What follows is a list of steps for installing a minimal Arch Linux live USB system. In the spirit of KISS, we will go with a single-partition layout:
- Create a single
Linux
type partition withfdisk
or another similar tool on your USB device (e.g./dev/sdc
) - Set up an ext4 file system on the newly created partition:
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc1
- Mount the resulting file system:
# mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usbarch
- Use
pacstrap
from thearch-install-scripts
package to install thebase
package group:
# pacstrap /mnt/usbarch base
- Auto-generate an fstab file:
# genfstab -U /mnt/usbarch >> /mnt/usbarch/etc/fstab
- Take a look at the generated
/etc/fstab
file and, if necesarry, adapt it - Change root into the new system:
# arch-chroot /mnt/usbarch
- Configure the time zone:
# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime
# hwclock --systohc
- Uncomment
en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
and/or other required locales in/etc/locale.gen
, and generate them with the following command:
# locale-gen
- Set the
LANG
variable in/etc/locale.conf
, e.g.LANG=en_US.UTF-8
- Set a default keymap in
/etc/vconsole.conf
, e.g.KEYMAP=de-latin1
- Define a hostname such as
usbarch
in/etc/hostname
- Set a super secure root password:
# passwd
- Install a boot loader such as GRUB on your USB device:
# pacman -Sy grub
# grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sdc
- Finally, use the
grub-mkconfig
tool to auto-generate agrub.cfg
file:
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
The system should now be bootable and can be further adapted to your liking.