Arch Linux Installation Guide on HP Pavilion

My computer details:

Computer: HP Pavilion laptop
CPU: Intel i5-8250U
GPU: NVIDIA MX150

Pre-installation

Verify the boot mode

To verify if it is UEFI mode, use this command:
ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
If it show some details, the system is UEFI. Otherwise, the system may be booted in BIOS or CSM mode.

Connect to the internet

Because I'm using HP laptop. so i just need connect to wifi with this command wifi-menu. If you want to connect to wired network, reference official guide about dhcpcd
You can check this connection by ping www.archlinux.org.

Update the system clock

Use timedatectl set-ntp true to ensure the system clock is accurate, to check the service status, use timedatectl status.

Partition the disks

Use lsblk or fdisk -l to vertified device.
First, run fdisk /dev/sda（note: if your device is /dev/sdX, run fdisk /dev/sdX), and you will enter the fdisk dialog.
Next enter m you will get help details. If you use a separate hard drive. enter g to format it as GPT.
Next, enter n to create new partitions, enter w to exit if you finished.

This is my partition layout:

Format the partitions

If the EFI partition is on /dev/sdX0, run:
mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdX0

If the root partition is on* /dev/sdX1* and will contain the ext4 file system, run:
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX1

If you created a partition for swap, initialize it with mkswap:

mkswap /dev/sdX2
swapon /dev/sdaX2

Run these commands if you use my layout:

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda5
mkswap /dev/sda4
swapon /dev/sda4

Mount the file systems

Run these commands if you use my layout:

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/boot/EFI
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/EFI
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/home

Installation

Select mirrors

• Open mirrorlist file by nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
• Uncomment your selected server.
• save changes ### Install the base packages Use pacstrap /mnt base base-devel ## Configure the system ### Generate an fstab file
• Use genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
• Check it in case of errors: cat /mnt/etc/fstab ### Into new system Run arch-chroot /mnt ### Timezone and Location

• Set Timezone:
  ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime

• Set the hardware clock:
  hwclock --systohc

• Set location

• Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and other needed locales in /etc/locale.gen, and generate it:
  

nano /etc/locale.gen 
locale-gen

By the way, the new system doesn't have vim.

1. Create the locale.conf and set LANGvariable:

nano /etc/locale.conf
LANG= en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

Network Config

• Create the hostname file and enter your hostname: nano /etc/hostname.
• Add matching entries to hosts:

127.0.0.1   localhost
::1     localhost
127.0.1.1   myhostname.localdomain  myhostname

Set root password

Run passwd

Enable microcode updates

pacman -S intel-ucode # for intel CPU
pacman -S amd-ucode # for amd CPU

Install and set Bootloader

I use grub, so:

• Install related packages: pacman -S grub dosfstools efibootmgr
• Install grub grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/EFI --recheck
• Use the grub-mkconfig tool to generate /boot/grub/grub.cfg: grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Install Wireless LAN tools

I use wifi-menu to connect to wifi, so I need this packages:
pacman -S wpa_supplicant dialog iw

Add a user

• Add a user useradd -m -g users -s /bin/bash username
• Set password for user passwd username
• Privilege escalation(sudo) nano /etc/sudoers and add username ALL=(ALL) ALL below root ALL=(ALL) ALL

Post-Installation

Install display server

Run the minimal command: pacman -S xorg-server.

Install display driver

Because I use*NVIDIA MX150* graphics card, I use this xf86-video-nouveaudriver. For details you can referrence this. If you use amd card, you can read this

Thank you for reading!
I will continue to update this article later if I find something.