Installing ArchLinux (base+wayland+swaywm+pipewire+systemdboot)

WARNING : This guide is currently incomplete and only finishes the install of the base package. There is just a little bit more to do, which you can probably figure out on your own, but this mostly serves as a guide for future me.

In this guide I’m going to walk you through installing the most bleeding edge Linux Experience. This guide assumes the reader’s knowledge on creating a USB disk, opening the BIOS, and a whole lot of time spent analysing system issues and living with them. You will need around 700MiB for downloading the ISO image and also need internet for the installation procedure (around 1 GiB). So lessgoo!!

0. Backup

If you are currently using an operating system and have files you need, copy them to somewhere safe like a seperate drive. Note down your saved passwords, bookmarks and stuff from your browser. You WILL lose everything you have in your current installation.

1. Downloading Arch

  1. Download the latest Arch Linux ISO image from archlinux.org .
  2. The file is around 700MiB. You will also need internet for the installation procedure (around 1 GiB).

2. Creating a USB disk

  1. You will need an 8GB or higher USB storage device
  2. You will also need an application called Ventoy
  3. Install Ventoy
  4. Open Ventoy
  5. Select USB device
  6. Install
  7. Copy the archlinux.iso file to the Ventoy installed USB Drive

3. Firmware (BIOS/UEFI) Settings

You can usually access the firmware settings by pressing F2/Delete button on POST (the bootup screen with Motherboard Manufacturer Logo or American Megatrends Logo). Make sure that the USB Storage Device was plugged in.

  1. Set SATA interface mode as “AHCI”
  2. Disable “Fast Boot” and “Secure Boot”
  3. Enable UEFI mode if present, otherwise use Legacy/CSM (some laptops require you to set a supervisor password for enabling UEFI mode with a disabled “Secure Boot”)
  4. Enable USB booting
  5. Change Boot Order so that the USB boot device is on top.
  6. Save and exit
  7. Your PC should boot into the USB
  8. Select Arch Linux

3.5. Pre-installation checks

You will be using a console with a command prompt for installation, here’s what you need to know,

  1. When I ask you to “run” a ‘command’, type that via your keyboard and press enter
  2. There might be instructions available for which you need to do using the keyboard, the mouse won’t work here
  3. To cancel a running command, do Ctrl+C
  4. To clear your screen after running a command, run the ‘clear’ command.
  5. Everything is case sensitive and spacing is required
  6. You might be occasionally asked to “edit” a file, for this you use the command ’nano filename.txt’ which uses a program called nano to edit a file named filename.txt . (One can also use vim instead of nano, but it is not that new user friendly)

4. Installing Arch

  1. To verify if running in UEFI mode type this and press enter ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars If you see an error you are booted into Legacy Mode. If you see bunch of files listed you are in UEFI mode
  2. Run ‘ping google.com’ to see if internet is working (N.B : stop the command using Ctrl+C).
  3. If it’s not working run iwctl
  4. device list
  5. station device scan
  6. station device get-networks
  7. station device connect SSID
  8. Ctrl+D to escape from this iwd prompt
  9. ping google.com to check if it works
  10. If it works
  11. Run the command ‘archinstall’