This is my walkthrough for how I installed Arch Linux on LVM with encryption, utilizing KDE Plasma as the desktop environment.

This repository includes additional documents pertaining to:

• General Maintenance
• LVM
• Windows 10

Documents within these areas of interest are listed in the Additional Information section of the Table of Contents.

SweatyHands is a work in progress and will be continually updated as I become more familiar with Arch.

• Installation
  • Stage 1
    • Clear Existing Partitions
    • Create New Partitions
    • Make Filesystems for EFI and Boot Partitions
    • Encrypt and Make Filesystem for the LVM
    • Mount Volumes (ALL EXCEPT EFI)
    • Get a Network Connection (Wireless Connection)
    • Edit Mirror List
    • Install base Package
    • Generate and Check fstab File
    • Access In-Progress Installation
  • Stage 2
    • Install Additional Essential Linux packages
    • IMPORTANT: Edit mkinitcpio.conf File
    • Set Timezone and Hardware Clock
    • Set Locale
    • Edit /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname
    • Set Root Password
    • Create Users
    • Configure GRUB
    • Create SWAPFILE
    • Configure KDE Plasma
  • Stage 3
• Additional Information
  • General Maintenance
    • How to Upgrade and Not Break Your Entire Install
    • If You Broke Everything
  • LVM
    • Extending LVM Partitions and LVM Snapshots
  • Windows 10
    • Converting from a full Linux install to Windows 10
    • Dual Boot Windows 10 and Arch Linux

All steps are listed in the order I followed to set up Arch.

All steps are done in the live boot environment.

• $ fdisk -l
• Find disk path (probably /dev/sda/ on hard drives)
• $ fdisk /dev/sda
• Use option d to delete partition, select partition number
  • Repeat until all existing partitions are deleted
  • Use option p to list pending changes to system throughout process
• Use option w to write changes

• The order of my partitions, including partition path, purpose, type, and their corresponding sizes:

  • Partition Path	Partition Purpose	Partition Type	Size
    /dev/sda1	EFI	EFI	512MB
    /dev/sda2	boot	Linux Filesystem	512MB
    /dev/sda3	LVM ( /, /home, swapfile)	LVM	Remaining disk

• $ fdisk /dev/sda
• Use option n to create new partitions.
  • fdisk knows how to number partitions, you can leave it at its default when selecting partition number
  • First sector: enter through
  • Last sector: ex. +512M to make a 512MB partition
    • Simply enter through first and last sector fields if you want to make a partition from the remaining disk space
  • If prompted to remove existing filesystem signature, y
  • Use option t to set partition type
    • EFI option number: 1
    • Linux filesystem option number: 20. It is also the default so entering through would set this as the partition type
    • Linux LVM option number: 30

• For /dev/sda1 (EFI)
  • $ mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
• For /dev/sda2 (boot)
  • $ mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

• $ cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda3
• "Are you sure?" Well, yeah. So type YES
• Enter and re-enter passphrase for encrypted partition
• Open encrypted partition
  • $ cryptsetup open /dev/sda3 lvm to open partition as "lvm"
• Create physical volume
  • $ pvcreate --dataalignment 1m /dev/mapper/lvm
• Create volume group
  • $ vgcreate volgroup0 /dev/mapper/lvm to create volume group "volgroup0"
• Create logical volumes
  • Create / (root)
    • $ lvcreate -L 32GB volgroup0 -n lv_root to create logical volume of size 32GB with the name "lv_root"
  • Create /home
    • $ lvcreate -l 100%FREE volgroup0 -n lv_home to use the rest of disk with the name "lv_home"
• Make filesystem for LVM groups
  • For / (root)
    • $ mkfs.ext4 /dev/volgroup0/lv_root
  • For /home
    • $ mkfs.ext4 /dev/volgroup0/lv_home

• $ mount /dev/volgroup0/lv_root /mnt to mount .../lv_root to /mnt
• Create directory in /mnt to mount /home: $ mkdir /mnt/home
• $ mount /dev/volgroup0/lv_home /mnt/home
• Create directory for boot: $ mkdir /mnt/boot
• $ mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot
• $ mkdir /mnt/etc for later use

• $ ip a or $ ip link to get wireless interface name
• $ wifi-menu INTERFACE_NAME to scan for networks with the interface. Edit the name for the new profile if you want.
• $ ping A_WEBSITE to check connection

• $ nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist and move United States mirrors to the top of the list. Pacman prioritizes mirrors at the top of the list, so this would result in a faster download speed.

