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10 min read

Artix Linux install guide

Table of Contents

Introduction

The goal of this guide is to set up a minimal installation of Artix Linux with OpenRC as an init system and full disk encryption on an UEFI or BIOS system. This guide is meant to be read alongside the wiki’s.

Acquire an installation image

  1. Go to the downloads page https://artixlinux.org/download.php
  2. Scroll down to the Official ISO images section.
  3. Under the base section, download the file starting with artix-base-openrc and ending with .iso

Prepare an installation medium

Windows

Use Rufus, here is a guide if you need it.

Linux

  1. Insert a USB flash drive into your PC with at least 2 GB of space available on it.
  2. Find the corresponding block device for the flash drive in /dev folder. Usually it is /dev/sdb.
  3. Burn the image to the flash drive (assuming your flash drive is /dev/sdb and that your terminal is opened in the directory of the image)
sudo dd bs=4M if=./artix-base-openrc-YYYY.MM.DD-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdb conv=fsync oflag=direct status=progress

Boot the live environment

Info

Artix Linux installation images do not support Secure Boot. You will need to disable Secure Boot to boot the installation medium.

  1. Power off your PC.
  2. Insert the flash drive into the computer on which you are installing Artix Linux.
  3. Power on your PC and press boot menu key.
  4. Boot the installation medium.

Enter the live environment

Login with the default credentials.

  • Username: root
  • Password: artix

Connect to the internet

Via Ethernet

Connect the computer via an Ethernet cable

Via WiFi

Note

When encountering a code block as below throughout this guide, execute the commands within it directly in the terminal.

sudo rfkill unblock wifi
sudo ip link set wlan0 up
connmanctl
Tip

Network names can be tab-completed.

agent on
scan wifi
services
Example

connect wifi_dc85de828967_38303944616e69656c73_managed_psk

connect {WiFi name} 
quit

Verify internet connectivity

Check for internet

ping artixlinux.org

Update the system clock

Activate the NTP daemon to synchronize the computer’s real-time clock:

rc-service ntpd start

Partition the disk

  1. Install gdisk.
pacman -Sy gdisk
  1. Partition your drive. You can find your drive name using the lsblk command.
Note

I will be using nvme0n1 as my drive throughout this guide, please adapt it to your disk name. If you have an hdd, your drive name may ressemble something like sda.

gdisk /dev/nvme0n1
  1. Delete any existing partitions
Command (m for help): d
  1. Create a boot partition
Command (m for help): n
Partition number (1-128, default 1):
First sector (...):
Last sector (...): +512M
Hex code or GUID (...): ef00
  1. Create a root partition
Command (m for help): n
Partition number (2-128, default 1):
First sector (...):
Last sector (...):
Hex code or GUID (...): 8300
  1. Save the changes
Command (m for help): w
Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
  1. Verify partitioning
lsblk
Note

It should look something like this:

NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1     259:0    0 465,8G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   512M  0 part
└─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0 465,3G  0 part

Encrypt root partition

  1. Encrypt your root partition.
Tip

Make sure to to enter a secure passphrase and to write it down in a secure place as you will not be able to change it later

cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/nvme0n1p2
Are you sure (Type `yes` in capital letters): YES
  1. Open the encrypted partition
cryptsetup open /dev/nvme0n1p2 root

Create file systems

  1. Create the boot file system
mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1
  1. Create the root file system
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/root

Mount file systems

  1. Mount the root file system
mount /dev/mapper/root /mnt
  1. Mount the boot file system
mount -m /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot
  1. Verify mounting
lsblk
Note

It should look something like this:

NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1     259:0    0 465,8G  0 disk  
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   512M  0 part  /mnt/boot
└─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0 465,3G  0 part  
  └─root    254:0    0 465,2G  0 crypt /mnt

Install Essentials

Install the base system, kernel, init system and other essential packages.

basestrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware openrc elogind-openrc cryptsetup cryptsetup-openrc efibootmgr doas nano
Note

Install AMD or Intel microcode, depending on your system’s CPU

AMD CPU

Install AMD CPU microcode updates

basestrap /mnt amd-ucode

Intel CPU

Install Intel CPU microcode updates

basestrap /mnt intel-ucode

Generate File System Table

fstabgen -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Switch to New Installation

artix-chroot /mnt bash

Network stack

pacman -S wpa_supplicant networkmanager networkmanager-openrc iwd iwd-openrc
rc-update add NetworkManager
rc-update add iwd

cat << EOF >> /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf
[device]
wifi.backend=iwd
EOF

MAC randomization

Info

MAC randomization can be used for increased privacy by not disclosing your real MAC address to the WiFi network.

cat << EOF >> /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/00-macrandomize.conf
[device-mac-randomization]
wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=yes

[connection-mac-randomization]
ethernet.cloned-mac-address=random
wifi.cloned-mac-address=random
EOF

Localization

Set the locale

Note

Feel free to change en_DK.UTF-8 to your preferred locale such as en_US.UTF-8 or en_GB.UTF-8

  1. Un-comment en_DK.UTF-8
nano /etc/locale.gen
  1. Generate locales.
locale-gen
echo 'LANG=en_DK.UTF-8' > /etc/locale.conf

