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1 <!--# set var="title" value="Arch GNU/Linux on MacBook Air 2013" -->
2 <!--# set var="pub" value="November 1, 2016" -->
3 <!--# set var="upd" value="March 27, 2020" -->
4 <!--# include virtual="/ssi/pren.html" -->
5 <p>This post summarizes how I install and dual-boot Arch GNU/Linux
6 with Full-Disk Encryption alongside macOS. It is not meant to be a
7 replacement for the
8 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/installation%5Fguide">Installation
9 Guide</a> or the former
10 <a href="//csdietz.github.io/arch-beginner-guide/">Beginner's
11 Guide</a>. Rather, it mostly serves as a small summary with a few
12 useful notes about the gotchas.</p>
13
14 <p>So, make sure you understand what you type into your terminal. If
15 you don't, checking out the Arch wiki should probably be your first
16 step.</p>
17
18 <p><em>Note:</em> you will need internet access throughout the
19 installation and the MacBook Air's WiFi doesn't work out of the box on
20 Arch. I recommend using an Ethernet-USB adapter or your phone's USB
21 Tethering feature (if it does support it).</p>
22
23 <h2>Shrinking the macOS partition</h2>
24 <p>The first step I take is resizing the HFS+ macOS partition to make
25 room for the new GNU/Linux installation. There are plenty of
26 tutorials on how to do this using macOS's Disk Utility, so do that and
27 then come back!</p>
28
29 <h2>Creating a bootable Arch Installer USB</h2>
30 <p>There are different ways of creating a bootable Arch USB, all
31 documented on the
32 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB%5Fflash%5Finstallation%5Fmedia">USB
33 flash installation media</a> page on the Arch wiki, but the simplest
34 one is using <code>dd</code> if you already have access to another
35 UNIX system.</p>
36
37 <p><strong class="warn">Warning:</strong> make sure you backup the
38 data on your flash drive, as <code>dd</code> will irrevocably destroy
39 all data on it.</p>
40
41 <p>Use <code>lsblk</code> to find the name (block device) of your USB drive, then
42 run <code>dd</code> (as root) as shown below:</p>
43
44 <pre>
45 dd bs=4M if=/path/to/archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdx status=progress && sync
46 </pre>
47
48 <p>Replace <code>/path/to/archlinux.iso</code> with the path to the
49 Arch image you have downloaded, and <code>/dev/sdx</code> with your
50 drive.</p>
51
52 <h2>Booting up from the USB</h2>
53 <p>After creating the install USB, reboot your laptop and hold the alt
54 key and boot from the USB.</p>
55
56 <p>When booting is complete and you're presented with the prompt, it's
57 a good time to make sure you're connected to the internet (see the
58 <em>note</em> at the top of this post).</p>
59
60 <p>Use <code>ping</code> to verify that you have established a
61 connection:</p>
62
63 <pre>
64 ping archlinux.org
65 </pre>
66
67 <h2>Updating the system clock</h2>
68 <p>Once you're connected to the internet, make sure the system clock
69 is accurate:</p>
70
71 <pre>
72 timedatectl set-ntp true # start and enable systemd-timesyncd
73 </pre>
74
75 <p>You can check the service status using <code>timedatectl
76 status</code>.</p>
77
78 <h2>Partitioning</h2>
79 <p>I won't dive into partitioning and instead, I will refer you to the
80 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Partitioning">Partitioning</a>
81 page of Arch wiki. Of the available partitioning tools, I personally
82 prefer <code>cfdisk</code>.</p>
83
84 <h2>Setting up LVM &amp; LUKS</h2>
85 <p>I use an
86 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting%5Fan%5Fentire%5Fsystem#LVM%5Fon%5FLUKS">LVM
87 on LUKS</a> setup, where I set up LVM on top of the encrypted
88 partition.</p>
89
90 <p>First, let's set up the underlying encrypted partition:</p>
91
92 <pre>
93 cryptsetup -v --cipher aes-xts-plain64 --key-size 512 --hash sha512 \
94 --iter-time 5000 --use-urandom -y luksFormat /dev/sdaX
95 </pre>
96
97 <p>where <code>/dev/sdaX</code> is the partition you created in the
98 last step (e.g. <code>/dev/sda4</code>). For more information about
99 the <code>cryptsetup</code> options, see the
100 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Device%5Fencryption#Encryption%5Foptions%5Ffor%5FLUKS%5Fmode">LUKS
101 encryption options</a>.</p>
102
103 <p>Then we open the container:</p>
104
105 <pre>
106 cryptsetup open --type luks /dev/sdaX lvm
107 </pre>
108
109 <p>Now it's time to use lvm and prepare the logical volume(s):</p>
110
111 <pre>
112 pvcreate /dev/mapper/lvm vgcreate vg /dev/mapper/lvm
113 lvcreate --extents +100%FREE -n root vg
114 </pre>
115
116 <p>This will create a physical volume on the mapping we just opened,
117 create a volume group named <code>vg</code> on the physical volume,
118 and create a logical volume named <code>root</code> that spans the
119 entire volume group. More complex setups are possible thanks to the
120 great flexibility of lvm.</p>
121
122 <p>We now format the logical volume with <code>ext4</code>:</p>
123
124 <pre>
125 mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg-root
126 </pre>
127
128 <h2>Installing the base system</h2>
129 <p>Let's mount the logical volume, make a directory for the mount
130 point of the boot partition, and mount the boot partition
