BEFORE YOU CAN DO ANYTHING you’ll want to start the ISO downloading for the Arch Linux install image. Head to www. archlinux.org/download and grab one of the torrents, or else scroll down to one of the localized mirrors.
Best practice is to run an integrity check on the download file—this ensures that it’s downloaded correctly but also that no one has interfered with the stored file. Technically the ISO file and checksum hash should be stored on different systems, so it’s harder to compromise both.
The easiest way is to use a hasher, such as IgorWare Hasher (www.igorware.com/hasher) for Windows types, load the ISO file and click “Calculate.” The generated SHA-1 and MD5 hash should match that on the Arch Linux download page. You can copy and paste it to save you reading a long hexadecimal number.
If you’re thinking of installing this onto a real PC then you’ll need to burn the ISO to a CD/DVD (remember those things) or more likely use Etcher.io to write it to a USB stick. Reboot your system, and activate its boot menu via the correct function key, usually one of F2, F10, or F12 to boot your PC from the USB device.
We’re going to opt for the sensible angle of installing using a VirtualBox.org. Create a new 64-bit machine, ideally with 4GB of memory, but 2GB or even 1GB is fine. Set a hard drive of at least 20GB, ICH9 chipset, VMSVGA graphics, 3D acceleration won’t hurt. Point the optical drive at the Arch ISO image and fire it up.
At the Arch Grub—remember that?—boot menu choose the top option to kick off installation. Typically you’d first set your keyboard mapping so you can type in stuff—as it defaults to the US, we’re all good. If you need to, list the available keyboards (there are a lot, you probably want the /qwerty/ folder) with:
ls /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gz | more
And activate the one you want with loadkeys <keymapname> for example: loadkeys uk
We should also check what type of firmware the PC is using, EFI or BIOS/CSM. To see if the EFI folder exists, type: ls /sys/ firmware/efi/efivars
If it does exist you’re on an EFI system, if not it’s the old BIOS. This changes the partition layout required. If you were expecting something different you’ll need to check your UEFI settings—for our VirtualBox it’s using the old BIOS by default. If you want, you can create VirtualBox machines running EFI.
To run updates, the system will need an active network connection. For VirtualBox systems and most PCs with a wired Ethernet connection this’ll just be up and running, and the DHCP will be active. You can test it via: ip link and: ping archlinux.org