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define(__title, `Arch GNU/Linux on MacBook Air 2013')dnl
define(__pub, 2016-11-01T12:00:00Z)dnl
define(__upd, 2020-03-27T12:00:00Z)dnl
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<p>This post summarizes how I install and dual-boot Arch GNU/Linux
with Full-Disk Encryption alongside macOS.  It is not meant to be a
replacement for the
<a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/installation%5Fguide">Installation
Guide</a> or the former
<a href="https://csdietz.github.io/arch-beginner-guide/">Beginner's
Guide</a>.  Rather, it mostly serves as a small summary with a few
useful notes about the gotchas.</p>

<p>So, make sure you understand what you type into your terminal.  If
you don't, checking out the Arch wiki should probably be your first
step.</p>

<p><em>Note:</em> you will need internet access throughout the
installation and the MacBook Air's WiFi doesn't work out of the box on
Arch.  I recommend using an Ethernet-USB adapter or your phone's USB
Tethering feature (if it does support it).</p>

<h2>Shrinking the macOS partition</h2>
<p>The first step I take is resizing the HFS+ macOS partition to make
room for the new GNU/Linux installation.  There are plenty of
tutorials on how to do this using macOS's Disk Utility, so do that and
then come back!</p>

<h2>Creating a bootable Arch Installer USB</h2>
<p>There are different ways of creating a bootable Arch USB, all
documented on the
<a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB%5Fflash%5Finstallation%5Fmedia">USB
flash installation media</a> page on the Arch wiki, but the simplest
one is using <code>dd</code> if you already have access to another
UNIX system.</p>

<p><strong class="warn">Warning:</strong> make sure you backup the
data on your flash drive, as <code>dd</code> will irrevocably destroy
all data on it.</p>

<p>Use <code>lsblk</code> to find the name (block device) of your USB drive, then
run <code>dd</code> (as root) as shown below:</p>

<pre>
dd bs=4M if=/path/to/archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdx status=progress && sync
</pre>

<p>Replace <code>/path/to/archlinux.iso</code> with the path to the
Arch image you have downloaded, and <code>/dev/sdx</code> with your
drive.</p>

<h2>Booting up from the USB</h2>
<p>After creating the install USB, reboot your laptop and hold the alt
key and boot from the USB.</p>

<p>When booting is complete and you're presented with the prompt, it's
a good time to make sure you're connected to the internet (see the
<em>note</em> at the top of this post).</p>

<p>Use <code>ping</code> to verify that you have established a
connection:</p>

<pre>
ping archlinux.org
</pre>

<h2>Updating the system clock</h2>
<p>Once you're connected to the internet, make sure the system clock
is accurate:</p>

<pre>
timedatectl set-ntp true  # start and enable systemd-timesyncd
</pre>

<p>You can check the service status using <code>timedatectl
status</code>.</p>

<h2>Partitioning</h2>
<p>I won't dive into partitioning and instead, I will refer you to the
<a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Partitioning">Partitioning</a>
page of Arch wiki.  Of the available partitioning tools, I personally
prefer <code>cfdisk</code>.</p>

<h2>Setting up LVM &amp; LUKS</h2>
<p>I use an
<a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting%5Fan%5Fentire%5Fsystem#LVM%5Fon%5FLUKS">LVM
on LUKS</a> setup, where I set up LVM on top of the encrypted
partition.</p>

<p>First, let's set up the underlying encrypted partition:</p>

<pre>
cryptsetup -v --cipher aes-xts-plain64 --key-size 512 --hash sha512 \
           --iter-time 5000 --use-urandom -y luksFormat /dev/sdaX
</pre>

<p>where <code>/dev/sdaX</code> is the partition you created in the
last step (e.g. <code>/dev/sda4</code>).  For more information about
the <code>cryptsetup</code> options, see the
<a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Device%5Fencryption#Encryption%5Foptions%5Ffor%5FLUKS%5Fmode">LUKS
encryption options</a>.</p>

<p>Then we open the container:</p>

<pre>
cryptsetup open --type luks /dev/sdaX lvm
</pre>

<p>Now it's time to use lvm and prepare the logical volume(s):</p>

<pre>
pvcreate /dev/mapper/lvm vgcreate vg /dev/mapper/lvm
lvcreate --extents +100%FREE -n root vg
</pre>

<p>This will create a physical volume on the mapping we just opened,
create a volume group named <code>vg</code> on the physical volume,
and create a logical volume named <code>root</code> that spans the
entire volume group.  More complex setups are possible thanks to the
great flexibility of lvm.</p>

<p>We now format the logical volume with <code>ext4</code>:</p>

<pre>
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg-root
</pre>

<h2>Installing the base system</h2>
<p>Let's mount the logical volume, make a directory for the mount
point of the boot partition, and mount the boot partition
(<code>/dev/sda1</code>):</p>

