In this post we will be going over how to setup a fast & minimal Arch Linux OS with i3 window manager.
Download Arch ISO
Go ahead & download the .ISO file from Arch Downloads.
Create a Bootable USB drive
Burn the .ISO file to a USB drive (>= 4GB) by using any of the below tools :
Boot from USB drive
- Insert the USB drive.
- Restart the computer.
- Press F12 or DEL (Depending on how to access boot menu).
- Select your USB drive from the list.
Now you will be greeted with a screen like this :
Select the first option by pressing enter
.
Install the OS
After some loading, a console will be shown like this :
From here our installation process will start.
- Go ahead and type
archinstall
in the console. - Now you be asked to select a keyboard language. You have to type the number which is shown prepended in each language name. For me it's
us
which is English so, I will type26
. - Now you have to select a region to download packages from. If your region is not listed then you can type
52
for worldwide. For me it's16
for India. - This one is an important part of installation. You have to select a drive where you want to install the system. It is recommend to use the largest drive available to do a clean install of the system. But again you could create the partition anyway you like. For me
1
which isdev/sda
is the main hard drive. - After the partition stuff done, You have to choose a fire system format. I am most comfortable with
ext4
so I will type1
. - You can now setup encryption if you like. In my case I will just leave it blank for no encryption.
- Now, create a hostname you like. I will just type
myarch
. - Type a password for the hostname. For me it is
******
. - Now create your first user by the same process. When asked if it should be superuser type
y
. - Now it will ask you to select a predefined profile. Here we want to install i3 so we will select
0
which isdesktop
. - Type
6
for thei3
window manager. - When asked to choose between
i3-wm
&i3-gaps
, you can choose anyone you like. I will go withi3-gaps
. - Now you have to select drivers for the system. I recommend going with
1
which installs all open-source drivers. But if you are on Nvidia, Go for3
. - You can select any audio drive you like. I will just go with
pipewire
. - You can now select a kernel. The default is fine for most users so just press
enter
. - When asked to install additional packages just type
enter
as you can always install then after. - Now choose a network manager to configure, I type
1
which is NetworkManager. - Select your timezone. UTC is fine for me so I just press
enter
. - I want to sync to NTP so now I will type
y
. - Press
enter
to continue.
Now it will take some time to install & setup all the things. So go grab a tea.
- It will now ask to manually check the installation. You can type
n
for decline. - Now when you are back to console you have to restart. Type
shutdown -r 0
in the terminal to restart. - Remove the pen drive and boot normally.
- You will see a GRUB screen. Select
Arch Linux
and pressenter
. - You will now see a login screen. Type your password and login.
On first load i3 will ask you to make a default config. Press enter
.
Now you will see a screen like this :
Ending
You can now launch a terminal by pressing super + enter
.
Find more about default i3 key bindings here.
This was my first post, I hope you found it helpful. π
Top comments (1)
Hi there!
So I did archinstall with i3gaps as well!!!
But can you pls make a post about what to do next? Or general suggestions to what to do next