Arch Linux Base Installation - Supplemental Steps
The Arch Linux Wiki does a fantastic job of describing the essential steps to install Arch Linux to the point of having a working, base installation. However, it misses out a few steps necessary to get to a functional, networked installation.
This post extends the official Arch Linux Installation Guide with a few extra steps necessary to get networking and user permissions up and running.
What’s missing from the Arch Installation Wiki?
After you’ve completed the Arch Linux Installation Guide, don’t reboot yet. There are some extra steps to take to simplify your next boot into Arch base install.
Common packages
Needed for next steps.
pacman -S vim sudo grub dhcpcd
Networking
When you reboot after completing installation according to the Wiki, you will have no internet connection. This is because, by default, DHCP is not enabled.
Non root user is not installed / granted permissions.
Essential Extra Steps for Arch Linux Base
Networking
By default, DHCP is not enabled.
Enable as follows:
systemctl enable dhcpcd
Non root user
This step may not apply to you if you choose to run Arch as root (not recommended).
useradd -m {yourusername}
passwd {yourusername}
usermod -aG wheel,audio,video,optical,storage {yourusername}
Add non root user to sudoers
visudo
Uncomment the line that starts with ‘%wheel …’ as follows:
## Uncomment to allow members of the group wheel to execute any command
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
GRUB boot loader
This is documented in the Arch Wiki, but not on the main installation guide page.
Included here for completeness.
grub-install /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Reboot
Now go ahead and reboot for an installation that has working networking and a non-root user enabled. Don’t forget to remove the installation media before doing so!