<pre>
mount /dev/mapper/vg-root /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
</pre>

<p>Finally, let's install the base system (and optionally
<code>base-devel</code>):</p>

<pre>
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel
</pre>

<h2>Configuring the system</h2>
<p>Let's generate the fstab:</p>

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

<p>Use your favorite terminal-based editor, edit the fstab file and
add the <code>discard</code> option for the root partition to enable
TRIM on the SSD.</p>

<p>Now we change root into our newly installed system and will
configure it.  Adjust these according to your own setup.</p>

<pre>
arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
passwd # set the root password
echo myhostname > /etc/hostname # set the hostname
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Eastern /etc/localtime # time zone
hwclock --systohc --utc # write system clock to hardware clock (UTC)
useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash myuser # create myuser
passwd myuser # set the password for myuser
echo "myuser ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" >> /etc/sudoers.d/myuser
# uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and other needed locales in /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
</pre>

<p>Then adjust the initramfs hooks in
<code>/etc/mkinitcpio.conf</code> and enable the
<code>encrypt</code> and <code>lvm2</code> hooks, and make sure
<code>keyboard</code> is available before <code>encrypt</code> so you
can actually type in the LUKS password when booting.  Your
<code>HOOKS</code> line should look similar to this:</p>

<pre>
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect keyboard keymap consolefont modconf block encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsck)
</pre>

<p>After adjusting the hooks, build the initramfs:</p>

<pre>
mkinitcpio -p linux
</pre>

<p>Create the <code>/boot/loader/loader.conf</code> with the following
content (adjust the timeout to your liking):</p>

<pre>
default arch timeout 3
</pre>

<p>Then create the entry for Arch:</p>

<pre>
mkdir -p /boot/loader/entries
touch /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
</pre>

<p>Now edit <code>/boot/loader/entries/arch.conf</code> to specify the
Arch entry:</p>

<pre>
title Arch GNU/Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /intel-ucode.img
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
options cryptdevice=/dev/sdaX:vg:allow-discards root=/dev/mapper/vg-root rw
</pre>

<p>Again, <code>/dev/sdaX</code> is the partition you created in the
partitioning step earlier as the underlying encrypted partition.</p>

<p>Finally, install the bootloader, exit the chroot, umount and
reboot!</p>

<pre>
bootctl install
exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot
</pre>

<h2>Post-installation recommendations</h2>
<p>Congratulations!  You now have a minimal Arch installation.</p>

<p>At this point, I usually install my favorite AUR helper,
<a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/pacaur/">pacaur</a>, then
I install the
<a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mba6x%5Fbl-dkms/">mba6x_bl-dkms</a>
backlight driver to fix the post suspend/resume issue where there's no
brightness after waking up from suspend, and the only available
brightness would be 100%.</p>

<pre>
pacaur -S linux-headers dkms # linux-headers is required for dkms
pacaur -S broadcom-wl-dkms
pacaur -S mba6x_bl-dkms
</pre>

<p>Then, I'd like to install</p>
<ul>
<li>input, graphics, and sound drivers,</li>
<li>a desktop environment (I prefer Xfce or LXQt),</li>
<li>a display manager for login screen (lightdm or sddm), and</li>
<li>a network manager (NetworkManager or ConnMan).</li>
</ul>

<p>Check out the
<a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/General%5Frecommendations">General
recommendations</a> for more details.</p>

<h2>References</h2>
<p>Here are some resources I've come across each with lots of useful
bits and pieces, about installing Arch on a MacBook:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/pandeiro/arch-on-air">pandeiro/arch-on-air</a></li>
<li><a href="https://loicpefferkorn.net/2015/01/arch-linux-on-macbook-pro-retina-2014-with-dm-crypt-lvm-and-suspend-to-disk/">Arch Linux on MacBook Pro Retina 2014 with DM-Crypt, LVM and suspend to disk</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.frankshin.com/2014/installing-archlinux-on-macbook-air-2013/">Installing Archlinux on Macbook Air 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="http://panks.me/posts/2013/06/arch-linux-installation-with-os-x-on-macbook-air-dual-boot/">Arch Linux Installation with OS X on Macbook Air (Dual Boot)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://alexeyzabelin.com/arch-on-mac">Installing Arch Linux on a MacBook Air 2013</a></li>
<li><a href="https://medium.com/phils-thought-bubble-of-recent-stuff/arch-linux-running-on-my-macbook-2ea525ebefe3">Arch Linux running on my MacBook</a></li>
<li><a href="http://codylittlewood.com/arch-linux-on-macbook-pro-installation/">Dual boot Arch Linux on MacBook Pro Installation</a></li>
</ul>

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