131 (<code>/dev/sda1</code>):</p>
132
133 <pre>
134 mount /dev/mapper/vg-root /mnt
135 mkdir /mnt/boot
136 mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
137 </pre>
138
139 <p>Finally, let's install the base system (and optionally
140 <code>base-devel</code>):</p>
141
142 <pre>
143 pacstrap /mnt base base-devel
144 </pre>
145
146 <h2>Configuring the system</h2>
147 <p>Let's generate the fstab:</p>
148
149 <pre>
150 genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
151 </pre>
152
153 <p>Use your favorite terminal-based editor, edit the fstab file and
154 add the <code>discard</code> option for the root partition to enable
155 TRIM on the SSD.</p>
156
157 <p>Now we change root into our newly installed system and will
158 configure it. Adjust these according to your own setup.</p>
159
160 <pre>
161 arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
162 passwd # set the root password
163 echo myhostname > /etc/hostname # set the hostname
164 ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Eastern /etc/localtime # time zone
165 hwclock --systohc --utc # write system clock to hardware clock (UTC)
166 useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash myuser # create myuser
167 passwd myuser # set the password for myuser
168 echo "myuser ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" >> /etc/sudoers.d/myuser
169 # uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and other needed locales in /etc/locale.gen
170 locale-gen
171 echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
172 export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
173 </pre>
174
175 <p>Then adjust the initramfs hooks in
176 <code>/etc/mkinitcpio.conf</code> and enable the
177 <code>encrypt</code> and <code>lvm2</code> hooks, and make sure
178 <code>keyboard</code> is available before <code>encrypt</code> so you
179 can actually type in the LUKS password when booting. Your
180 <code>HOOKS</code> line should look similar to this:</p>
181
182 <pre>
183 HOOKS=(base udev autodetect keyboard keymap consolefont modconf block encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsck)
184 </pre>
185
186 <p>After adjusting the hooks, build the initramfs:</p>
187
188 <pre>
189 mkinitcpio -p linux
190 </pre>
191
192 <p>Create the <code>/boot/loader/loader.conf</code> with the following
193 content (adjust the timeout to your liking):</p>
194
195 <pre>
196 default arch timeout 3
197 </pre>
198
199 <p>Then create the entry for Arch:</p>
200
201 <pre>
202 mkdir -p /boot/loader/entries
203 touch /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
204 </pre>
205
206 <p>Now edit <code>/boot/loader/entries/arch.conf</code> to specify the
207 Arch entry:</p>
208
209 <pre>
210 title Arch GNU/Linux
211 linux /vmlinuz-linux
212 initrd /intel-ucode.img
213 initrd /initramfs-linux.img
214 options cryptdevice=/dev/sdaX:vg:allow-discards root=/dev/mapper/vg-root rw
215 </pre>
216
217 <p>Again, <code>/dev/sdaX</code> is the partition you created in the
218 partitioning step earlier as the underlying encrypted partition.</p>
219
220 <p>Finally, install the bootloader, exit the chroot, umount and
221 reboot!</p>
222
223 <pre>
224 bootctl install
225 exit
226 umount -R /mnt
227 reboot
228 </pre>
229
230 <h2>Post-installation recommendations</h2>
231 <p>Congratulations! You now have a minimal Arch installation.</p>
232
233 <p>At this point, I usually install my favorite AUR helper,
234 <a href="//aur.archlinux.org/packages/pacaur/">pacaur</a>, then I
235 install the
236 <a href="//aur.archlinux.org/packages/mba6x%5Fbl-dkms/">mba6x_bl-dkms</a>
237 backlight driver to fix the post suspend/resume issue where there's no
238 brightness after waking up from suspend, and the only available
239 brightness would be 100%.</p>
240
241 <pre>
242 pacaur -S linux-headers dkms # linux-headers is required for dkms
243 pacaur -S broadcom-wl-dkms
244 pacaur -S mba6x_bl-dkms
245 </pre>
246
247 <p>Then, I'd like to install</p>
248 <ul>
249 <li>input, graphics, and sound drivers,</li>
250 <li>a desktop environment (I prefer Xfce or LXQt),</li>
251 <li>a display manager for login screen (lightdm or sddm), and</li>
252 <li>a network manager (NetworkManager or ConnMan).</li>
253 </ul>
254
255 <p>Check out the
256 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/General%5Frecommendations">General
257 recommendations</a> for more details.</p>
258
259 <h2>References</h2>
260 <p>Here are some resources I've come across each with lots of useful
261 bits and pieces, about installing Arch on a MacBook:</p>
262
263 <ul>
264 <li><a href="//github.com/pandeiro/arch-on-air">pandeiro/arch-on-air</a></li>
265 <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>
266 <li><a href="//www.frankshin.com/2014/installing-archlinux-on-macbook-air-2013/">Installing Archlinux on Macbook Air 2013</a></li>
267 <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>
268 <li><a href="//alexeyzabelin.com/arch-on-mac">Installing Arch Linux on a MacBook Air 2013</a></li>
269 <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>
270 <li><a href="http://codylittlewood.com/arch-linux-on-macbook-pro-installation/">Dual boot Arch Linux on MacBook Pro Installation</a></li>
271 </ul>
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