How to Install Arch Linux: A Clear, Step-by-Step Guide

Installing Arch the manual way is the fastest way to actually understand how a Linux system fits together. It looks intimidating, but it's really just a dozen small steps done in order. This guide walks through a clean install on a modern UEFI laptop or desktop with a single disk.

Short on time? The official archinstall script does all of this through a menu. Read this guide once anyway — when something breaks later, you'll know exactly where to look.

Before you start

You'll need:

• A USB stick (2 GB or more) and the latest ISO from archlinux.org/download
• A wired connection, or your Wi-Fi name and password
• A backup of anything on the target disk — it will be wiped

Write the ISO to the USB. On Linux or macOS:

# find your USB device first with lsblk — double-check, this erases it
sudo dd if=archlinux-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync

On Windows, use Rufus (DD mode) or balenaEtcher. Then boot from the USB with Secure Boot disabled in your firmware settings.

1. Check the boot mode and get online

Confirm you booted in UEFI mode — this command should print 64:

cat /sys/firmware/efi/fw_platform_size

Ethernet usually just works. For Wi-Fi, use iwctl:

iwctl
[iwd]# device list
[iwd]# station wlan0 scan
[iwd]# station wlan0 get-networks
[iwd]# station wlan0 connect "Your-Network"
[iwd]# exit

ping -c 3 archlinux.org
timedatectl set-ntp true

2. Partition the disk

Find your disk name with lsblk — usually /dev/nvme0n1 for NVMe or /dev/sda for SATA. We'll make two partitions: a 1 GiB EFI partition and one big root partition.

cfdisk /dev/nvme0n1

Choose gpt, then create:

Skip a swap partition — we'll use zram, which is faster and doesn't waste disk.

3. Format and mount

mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/nvme0n1p1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p2

mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt
mount --mkdir /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot

Prefer snapshots you can roll back to? Use Btrfs instead of ext4 — see my guide on keeping Arch stable with Btrfs snapshots.

4. Install the base system

Pick fast mirrors first, then install the essentials. Swap intel-ucode for amd-ucode if you have an AMD CPU.

reflector --country India --latest 10 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware intel-ucode \
  networkmanager sudo nano vim man-db git base-devel

Generate the filesystem table so the system knows what to mount at boot:

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

5. Configure the new system

Step inside it with arch-chroot:

arch-chroot /mnt

# time zone and clock
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc

# locale: uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 (and en_IN if you like)
nano /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf

# hostname
echo "archbox" > /etc/hostname

# root password
passwd

6. Install a bootloader

On UEFI, systemd-boot is the simplest option — it's already part of systemd.

bootctl install

Create the boot entry. blkid gives you the root partition's UUID:

blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/nvme0n1p2

# /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
title   Arch Linux
linux   /vmlinuz-linux
initrd  /intel-ucode.img
initrd  /initramfs-linux.img
options root=UUID=your-uuid-here rw quiet

# /boot/loader/loader.conf
default arch.conf
timeout 3

7. Networking, a user and sudo

systemctl enable NetworkManager

useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash dhruv
passwd dhruv

# allow the wheel group to use sudo: uncomment "%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL"
EDITOR=nano visudo

8. Reboot

exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot

Pull out the USB. You should land at a login prompt. Log in as your user and connect to Wi-Fi with nmtui.

What to do next

A fresh Arch install is just a console. From here:

1. Install a desktop: sudo pacman -S plasma-meta sddm or gnome gdm, then enable the display manager
2. Add compressed RAM swap: sudo pacman -S zram-generator
3. Set up the AUR helper and learn pacman properly — see my pacman and AUR cheat sheet
4. Read the Arch Wiki page for your laptop model — it's the best documentation in the Linux world

When something goes wrong

Boot the USB again, mount your partitions and arch-chroot /mnt — you're back inside your system with a working toolset. Nearly every "I broke my Arch" moment is fixable from there.