Installing Arch from a LiveCD

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This guide has been supplanted by: Install From Existing Linux

See this thread.

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Contents

Introduction

This guide will show you how to install Arch Linux from a Linux LiveCD. I used this method to install Arch Linux on a Compaq tc1000 that has no CD drive, and the Arch Installer doesn't work right from a USB CD drive. So I booted up a Gentoo LiveCD I had lying around (Knoppix or grml should work too) and did the following...

Preparing Drives

I am going to assume a 3 partition setup for your system, if yours is not, please make changes accordingly. This is my partition scheme: /dev/hda1 - 50MB - /boot /dev/hda2 - 512MB - swap /dev/hda3 - Rest of drive - /

Also, you need an active internet connection to do this.

First, boot into a LiveCD like Knoppix or Gentoo. Then, run cfdisk to set up your partitions.

cfdisk /dev/hda

There are plenty of guides for using cfdisk, so I won't go into it here. You could also use the less user-friendly fdisk.

Once the partitions are made, put filesystems on them. Start with swap first:

mkswap /dev/hda2
swapon /dev/hda2

I like to put ext2 on my boot partition, and ext3 with dir_index on my root partiton:

mke2fs /dev/hda1
mke2fs -j -O dir_index /dev/hda3

Now mount the partitions in a directory like /arch:

mkdir /arch
mount /dev/hda3 /arch
mkdir /arch/boot
mount /dev/hda1 /arch/boot

Bootstrapping

Then cd to /root and obtain the newarch script and the pacman.conf from Quick_Custom_Installation. If you want to get the addedpacks too. Edit newarch, set DESTDIR=/arch and check if the other configuration variables fit you needs.

To prevent the newarch script from trying to delete your /arch/boot directory comment out the following lines in the script like this:

#if [ ! -d $DESTDIR ]; then
#       mkdir -p $DESTDIR
#else
#       rm -rf $DESTDIR/*
#       if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
#               echo "ERROR: couldn't remove $DESTDIR"
#               exit 1
#       fi
#fi

Running the newarch script should download the required packages to provide you a fresh arch installation.

Chroot into your system

Once this is done, you will have a base Arch install. Now we can chroot into our new system after we mount proc and dev

mount -t proc none /arch/proc
mount -o bind /dev /arch/dev
mount -o bind /sys /arch/sys
chroot /arch /bin/bash

Install a kernel

Now we are in our Arch system! Minus a kernel, and an internet connection =( Fix that with the following.

dhcpcd eth0

Also, it may be a good idea to set your locale

nano -w /etc/locale.gen

Uncomment the lines corresponding to your locale, mine are...

en_US.UTF-8     UTF-8
en_US   ISO-8859-1

Then generate the locale

locale-gen

Check your /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and edit it according to your needs. Now install your kernel

pacman -Sy kernel26

Once that is done, set up your config files (this is also covered in other places)

nano -w /etc/rc.conf
nano -w /etc/fstab
nano -w /boot/grub/menu.lst

Set up Grub

Now set up grub by running these commands.

grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab
grub-install /dev/hda

Set up Udev

Run this command or you won't be able to boot!! (Thanks lucke!)

migrate-udev

Reboot!

Now reboot your computer and you should be all set. Make sure you take out the liveCD after you reboot!

exit
cd
umount /arch/boot /arch/dev /arch/proc /arch/sys /arch
reboot

Enjoy!

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