Operating Systems. Part 3 — “Installing Arch Linux” 🚀¶

In the previous episodes we conjured a USB with Arch (or a full Ventoy multi‑boot) and poked a bit of fun at the “GUI‑only” cult 😏

Time to install the best OS of all time, made by humans for humans. Yep, I mean Arch 🖤🐧

🧭 Plan¶

Prepare the media and check the network.
Update archinstall in the live environment (it’s often outdated on the ISO).
Walk through the installer: disks, btrfs, bootloader, profile, packages.
Reboot and make GRUB see Windows.

Along the way — screenshots and author commentary, with my signature grumbling here and there 🙃

🖥️ Preparation¶

Write the Arch Linux ISO with archinstall. I’m using Ventoy with a bunch of ISOs (and yeah, two pieces of junk — Windows 10 and 11 — are lying nearby; useful for dual‑boot).
If you need dual‑boot, install Windows first — fewer headaches.
In Windows, open Disk Management and shrink a partition to free space for Arch. If Arch goes to a separate SSD, just leave it empty.
Windows must be GPT (not MBR)! If you’re on MBR — convert to GPT:
```
mbr2gpt /convert /allowFullOS
```
Check BitLocker / Device Encryption. Either disable it, or write down the 48‑digit recovery key and keep it handy (like on paper). Otherwise there’s a good chance the bootloader gets locked after installing Arch 🤡
Boot from the USB: pick the USB device in BIOS/UEFI → land in the live environment.
archinstall is the official semi‑automated installer for Arch. Sure, you can do it the “proper” manual way — even with a single command — but I’m not a masochist (though after >10 installs, the temptation is real).

Check the network:

ping -c 3 8.8.8.8

If wired works — nice. For Wi‑Fi, hook up via iwctl:

iwctl
station wlan0 scan
station wlan0 get-networks
station wlan0 connect "MyWiFi" --passphrase "supersecret"
exit

Ping

pacman keys (just in case) — initialize and populate:
```
pacman -Sy archlinux-keyring
pacman-key --init
pacman-key --populate archlinux
```
Without valid keys, packages won’t install. No packages — no joy 🙂
Update archinstall (the ISO version is often ancient):
```
pacman -Sy archinstall
```
Old versions love to pull non‑existent packages — and you learn that at the very end of install. Who needs that? 😑
Start the installer:
```
archinstall
```

⚙️ Installation with archinstall¶

Installer language — keep English.
Locales — for now, only en_US.UTF-8. We’ll add Russian after install.
Mirrors — pick a region close to you (I used to choose /Russia).
Disk configuration — this is where lives can be ruined. Scenarios:
- Arch only on the disk → Best‑effort default partitioning.
- Two disks (Windows and Arch separate) → choose the empty disk → Best‑effort.
- Single disk dual‑boot → shrink Windows beforehand → in the installer use free space → Manual Partitioning → create the required partitions manually.
For a btrfs setup:
- /boot — at least 1 GB (not 100 MB, please!)
- btrfs subvolumes:
  - @ → /
  - @home → /home
  - @log → /var/log
  - @pkg → /var/cache/pacman/pkg
  - @.snapshots → /.snapshots
The screenshot shows the empty Kingston SSD. Hit Suggest partition layout.

Filesystem: btrfs. I’ve been on it for a long time and I’m happy. Theory and tuning will be a separate post. CoW is disabled.

You’ll end up with something like this:

⚠️ This is the trickiest step. It used to ruin installs for me or nuke Windows. Be attentive — read what the installer says.
Disk encryption — optional. I leave it off.
Swap — enable it. Detailed swap/hibernation tuning — later.
Bootloader:
- If Arch is the only OS — use systemd-boot.
- If it’s dual‑boot — GRUB, period. You can tweak systemd-boot for dual‑boot, but I’m not eager (burned a whole day — unsuccessfully 😅).
Hostname — anything pleasant. That’s your machine’s name on the network.
Authentication — set the root password, create a regular user and grant sudo (archinstall has an option for that). On Linux we work as user, and use privileges consciously.
Profile — your initial system selection:
- Desktop → Hyprland (my choice).
- Polkit or seatd — I pick polkit.
- Graphics driver — All open‑source (light side of the Force).
- Greeter — ly (minimalistic).
Applications → Audio → PipeWire — choose it, not pulseaudio (that one’s retired and used to act up for me).

Bluetooth — optional, can be configured later.
Kernels — I prefer linux-zen over linux.
Network configuration — “Copy ISO network configuration to installation”. That’s why we checked internet early on.
Additional packages — I add vim to test (because of course).
Timezone — UTC is fine (we’ll align Windows/Arch time later).
NTP (Automatic time sync) — Enabled. Sometimes networks act up and NTP fails — I never figured out why. Try a different Wi‑Fi if needed.
Install → Yes and pray to Linus Torvalds.

The disk will be formatted, packages will fly by. Took me 10–30 minutes depending on bandwidth and SSD.
If something crashes (and archinstall is Python, so it happens), read the logs — the installer will offer a command to upload logs and give you a link. Open it in a browser and analyze.
Done! You can chroot into the installed system right from the installer, drop back to live, or simply reboot. UEFI will have a UEFI OS entry — pick that.

🧰 After reboot: fix GRUB and Windows¶

Boot up. You see GRUB, but only Arch in the menu. Okay, let’s fix it.
Log in (ly → user/password). You’ll land in default Hyprland. At the top — a bunch of config errors… it’s fine, we’ll sort it out in the next part. For now, the goal is to bring Windows back to the GRUB menu.
Update the system (just in case):
```
sudo pacman -Syu
```

Install and configure os-prober:

sudo pacman -S os-prober
sudo os-prober                 # verify it detects Windows
sudo sed -i 's/^#\?GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=.*/GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false/' /etc/default/grub
sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Here it should pick up the Windows bootloader.

Reboot:
```
sudo reboot now
```
Check GRUB — choose Windows. If it starts — victory 🎉

Result¶

With archinstall, the setup goes briskly and without voodoo — as long as you’re careful with disks and the bootloader. This guide comes after ~10 Arch installs 😅 (too much pain to fit here) — there were plenty of hiccups, but now you’ve got a beaten path to follow.

I’ve tried Debian, ElementaryOS, Fedora (meh), Ubuntu (meh ×2), i3, GNOME (nope), KDE (also nope). I settled on Arch + Hyprland (via HyDE) — the simplest and most convenient for me. I’m planning to try NixOS (brain‑melter) and CacheOS (Arch‑based).

Thanks for reading! May Arch be with you! ✌️ :3

Next up¶

In the next article: post‑install Arch Linux setup — software, Hyprland, fonts, layouts, dotfiles.