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4 define(__title, `Arch GNU/Linux on MacBook Air 2013')dnl
5 define(__slug, `computing')dnl
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8 <p>This post summarizes how I install and dual-boot Arch GNU/Linux
9 with Full-Disk Encryption alongside macOS. It is not meant to be a
10 replacement for the
11 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/installation%5Fguide">Installation
12 Guide</a> or the former
13 <a href="//csdietz.github.io/arch-beginner-guide/">Beginner's
14 Guide</a>. Rather, it mostly serves as a small summary with a few
15 useful notes about the gotchas.</p>
16
17 <p>So, make sure you understand what you type into your terminal. If
18 you don't, checking out the Arch wiki should probably be your first
19 step.</p>
20
21 <p><em>Note:</em> you will need internet access throughout the
22 installation and the MacBook Air's WiFi doesn't work out of the box on
23 Arch. I recommend using an Ethernet-USB adapter or your phone's USB
24 Tethering feature (if it does support it).</p>
25
26 <h2>Shrinking the macOS partition</h2>
27 <p>The first step I take is resizing the HFS+ macOS partition to make
28 room for the new GNU/Linux installation. There are plenty of
29 tutorials on how to do this using macOS's Disk Utility, so do that and
30 then come back!</p>
31
32 <h2>Creating a bootable Arch Installer USB</h2>
33 <p>There are different ways of creating a bootable Arch USB, all
34 documented on the
35 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB%5Fflash%5Finstallation%5Fmedia">USB
36 flash installation media</a> page on the Arch wiki, but the simplest
37 one is using <code>dd</code> if you already have access to another
38 UNIX system.</p>
39
40 <p><strong class="warn">Warning:</strong> make sure you backup the
41 data on your flash drive, as <code>dd</code> will irrevocably destroy
42 all data on it.</p>
43
44 <p>Use <code>lsblk</code> to find the name (block device) of your USB drive, then
45 run <code>dd</code> (as root) as shown below:</p>
46
47 <pre>
48 dd bs=4M if=/path/to/archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdx status=progress && sync
49 </pre>
50
51 <p>Replace <code>/path/to/archlinux.iso</code> with the path to the
52 Arch image you have downloaded, and <code>/dev/sdx</code> with your
53 drive.</p>
54
55 <h2>Booting up from the USB</h2>
56 <p>After creating the install USB, reboot your laptop and hold the alt
57 key and boot from the USB.</p>
58
59 <p>When booting is complete and you're presented with the prompt, it's
60 a good time to make sure you're connected to the internet (see the
61 <em>note</em> at the top of this post).</p>
62
63 <p>Use <code>ping</code> to verify that you have established a
64 connection:</p>
65
66 <pre>
67 ping archlinux.org
68 </pre>
69
70 <h2>Updating the system clock</h2>
71 <p>Once you're connected to the internet, make sure the system clock
72 is accurate:</p>
73
74 <pre>
75 timedatectl set-ntp true # start and enable systemd-timesyncd
76 </pre>
77
78 <p>You can check the service status using <code>timedatectl
79 status</code>.</p>
80
81 <h2>Partitioning</h2>
82 <p>I won't dive into partitioning and instead, I will refer you to the
83 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Partitioning">Partitioning</a>
84 page of Arch wiki. Of the available partitioning tools, I personally
85 prefer <code>cfdisk</code>.</p>
86
87 <h2>Setting up LVM &amp; LUKS</h2>
88 <p>I use an
89 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting%5Fan%5Fentire%5Fsystem#LVM%5Fon%5FLUKS">LVM
90 on LUKS</a> setup, where I set up LVM on top of the encrypted
91 partition.</p>
92
93 <p>First, let's set up the underlying encrypted partition:</p>
94
95 <pre>
96 cryptsetup -v --cipher aes-xts-plain64 --key-size 512 --hash sha512 \
97 --iter-time 5000 --use-urandom -y luksFormat /dev/sdaX
98 </pre>
99
100 <p>where <code>/dev/sdaX</code> is the partition you created in the
101 last step (e.g. <code>/dev/sda4</code>). For more information about
102 the <code>cryptsetup</code> options, see the
103 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Device%5Fencryption#Encryption%5Foptions%5Ffor%5FLUKS%5Fmode">LUKS
104 encryption options</a>.</p>
105
106 <p>Then we open the container:</p>
107
108 <pre>
109 cryptsetup open --type luks /dev/sdaX lvm
110 </pre>
111
112 <p>Now it's time to use lvm and prepare the logical volume(s):</p>
113
114 <pre>
115 pvcreate /dev/mapper/lvm vgcreate vg /dev/mapper/lvm
116 lvcreate --extents +100%FREE -n root vg
117 </pre>
118
119 <p>This will create a physical volume on the mapping we just opened,
120 create a volume group named <code>vg</code> on the physical volume,
121 and create a logical volume named <code>root</code> that spans the
122 entire volume group. More complex setups are possible thanks to the
123 great flexibility of lvm.</p>
124
125 <p>We now format the logical volume with <code>ext4</code>:</p>
126
127 <pre>
128 mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg-root
129 </pre>
130
131 <h2>Installing the base system</h2>
132 <p>Let's mount the logical volume, make a directory for the mount
133 point of the boot partition, and mount the boot partition
134 (<code>/dev/sda1</code>):</p>
