• Download arch linux iso then flash usb

wget http://archlinux.uk.mirror.allworldit.com/archlinux/iso/2024.01.01/archlinux-2024.01.01-x86_64.iso
sudo dd if=/path/to/archlinux-2024.01.01-x86_64.isotimen83 of=/dev/sdX status=progress

• Boot with archlinux iso

• Set the console keyboard layout - did not set

• Setup network - wifi in my case

iwctl
[iwd]# station wlan0 connect SSID
exit or ctrl+d

• verify

ping archlinux.org

• Update system clock

timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Dublin

• Partition the disks

used fdisk to create 2 partitions

sda1 ext4 /boot type 83 (and make it bootable)
sda2 ext4 LVM - type 8e

• encrypt the disk using LUKS:

cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda2

• encrypt the disk:

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda2 luks

• LVM Configuration

• create the physical volume

pvcreate /dev/mapper/luks

• create volume group

vgcreate vg0 /dev/mapper/luks

• create the virtual volumes

lvcreate -L 8G vg0 -n swap # make it double size of your ram
lvcreate -L 40G vg0 -n root
lvcreate -l 100%FREE vg0 -n home

• make swap partition and format these partitions

mkswap /dev/mapper/vg0-swap
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg0-home
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg0-root
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

• Mount partition, create boot and home mount points, turn on swap part

mount /dev/mapper/vg0-root /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/{boot,home}
mount /dev/mapper/vg0-home /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
swapon /dev/mapper/vg0-swap

• Install base system

pacstrap /mnt base vim lvm2 linux linux-firmware

• if installation brings some issues with old keys run following and rerun pacstrap command

pacman -Sy archlinux-keyring

• Generate fstab

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

• Change the root path to the new system

arch-chroot /mnt

• Timezone

timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Dublin
hwclock --systohc --utc

• Set host name

echo arch > /etc/hostname

• Set locale

vim /etc/locale.gen
# uncomment:
# en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

then run

locale-gen

then

echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
echo LANGUAGE=en_US >> /etc/locale.conf
echo LC_ALL=C >> /etc/locale.conf

• Set root password

passwd root

• configure the initram file system to load LVM and LUKS modules before loading the kernel

vim /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
# and add 'encrypt lvm2' before 'filesystem' 
HOOKS="base udev autodetect modconf kms keyboard keymap consolefont block encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsck"

then run

mkinitcpio -P

• Install grub

pacman -S grub networkmanager sudo
grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda

• edit file /etc/default/grub, add lvm and cryptdevice=/dev/sda2:luks to following:

GRUB_PRELOAD_MODULES='lvm'
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="cryptdevice=/dev/sda2:luks"

and run following to regenerate grub config file

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

• Exit from chroot mode, unmount part and reboot machine

exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot

• Connect wire Eth0 and start Network Manager - then setup wifi

systemctl enable --now NetworkManager
nmtui

• Install xorg,lightdm and i3

pacman -S bash-completion xorg-server
pacman -S xorg-xinit xorg-xkill
pacman -S xterm firefox
pacman -S i3-wm i3lock i3status dmenu network-manager-applet
pacman -S lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter
systemctl enable lightdm
reboot

• Create user

useradd -m karcio
passwd karcio
### add user to sudo
su - karcio
echo "exec i3" >> ~/.xinitrc

• Install sound

sudo pacman -S pulseaudio pulseaudio-alsa alsa-utils

• Install notification

sudo pacman -S notification-daemon libnotify

then edit /usr/share/dbus-1/services

sudo vim /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service

and add following lines:

[D-BUS Service]
Name=org.freedesktop.Notifications
Exec=/usr/lib/notification-daemon-1.0/notification-daemon

• Install additional fonts

sudo pacman -S ttf-font-awesome terminus-font ttf-dejavu

• Install cron

sudo pacman -S cronie
sudo systemctl enable --now cronie.service

• Install graph stuff

sudo pacman -S feh

• Install some tools

sudo pacman -S git alacritty mc zip unzip

Install with uefi: https://blog.bespinian.io/posts/installing-arch-linux-on-uefi-with-full-disk-encryption/