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26 <h1>Arch GNU/Linux on MacBook Air 2013</h1>
27 <p>Published on November 1, 2016<br/>
28 Last updated on March 27, 2020</p>
29 </header>
30
31 <p>This post summarizes how I install and dual-boot Arch GNU/Linux
32 with Full-Disk Encryption alongside macOS. It is not meant to be a
33 replacement for the
34 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/installation%5Fguide">Installation
35 Guide</a> or the former
36 <a href="//csdietz.github.io/arch-beginner-guide/">Beginner's
37 Guide</a>. Rather, it mostly serves as a small summary with a few
38 useful notes about the gotchas.</p>
39
40 <p>So, make sure you understand what you type into your terminal. If
41 you don't, checking out the Arch wiki should probably be your first
42 step.</p>
43
44 <p><em>Note:</em> you will need internet access throughout the
45 installation and the MacBook Air's WiFi doesn't work out of the box on
46 Arch. I recommend using an Ethernet-USB adapter or your phone's USB
47 Tethering feature (if it does support it).</p>
48
49 <h2>Shrinking the macOS partition</h2>
50 <p>The first step I take is resizing the HFS+ macOS partition to make
51 room for the new GNU/Linux installation. There are plenty of
52 tutorials on how to do this using macOS's Disk Utility, so do that and
53 then come back!</p>
54
55 <h2>Creating a bootable Arch Installer USB</h2>
56 <p>There are different ways of creating a bootable Arch USB, all
57 documented on the
58 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB%5Fflash%5Finstallation%5Fmedia">USB
59 flash installation media</a> page on the Arch wiki, but the simplest
60 one is using <code>dd</code> if you already have access to another
61 UNIX system.</p>
62
63 <p><strong class="warn">Warning:</strong> make sure you backup the
64 data on your flash drive, as <code>dd</code> will irrevocably destroy
65 all data on it.</p>
66
67 <p>Use <code>lsblk</code> to find the name (block device) of your USB drive, then
68 run <code>dd</code> (as root) as shown below:</p>
69
70 <pre>
71 dd bs=4M if=/path/to/archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdx status=progress && sync
72 </pre>
73
74 <p>Replace <code>/path/to/archlinux.iso</code> with the path to the
75 Arch image you have downloaded, and <code>/dev/sdx</code> with your
76 drive.</p>
77
78 <h2>Booting up from the USB</h2>
79 <p>After creating the install USB, reboot your laptop and hold the alt
80 key and boot from the USB.</p>
81
82 <p>When booting is complete and you're presented with the prompt, it's
83 a good time to make sure you're connected to the internet (see the
84 <em>note</em> at the top of this post).</p>
85
86 <p>Use <code>ping</code> to verify that you have established a
87 connection:</p>
88
89 <pre>
90 ping archlinux.org
91 </pre>
92
93 <h2>Updating the system clock</h2>
94 <p>Once you're connected to the internet, make sure the system clock
95 is accurate:</p>
96
97 <pre>
98 timedatectl set-ntp true # start and enable systemd-timesyncd
99 </pre>
100
101 <p>You can check the service status using <code>timedatectl
102 status</code>.</p>
103
104 <h2>Partitioning</h2>
105 <p>I won't dive into partitioning and instead, I will refer you to the
106 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Partitioning">Partitioning</a>
107 page of Arch wiki. Of the available partitioning tools, I personally
108 prefer <code>cfdisk</code>.</p>
109
110 <h2>Setting up LVM &amp; LUKS</h2>
111 <p>I use an
112 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting%5Fan%5Fentire%5Fsystem#LVM%5Fon%5FLUKS">LVM
113 on LUKS</a> setup, where I set up LVM on top of the encrypted
114 partition.</p>
115
116 <p>First, let's set up the underlying encrypted partition:</p>
117
118 <pre>
119 cryptsetup -v --cipher aes-xts-plain64 --key-size 512 --hash sha512 \
120 --iter-time 5000 --use-urandom -y luksFormat /dev/sdaX
121 </pre>
122
123 <p>where <code>/dev/sdaX</code> is the partition you created in the
124 last step (e.g. <code>/dev/sda4</code>). For more information about
125 the <code>cryptsetup</code> options, see the
126 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Device%5Fencryption#Encryption%5Foptions%5Ffor%5FLUKS%5Fmode">LUKS
127 encryption options</a>.</p>
128
129 <p>Then we open the container:</p>
130
131 <pre>
132 cryptsetup open --type luks /dev/sdaX lvm
133 </pre>
134
135 <p>Now it's time to use lvm and prepare the logical volume(s):</p>
136
137 <pre>
138 pvcreate /dev/mapper/lvm vgcreate vg /dev/mapper/lvm
139 lvcreate --extents +100%FREE -n root vg
140 </pre>
141
142 <p>This will create a physical volume on the mapping we just opened,
143 create a volume group named <code>vg</code> on the physical volume,
144 and create a logical volume named <code>root</code> that spans the
145 entire volume group. More complex setups are possible thanks to the
146 great flexibility of lvm.</p>
147
148 <p>We now format the logical volume with <code>ext4</code>:</p>
149
150 <pre>
151 mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg-root
152 </pre>
153
154 <h2>Installing the base system</h2>
155 <p>Let's mount the logical volume, make a directory for the mount
156 point of the boot partition, and mount the boot partition
157 (<code>/dev/sda1</code>):</p>
158
159 <pre>
160 mount /dev/mapper/vg-root /mnt
161 mkdir /mnt/boot
162 mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