Set the time zone

Example

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Toronto /etc/localtime

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime

Set hardware clock from system clock

hwclock --systohc

Hostname and Host

Note

Change artix to your desired hostname in all of the following commands

echo 'artix' > /etc/hostname
  1. Edit /etc/conf.d/hostname
nano /etc/conf.d/hostname

  1. Replace hostname="localhost" with hostname="artix"

  2. Edit /etc/hosts

nano /etc/hosts
  1. Add the following:
127.0.0.1     localhost
::1           localhost
127.0.1.1     artix.localdomain        artix

Initramfs

  1. Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
  1. In the HOOKS array, add encrypt between block and filesystems
Note

It should look something like this:

HOOKS=(base udev autodetect microcode modconf kms keyboard keymap consolefont block encrypt filesystems fsck)
  1. Run this
mkinitcpio -P

Add a user

  1. Set the root password.
passwd
  1. Create a user and set his password.
Tip

Change artix to your desired username

useradd -m artix
passwd artix

Configure doas

  1. Create the config file.
touch /etc/doas.conf
chown -c root:root /etc/doas.conf
chmod -c 0400 /etc/doas.conf
  1. Edit /etc/doas.conf
nano /etc/doas.conf
  1. Add the following:
permit artix as root
permit nopass artix as root cmd pacman

Boot Loader

Check for UEFI support

Tip

If you see a bunch of files listed, use EFISTUB. If you do not see a bunch of files listed, your system does not support UEFI and you should use GRUB.

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

EFISTUB

  1. Get the UUID of your root partition.
blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/nvme0n1p2
  1. Create a boot entry where xxxx is the UUID that you obtained earlier.
Tip

Replace xxxx with the UUID that you obtained earlier. Replace intel-ucode.img with amd-ucode.img if you have an AMD CPU

efibootmgr -c -d /dev/nvme0n1 -p 1 -l /vmlinuz-linux -L "Artix" -u "cryptdevice=UUID=xxxx:root root=/dev/mapper/root rw initrd=\intel-ucode.img initrd=\initramfs-linux.img loglevel=3 quiet"

GRUB

  1. Install grub on your boot partition
pacman -S grub
grub-install /dev/sda
  1. Get the UUID of your root partition.
blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/nvme0n1p2
  1. Edit /etc/default/grub
nano /etc/default/grub
  1. Add the following to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line, where xxxx is the UUID that you obtained earlier.
cryptdevice=UUID=xxxx:root root=/dev/mapper/root
Note

It should look something like this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="cryptdevice=UUID=550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000:root root=/dev/mapper/root"

  1. Un-comment #GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y

  2. Generate the config file.

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Reboot

  1. You can reboot and enter into your new installation.
exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot now
Note

Unplug your flash drive after the screen turns black.

Post install

You will now be greeted with a similar screen as when you first booted from the flash drive. Login using the credentials that you set, if you followed the example your username would be artix.

Add arch repositories and sort for fastest mirrors

Add arch extra repository

  1. Install packages
doas pacman -Syu artix-archlinux-support curl
doas pacman-key --populate archlinux
doas sh -c "curl https://archlinux.org/mirrorlist/all -o /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch"
  1. Edit /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch
doas nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch

  1. Un-comment the first server entries under the worldwide section

  2. Edit /etc/pacman.conf

doas nano /etc/pacman.conf
  1. Add the following to the bottom of the file
##Arch
[extra]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch

##[multilib]
##Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch

Sort for fastest mirrors

doas pacman -Syu reflector pacman-contrib
doas reflector --verbose -p https -l 30 -f 5 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch
doas sh -c "curl https://gitea.artixlinux.org/packages/artix-mirrorlist/raw/branch/master/mirrorlist -o /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.bak"
doas sh -c "rankmirrors -v -n 5 /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.bak > /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist"

AUR

Install Paru

doas pacman -S --needed base-devel
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/paru.git
cd paru
makepkg -si
cd ..
rm -rf paru

Replace sudo with doas

doas pacman -Rdd sudo
doas ln -s /usr/bin/doas /usr/bin/sudo

Laptop power profiles

Install and enable the powerprofiles daemon

doas pacman -S power-profiles-daemon power-profiles-daemon-openrc
doas rc-update add power-profiles-daemon
doas rc-service power-profiles-daemon start

Add swap

doas fallocate -l 4G /swapfile
doas chmod 600 /swapfile
daos mkswap /swapfile
doas swapon /swapfile
doas cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | doas tee -a /etc/fstab

Auto-mount an external LUKS encrypted drive

doas fdisk /dev/sdb
>g, n, w

doas cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdb1
doas cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdb1 hdd1
doas mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/hdd1
doas mkdir /mnt/hdd1
doas mount /dev/mapper/hdd1 /mnt/hdd1
doas chown vega:vega /mnt/hdd1
doas dd if=/dev/urandom of=/root/keyfile_hdd1 bs=512 count=4
doas chmod 0400 /root/keyfile_hdd1
doas cryptsetup luksAddKey /dev/sdb1 /root/keyfile_hdd1
UUID=$(doas blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/sdb1)

doas sh -c "cat << EOF >> /etc/conf.d/dmcrypt
target=hdd1
source=UUID='$UUID'
key=/root/keyfile_hdd1
wait=2
EOF"

doas rc-update add dmcrypt boot
doas reboot