Installing Arch Linux with UEFI 2021Post Date: April 16, 2021#linux#arch-linuxHowdy folks! Lately, I have been diving more and more into Arch Linux and using suckless minimal software. I just finished publishing a video to YouTube called Installing Arch Linux on a UEFI System in 2021. In this video I walk you through from beginning to end on how to install Arch Linux when your machine is configured to use UEFI. The other week I found an older HP laptop I had lying around that is around 5 years old. I couldn’t remember the BIOS password and it was configured for UEFI. Instead of doing a password reset I decided to install Arch Linux on the laptop leaving UEFI in place. Once I successfully did that, I decided to make a video on it for others to follow. Below are the steps on how I did the installation. I have also included the instructions on GitHub here. Note: This article assumes you are using a US keyboard layout and we will also be setting up swap as a file instead of a partition. You should also read the official Arch installation guide https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/installation_guide. Verify boot mode: This is an important set when working with a UEFI system. Run the command below and if the directory does not exist, the system may not be booted in UEFI mode. ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars (If the directory exist your computer supports EFI) Ping some site on the Internet to verify connection: Use ip link to verify your network devices If necessary, use iwctl to setup your wireless Run ping to check to see if you already have an internet connection ping archlinux.org -c 5 Update system clock: View the current status of your clock by running timedatectl status Run the following command to ensure your system clock is correct timedatectl set-ntp true This will set your date and time to update remotely using network time protocol Go to https://archlinux.org/mirrorlist and find the closest mirror that supports HTTPS: Add the mirrors on top of the /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist file. Server = https://mirror.arizona.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch (United States) cfdisk Create EFI partition: New 300M Type EFI System Write Create /root partition: Select free space New 30G Linux filesystem Write Create /home partition: Select free space New Use rest of the space Linux filesystem Write Create the filesystems: fdisk -l to view the partitions for the next step mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1 mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2 mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3 Create the /root and /home directories: mount /dev/sda2 /mnt mkdir /mnt/home mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/home Install Arch linux base packages: Use the following if you want to include VIM: pacstrap -i /mnt base linux linux-firmware sudo vim Use the following if you want to also include Nano: pacstrap -i /mnt base linux linux-firmware sudo nano vim Generate the /etc/fstab file: genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab Chroot into installed system: arch-chroot /mnt Find available time zones: timedatectl list-timezones Set the timezone: ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtime or timedatectl set-timezone America/Chicago Update the Hardware clock: hwclock --systohc Set your hostname and configure hosts echo myhostname > /etc/hostname Update /etc/hosts with the following: 127.0.0.1 localhost ::1 localhost 127.0.1.1 myhostname.localdomain myhostname Set the root password passwd Let’s enable the network If you don’t do this before your reboot you won’t have internet connection pacman -S networkmanager systemctl enable NetworkManager Install boot manager and other needed packages: pacman -S grub efibootmgr dosfstools openssh os-prober mtools linux-headers linux-lts linux-lts-headers Set locale: sed -i 's/#en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/g' /etc/locale.gen (uncomment en_US.UTF-8) locale-gen Enable root login via SSH: sed -i 's/#PermitRootLogin prohibit-password/PermitRootLogin yes/g' /etc/ssh/sshd_config systemctl enable sshd.service passwd (for changing the root password) Create EFI boot directory: mkdir /boot/EFI mount /dev/sda1 /boot/EFI Install GRUB on EFI mode: grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=grub_uefi --recheck Setup locale for GRUB: cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo Write GRUB config: grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg Create swap file: fallocate -l 2G /swapfile chmod 600 /swapfile mkswap /swapfile echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | tee -a /etc/fstab Exit, unmount and reboot: exit umount -a reboot Thanks for visiting!