KeePass database
  • My private KeePass database is stored on my Nextcloud instance
    • Getting files from Nextcloud requires the the Nextcloud desktop client
      • Settings up the sync requires entering my Nextcloud credentials
        • The Nextcloud credentials are available on my smartphone
          • In order to copy paste the credentials from m phone I need KDE Connect

The resolve this situation I installed KDE Connect, Nextcloud desktop client, KeePassXC, and applied more configurations:

cd ~/dotfiles
./task setup-passwordless-sudo

./task install kdeapplications
./task install nextcloud
./task install keepass

./task install ssh
./task install git
./task install fzf
./task install zsh
./task install ghostty
./task install tmux

KDE Connect was ready and in result I was able to retrieve my SSH key. A few minutes later I had cloned the git repositories and the working environment was ready.

Now back to work!