135
136 <pre>
137 mount /dev/mapper/vg-root /mnt
138 mkdir /mnt/boot
139 mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
140 </pre>
141
142 <p>Finally, let's install the base system (and optionally
143 <code>base-devel</code>):</p>
144
145 <pre>
146 pacstrap /mnt base base-devel
147 </pre>
148
149 <h2>Configuring the system</h2>
150 <p>Let's generate the fstab:</p>
151
152 <pre>
153 genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
154 </pre>
155
156 <p>Use your favorite terminal-based editor, edit the fstab file and
157 add the <code>discard</code> option for the root partition to enable
158 TRIM on the SSD.</p>
159
160 <p>Now we change root into our newly installed system and will
161 configure it. Adjust these according to your own setup.</p>
162
163 <pre>
164 arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
165 passwd # set the root password
166 echo myhostname > /etc/hostname # set the hostname
167 ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Eastern /etc/localtime # time zone
168 hwclock --systohc --utc # write system clock to hardware clock (UTC)
169 useradd -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash myuser # create myuser
170 passwd myuser # set the password for myuser
171 echo "myuser ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" >> /etc/sudoers.d/myuser
172 # uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and other needed locales in /etc/locale.gen
173 locale-gen
174 echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
175 export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
176 </pre>
177
178 <p>Then adjust the initramfs hooks in
179 <code>/etc/mkinitcpio.conf</code> and enable the
180 <code>encrypt</code> and <code>lvm2</code> hooks, and make sure
181 <code>keyboard</code> is available before <code>encrypt</code> so you
182 can actually type in the LUKS password when booting. Your
183 <code>HOOKS</code> line should look similar to this:</p>
184
185 <pre>
186 HOOKS=(base udev autodetect keyboard keymap consolefont modconf block encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsck)
187 </pre>
188
189 <p>After adjusting the hooks, build the initramfs:</p>
190
191 <pre>
192 mkinitcpio -p linux
193 </pre>
194
195 <p>Create the <code>/boot/loader/loader.conf</code> with the following
196 content (adjust the timeout to your liking):</p>
197
198 <pre>
199 default arch timeout 3
200 </pre>
201
202 <p>Then create the entry for Arch:</p>
203
204 <pre>
205 mkdir -p /boot/loader/entries
206 touch /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
207 </pre>
208
209 <p>Now edit <code>/boot/loader/entries/arch.conf</code> to specify the
210 Arch entry:</p>
211
212 <pre>
213 title Arch GNU/Linux
214 linux /vmlinuz-linux
215 initrd /intel-ucode.img
216 initrd /initramfs-linux.img
217 options cryptdevice=/dev/sdaX:vg:allow-discards root=/dev/mapper/vg-root rw
218 </pre>
219
220 <p>Again, <code>/dev/sdaX</code> is the partition you created in the
221 partitioning step earlier as the underlying encrypted partition.</p>
222
223 <p>Finally, install the bootloader, exit the chroot, umount and
224 reboot!</p>
225
226 <pre>
227 bootctl install
228 exit
229 umount -R /mnt
230 reboot
231 </pre>
232
233 <h2>Post-installation recommendations</h2>
234 <p>Congratulations! You now have a minimal Arch installation.</p>
235
236 <p>At this point, I usually install my favorite AUR helper,
237 <a href="//aur.archlinux.org/packages/pacaur/">pacaur</a>, then I
238 install the
239 <a href="//aur.archlinux.org/packages/mba6x%5Fbl-dkms/">mba6x_bl-dkms</a>
240 backlight driver to fix the post suspend/resume issue where there's no
241 brightness after waking up from suspend, and the only available
242 brightness would be 100%.</p>
243
244 <pre>
245 pacaur -S linux-headers dkms # linux-headers is required for dkms
246 pacaur -S broadcom-wl-dkms
247 pacaur -S mba6x_bl-dkms
248 </pre>
249
250 <p>Then, I'd like to install</p>
251 <ul>
252 <li>input, graphics, and sound drivers,</li>
253 <li>a desktop environment (I prefer Xfce or LXQt),</li>
254 <li>a display manager for login screen (lightdm or sddm), and</li>
255 <li>a network manager (NetworkManager or ConnMan).</li>
256 </ul>
257
258 <p>Check out the
259 <a href="//wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/General%5Frecommendations">General
260 recommendations</a> for more details.</p>
261
262 <h2>References</h2>
263 <p>Here are some resources I've come across each with lots of useful
264 bits and pieces, about installing Arch on a MacBook:</p>
265
266 <ul>
267 <li><a href="//github.com/pandeiro/arch-on-air">pandeiro/arch-on-air</a></li>
268 <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>
269 <li><a href="//www.frankshin.com/2014/installing-archlinux-on-macbook-air-2013/">Installing Archlinux on Macbook Air 2013</a></li>
270 <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>
271 <li><a href="//alexeyzabelin.com/arch-on-mac">Installing Arch Linux on a MacBook Air 2013</a></li>
272 <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>
273 <li><a href="http://codylittlewood.com/arch-linux-on-macbook-pro-installation/">Dual boot Arch Linux on MacBook Pro Installation</a></li>
274 </ul>
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