163 </pre>
164
165 <p>Finally, let's install the base system (and optionally
166 <code>base-devel</code>):</p>
167
168 <pre>
169 pacstrap /mnt base base-devel
170 </pre>
171
172 <h2>Configuring the system</h2>
173 <p>Let's generate the fstab:</p>
174
175 <pre>
176 genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
177 </pre>
178
179 <p>Use your favorite terminal-based editor, edit the fstab file and
180 add the <code>discard</code> option for the root partition to enable
181 TRIM on the SSD.</p>
182
183 <p>Now we change root into our newly installed system and will
184 configure it. Adjust these according to your own setup.</p>
185
186 <pre>
187 arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
188 passwd # set the root password
189 echo myhostname > /etc/hostname # set the hostname
190 ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Eastern /etc/localtime # time zone
191 hwclock --systohc --utc # write system clock to hardware clock (UTC)
192 useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash myuser # create myuser
193 passwd myuser # set the password for myuser
194 echo "myuser ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" >> /etc/sudoers.d/myuser
195 # uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and other needed locales in /etc/locale.gen
196 locale-gen
197 echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
198 export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
199 </pre>
200
201 <p>Then adjust the initramfs hooks in
202 <code>/etc/mkinitcpio.conf</code> and enable the
203 <code>encrypt</code> and <code>lvm2</code> hooks, and make sure
204 <code>keyboard</code> is available before <code>encrypt</code> so you
205 can actually type in the LUKS password when booting. Your
206 <code>HOOKS</code> line should look similar to this:</p>
207
208 <pre>
209 HOOKS=(base udev autodetect keyboard keymap consolefont modconf block encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsck)
210 </pre>
211
212 <p>After adjusting the hooks, build the initramfs:</p>
213
214 <pre>
215 mkinitcpio -p linux
216 </pre>
217
218 <p>Create the <code>/boot/loader/loader.conf</code> with the following
219 content (adjust the timeout to your liking):</p>
220
221 <pre>
222 default arch timeout 3
223 </pre>
224
225 <p>Then create the entry for Arch:</p>
226
227 <pre>
228 mkdir -p /boot/loader/entries
229 touch /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
230 </pre>
231
232 <p>Now edit <code>/boot/loader/entries/arch.conf</code> to specify the
233 Arch entry:</p>
234
235 <pre>
236 title Arch GNU/Linux
237 linux /vmlinuz-linux
238 initrd /intel-ucode.img
239 initrd /initramfs-linux.img
240 options cryptdevice=/dev/sdaX:vg:allow-discards root=/dev/mapper/vg-root rw
241 </pre>
242
243 <p>Again, <code>/dev/sdaX</code> is the partition you created in the
244 partitioning step earlier as the underlying encrypted partition.</p>
245
246 <p>Finally, install the bootloader, exit the chroot, umount and
247 reboot!</p>
248
249 <pre>
250 bootctl install
251 exit
252 umount -R /mnt
253 reboot
254 </pre>
255
256 <h2>Post-installation recommendations</h2>
257 <p>Congratulations! You now have a minimal Arch installation.</p>
258
259 <p>At this point, I usually install my favorite AUR helper,
260 <a href="//aur.archlinux.org/packages/pacaur/">pacaur</a>, then I
261 install the
262 <a href="//aur.archlinux.org/packages/mba6x%5Fbl-dkms/">mba6x_bl-dkms</a>
263 backlight driver to fix the post suspend/resume issue where there's no
264 brightness after waking up from suspend, and the only available
265 brightness would be 100%.</p>
266
267 <pre>
268 pacaur -S linux-headers dkms # linux-headers is required for dkms
269 pacaur -S broadcom-wl-dkms
270 pacaur -S mba6x_bl-dkms
271 </pre>
272
273 <p>Then, I'd like to install</p>
274 <ul>
275 <li>input, graphics, and sound drivers,</li>
276 <li>a desktop environment (I prefer Xfce or LXQt),</li>
277 <li>a display manager for login screen (lightdm or sddm), and</li>
278 <li>a network manager (NetworkManager or ConnMan).</li>
279 </ul>
280
281 <p>Check out the
282 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/General%5Frecommendations">General
283 recommendations</a> for more details.</p>
284
285 <h2>References</h2>
286 <p>Here are some resources I've come across each with lots of useful
287 bits and pieces, about installing Arch on a MacBook:</p>
288
289 <ul>
290 <li><a href="//github.com/pandeiro/arch-on-air">pandeiro/arch-on-air</a></li>
291 <li><a href="//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>
292 <li><a href="//www.frankshin.com/2014/installing-archlinux-on-macbook-air-2013/">Installing Archlinux on Macbook Air 2013</a></li>
293 <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>
294 <li><a href="//alexeyzabelin.com/arch-on-mac">Installing Arch Linux on a MacBook Air 2013</a></li>
295 <li><a href="//medium.com/phils-thought-bubble-of-recent-stuff/arch-linux-running-on-my-macbook-2ea525ebefe3">Arch Linux running on my MacBook</a></li>
296 <li><a href="http://codylittlewood.com/arch-linux-on-macbook-pro-installation/">Dual boot Arch Linux on MacBook Pro Installation</a></li>
297 </ul>
298
299 <p class="muted inbox">Got a question or comment? You can find my
300 email address on my <a href="contact">contact</a> page.
301 <span class="smly">:-)</span></p>
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