Introduction

Installing Arch linux with GPT, dm-crypt, LUKS, LVM and systemd-boot. I cannot recommend to use the archlinux installer until it is currently too buggy to make a nice disk setup with encryption.

USB media

Create a bootable USB stick:

dd if=~/Downloads/archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdx status=progress

Boot into USB stick

Wifi

Configure Wifi with ìwd

I used to the following command to connect to my AP:

iwd
[iwd]# station <dev> connect <SSID>

Disk setup

Part your disk using gdisk, use a GPT partition layout. It is a dual boot with a Windows 10 (/dev/nvme0n1p{1,2,3} are Windows partitions)

We need two partitions, one for the boot partition and one for the encrypted LVM partition (/ and /home and for swap) I use 120 MB for /boot (/dev/nvme0n1p5) and the rest of the free space for the second partition (/dev/nvme0n1p6)

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 476.94 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: KPART512GBC2DVT                         
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 878C49A4-61B1-459B-A6DA-925729098BBC

Device             Start        End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1      2048     206847    204800   100M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2    206848     239615     32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p3    239616  203532287 203292672  96.9G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p4 203532288  204799999   1267712   619M Windows recovery environment
/dev/nvme0n1p5 204800000  205045759    245760   120M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p6 205045760 1000214527 795168768 379.2G unknown

LUKS/LVM setup

cryptsetup -v luksFormat /dev/nvme0n1p6
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/nvme0n1p6 luks

pvcreate /dev/mapper/luks
vgcreate vg00 /dev/mapper/luks
lvcreate -L 4G vg00 -n swap
lvcreate -l 40G vg00 -n root
lvcreate -l +100%FREE vg00 -n home

Format /boot, /, /home partitions + swap

mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg00-root
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg00-home

mount /dev/mapper/vg00-root /mnt
mount /dev/mapper/vg00-home /mnt/home

mkswap /dev/mapper/vg00-swap
swapon /dev/mapper/vg00-swap

mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p5
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/nvme0n1p5 /mnt/boot

Base system setup

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware sudo zsh sudo networkmanager

Create /etc/fstab

genfstab -pU /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

cat /mnt/etc/fstab

# Static information about the filesystems.
# See fstab(5) for details.

# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

# UUID=df14e7e7-a944-4d7a-817b-24a1fb5c1fc1
/dev/mapper/vg0-root    /               ext4            rw,relatime     0 1

# UUID=e7560a43-c721-4016-bec1-00f9dcd6face
/dev/mapper/vg0-home    /home           ext4            rw,relatime     0 2

# UUID=43A4-190D
/dev/nvme0n1p5          /boot           vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro   0 2

# UUID=586c161a-0afe-4843-9f47-2a23fc97740a
/dev/mapper/vg0-swap    none            swap            defaults        0 0

You may use noattime instead of relatime if you use SSD

Chrooting into new system

Preparation

arch-chroot /mnt
timedatectl set-ntp true
timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Berlin
hostnamectl set-hostname matebook

# Root pw
passwd

# User setup ("bh")
useradd -m -G wheel -s /usr/bin/zsh bh
passwd bh

# Locales
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
locale-gen

Adjust /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

[...]
# The order of the hooks is very important
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect keyboard keymap consolefont modconf block encrypt lvm2 resume filesystems fsck)

Install and setup bootloader

bootctl --path=/boot install

Create /boot/loader/entries/archlinux.conf

title	Arch Linux
linux	/vmlinuz-linux
initrd	/initramfs-linux.img
options cryptdevice=UUID=<PARTUUID>:lvm:allow-discards resume=/dev/mapper/vg00-swap root=/dev/mapper/vg00-root rw quiet splash

Replace <PARTUUID> with the UUID of root partition: df14e7e7-a944-4d7a-817b-24a1fb5c1fc1

Edit /boot/loader/loader.conf

timeout 5
default archlinux
editor 0
# HiDPI stuff
console-mode max

Post Setup

mkinitcpio -p linux

Leave chroot and reboot

exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot

Post Install

Some packages I hat to install:

Video

  • yay -S xf86-video-intel

For hardware acceleration

  • yay -S libvdpau-va-gl
  • yay -S intel-media-driver

Adjust /etc/environment:

LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=iHD
VDPAU_DRIVER=va_gl

Sound

  • yay -S sof-firmware

CPU

For the latest microcode updates

  • yay -S intel-ucode

Adjust /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf:

[...]
initrd /intel-ucode.img
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
[...]

SSD

Don't use discard in /etc/fstab.

Instead use:

sudo systemctl enable fstrim.timer
sudo systemctl start fstrim.timer

Fingerprint reader

Currently not supported

lsusb

Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 05c8:03f1 Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co., Ltd (Foxlink) HD Camera
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 27c6:5125 Shenzhen Goodix Technology Co.,Ltd. Goodix Fingerprint Device 
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 8087:0026 Intel Corp. AX201 Bluetooth
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub