Booting the installation medium

ATTENTION: The Arch Linux installation medium does not support Secure Boot. You will have to disable it to start the installation.

Point your system's current boot device to the USB flash drive plugged into one of the USB ports on your computer. This usually involves pressing a key during POST; F8, F12, TAB, etc. Refer to on screen instructions after turning on your computer or its manual for the exact key to press.

Once the GRUB boot manager comes up select the Arch installer medium option to be presented with the installation environment. You'll be logged in as root at a Zsh prompt.

Setting the correct keyboard layout

The default keyboard layout is US. To list all available keyboard layouts:

NOTE: You can filter the output by "piping" it to grep, i.e. localectl list-keymaps | grep your search string.

lslocalectl /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/**/*.map.gzlist-keymaps

To change the keyboard layout pass theits filenamename to loadkeys. withoutFor theexample pathto andset filea extension,German e.g.keyboard German:layout:

loadkeys de-latin1

Verify boot mode

To verify the current boot modemode, listcheck the efivarsbitness of the system:UEFI in sysfs:

lscat /sys/firmware/efi/efivarsfw_platform_size

IfIdeally, therethis isshould outputreturn the64, system is running inindicating UEFI 64-bit mode. If it isreturns empty32 the system iswas running in BIOS/CSM mode. Modern systems from the last 10 years should be able to bootbooted in UEFI 32-bit mode; while this shouldn't be an issue, it limits the choice of compatible boot loaders later on. However, if the file does not exist, this indicates the system was not booted in UEFI mode, but in BIOS or CSM mode (Compatibility Support Module, UEFI emulating an old BIOS).

The preferred mode of operation is 64-bit UEFI. Consult your PC's or mainboard's manual on how to disable CSM if BIOS compatibility is not a requirement.

 NOTE: UEFI has seen mainstream adoption since the introduction of Windows 8 in 2012 and shouldis bea preferred.base requirement for certification from Microsoft, so PCs sold after that date are sure to support 64-bit UEFI.

Establish a network connection

To verify network devices are actually available list them with ip:

ip link

It should produce a list of network interfaces with IDs like enp39s0, eth0, wlan0, etc.

Ethernet

To connect to a network simply connect the LAN cable for a wired network connection.

Wi-Fi

NOTE: wlan0 is used as the example device in this section. If your device is named differently, adjust accordingly.

For WiFiWi-Fi connections use iwctl. To list available WiFi devices:

To



found.Tolist networks:

To connecto to a network:

# $DEV  : the identifier of the
apassphraseyou
Command
Description
iwctl device list
List available Wi-Fi devices
iwctl station wlan0 scan
Use device wlan0 to scan for availablenearby networks:
Wi-Fi 
networks
# $DEV  : the identifier of the device to use

iwctl station $DEVwlan0 scanget-networks
Use device wlan0 
This will not output ato list ofavailable Wi-Fi networks


# $DEV  : the identifier of the device to use

iwctl station $DEVwlan0 get-networksconnect HomeWiFiNetworkName
Use device to use
# $SSID : the name of the networkwlan0 to connect to iwctl station $DEV connect $SSID

If theWi-Fi network requiresHomeWiFiNetworkName



will
Mobile bebroadband
prompted
See Arch Wiki for how to enterset it.up ModemManager.
Installing via SSH

If you want to install Arch Linux via SSH set a password for the root user of the installation environment with passwd. This doesn't have to be a sophisticated password, as it will only be valid for the runtime of the installation environment and won't carry over to the installed system.

After you've set a password connect to the installation environment:

ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=password root@archiso

Testing connection
To verify you're online ping a server on the internet of your choice, e.g.:
ping archlinux.org

Update the system timeclock
Enable synchronization with internet time servers:
timedatectl set-ntp true