• $ pacstrap -i /mnt base

• $ genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab to generate and store the fstab file in /mnt/etc/fstab
• $ cat /mnt/etc/fstab and you should see three partitions listed in the file

• $ arch-chroot /mnt
• You can now do the following steps in any order you'd like

All steps are done in the chroot environment.

• $ pacman -S base-devel lvm2 linux-firmware man-db man-pages texinfo linux linux-lts linux-headers linux-lts-headers networkmanager wpa_supplicant wireless_tools netctl dialog mesa grub efibootmgr dosfstools os-prober mtools xorg-server plasma-meta kde-applications intel-ucode nano
  • lvm2 - CRITICAL PACKAGE. Required to boot LVM
  • linux and linux-lts gives us kernel options
  • linux-headers and linux-lts-headers are optional, but recommended
  • netctl is optional. MAY CONFLICT WITH networkmanager
  • mesa - graphics; provides the DRI driver for 3D acceleration
  • grub efibootmgr dosfstools os-prober mtools - necessary packages to install GRUB
  • plasma-meta kde-applications - installing KDE Plasma as desktop environment
  • intel-ucode - microcode for Intel cpu; or amd-ucode for AMD processors

• $ nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf. The file controls modules and scripts added to the image as well as what happens at boot time.
• Find HOOKS=(base udev autodetect ...) line
  • Add "encrypt lvm2" between "block" and "filesystems". ORDER IS IMPORTANT
• $ mkinitcpio -p linux and $ mkinitcpio -p linux-lts if both were installed. You only need to run it against whichever linux package was installed.

• $ ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Detroit /etc/localtime
• $ hwclock --systohc to set hardware clock to UTC

• $ nano /etc/locale.gen
  • Uncomment lines that start with "en_US" for United States
• $ locale-gen

• Add these lines in hosts

  • 127.0.0.1   localhost
    ::1         localhost
    127.0.1.1   arch.localdomain  arch
    

• Add this to hostname
  • arch

• $ passwd

• $ useradd -m -g users -G wheel NAME to create user of NAME in groups users and wheel
• Set password for user $ passwd NAME
• Make user admin
  • Check sudo $ which sudo. If DNE, $ pacman -S sudo
  • Configure sudo. Create env variable and edit sudo settings $ EDITOR=nano visudo
    • Uncomment line that starts with "%wheel ALL" to give users of group wheel permission to execute any command
• Repeat and assign privileges as needed.

• $ nano /etc/default/grub
• Uncomment "GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y"
• Edit line "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT"
  • Add "cryptdevice=/dev/sda3:volgroup0:allow-discards" between "loglevel=3" and "quiet"
    • CRITICAL. DO NOT **** UP.
• $ mkdir /boot/EFI
• Finally mount the EFI partition $ mount /dev/sda1 /boot/EFI
• $ grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=grub_uefi --recheck
• $ mkdir /boot/grub/locale
• $ cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo
• $ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

• SWAPFILE vs Swap Partition: Can resize at any time whereas resizing a swap partition would be troublesome and risky for system integrity
• $ fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
• $ chmod 600 /swapfile
• $ mkswap /swapfile
• Add SWAPFILE to fstab so that swapfile is initialized during each boot
  • Optional but recommended: make a backup of existing fstab file $ cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.backup
  • Add SWAPFILE to fstab $ echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | tee -a /etc/fstab to append line to fstab file
• $ cat /etc/fstab to check if SWAPFILE was added correctly

• This assumes you've already installed packages plasma-meta and kde-applications
• $ systemctl enable sddm
• $ systemctl enable NetworkManager

Reboot and Pray to God You Didn't **** Something Up