Installing Arch Linux with KDE Plasma or GNOME Desktop ( Dual Booting with Windows)

Hi Guys! Most of us today maybe using Windows as our daily driver. For most daily tasks, windows is more than enough. But the question you need to be asking is , is windows really necessary? I agree that window is pretty powerful, but most of us do not realize how heavy it is on the system.

Is your computer getting slow running windows? Do you have an old or low end PC which lags while running windows? Do you wish to switch to something light, something which will run smoothly on most hardware configurations? Then you are in the right place.

Today we will be seeing how you can dual boot Arch Linux with Windows.

Arch Linux is light but powerful

Arch Linux is ranked as one of the best and lightest Linux distros. It is highly customizable and can be configured according to the user’s needs.Unlike other popular distros like Ubuntu which is based on Debian, Arch Linux was built from scratch independent of any other Linux distribution.Arch Linux is a rolling release which means that it eradicates the system update frenzy that users of other distro types go through. Because it’s a rolling release, its core system is always up to date with the latest fixes and new features and you wouldn’t have to worry about when to install what and how long system updates will take.

So without further ado, Lets get started!

Prerequisites

• A bootable USB of at least 8Gb size.
• UEFI BIOS mode on your PC
• Basic understanding of Linux Bash

I recommend everyone to use the Arch wiki as it will teach you the fundamentals of how to install and manage an operating system .Use this guide as a reference if you cannot understand the steps provided in the Arch wiki.

Step 0: Creating the Boot-able USB

• Download the Arch Linux ISO.
• Download Rufus.
• Insert pen drive into the PC and open Rufus
• Open the Arch Linux ISO in Rufus

It should look something similar to this

• Click on start and wait for the process to finish.

Step 1: Partitioning Windows.

• Go to windows disk management tool and select the disk you want to install Arch Linux on.
• Right-click and tap on shrink volume, allocate the necessary size required for the arch Linux partition(Min 10 Gb).

Step 2: Live boot into the installation media

• Reboot your system and go into the boot manager. For HP devices its Esc .
• Boot into the USB device.
• After booting into the installation media, make sure you are connected to the internet. This is essential for the next steps.
• To connect to WiFi, type the command wifi-menu and connect to the respective WiFi network. Test the connection by pinging the google server with ping google.com . You should see the ping.

Ping should show up like this

Step 3: Create Linux Partitions

• Set the clock on the system

timedatectl set-ntp true

• Type the following commands to create three partitions required for the Arch Linux installation.

fdisk -l

This will list all the disks on your device and its partions.

Select the disk by:

fdisk /dev/<disk_name>

Here, <disk_name> should be replaced by the name of your disk where you wish to install Arch Linux on and the disk you had created an unallocated space in the windows disk management tool.

In my case, It is:

fdisk /dev/sda

it'll be /dev/nvme0n1 if it is an SSD and If it is a HDD, itll be /dev/sda

Follow the following commands:

(The lines after // are comments for you to understand. Don’t type them in bash)

command (m for help): n //press n here
Partition Number (5-128, default 5):5
First Sector: //press enter
Last Sector: +512M //press enter after entering the size.

Now to change the filesystem to a EFI filesystem, press t.

command (m for help): t//press t here
Partition Number: 5
Partition Type: 1 //press one and press enter

Now to create the partition where you will be storing all of your data,

command (m for help): n //press n here
Partition Number (6-128, default 6):6
First Sector: //press enter
Last Sector: +8G //press enter after entering the size.

Now to create the third and final partition for the SWAP file,

command (m for help): n //press n here
Partition Number (7-128, default 7):7
First Sector: //press enter
Last Sector: //press enter , the size will be filled automatically

Now to change the filesystem to a SWAP filesystem, press t.

command (m for help): t//press there
Partition Number: 7
Partition Type: 19//type 19 and press enter

Make sure the partitions are correct, by typing p,

The partitions should look like this

If they are correct, write the changes by pressing w and enter .

• Lets wipe the EFI partition to FAT32 format

EFI partition(device) is /dev/sda5 in my case. It may vary in your case.

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/<EFI Partition device>

(replace <EFI Partition device> with the EFI partition device ,ie /dev/sda5 in my case.)

So in my case it'll be:

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda5

• Lets make the SWAP volume now.

SWAP partition(device) is /dev/sda7 in my case. it may vary in yours

mkswap /dev/<SWAP Partition device>
swapon /dev/<SWAP Partition device>

(replace <SWAP Partition device> with the SWAP partition device ,ie /dev/sda7 in my case.)

So in my case it’ll be:

mkswap /dev/sda7
swapon /dev/sda7

Linux can handle both ext4 and NTFS filesystems . But we are going to use the ext4 filesystem as ext4 can support individual files up to 16 terabytes, and volumes up to one exabyte in size.

• Lets make the ext4 partition on our main drive.

Linux Filesystem Partition(device) is /dev/sda6 in my case. It may vary in yours.

mkfs.ext4 /dev/<Linux Filesystem Device>

(replace <Linux filesystem device> with the Linux filesystem partition device ,ie /dev/sda6 in my case.)

So in my case it’ll be:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda6

Step 4: Mount EFI and Linux filesystem

• Mount the Linux Filesystem partition device to /mnt

mount /dev/<Linux Filesystem Device> /mnt

(replace <Linux filesystem device> with the Linux filesystem partition device ,i.e /dev/sda6 in my case.)

So in my case it’ll be:

mount /dev/sda6 /mnt

• Mount the EFI partition device to /mnt/boot

mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/<EFI partition device> /mnt/boot

(replace <EFI partition device> with the EFI partition device ,ie /dev/sda5 in my case.)

So in my case it’ll be:

mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/boot

After mounting check whether it is actually mounted by using the command :

df

The two mount points should show up like this

Step 5: Installing the Linux Firmware to our system

• Now that you have all your partitions set, we can proceed to installing the Linux firmware onto the mounted partitions. To do this, type the following command

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware

Get a cup of coffee and relax for a while, the installation may take a while depending upon your network speed.

• After the installation is complete, run the following command to generate fstab.

 genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

After running generating fstab, check the generated file by:

vi /mnt/etc/fstab

It should show something similar , if not the same, don’t worry, it just needs to have /dev/<partition name> line in it

Exit by pressing Esc and typing :q

Step 6:Lets Change Root to our installed system

• Change root into the installed system by typing:

arch-chroot /mnt

Step 7: Set Timezone of your system

cd /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia
ls

If your zone is Asia , type

cd /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia 

And respectively for other zones. Form the list find your region.In my case it is Kolkata as im living in India.

With the zone and region figured out, enter it into /etc/localtime

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata /etc/localtime

Step 8: Sync the hardware clock

hwclock --systohc

Step 9: Generate Locales

• Install text editor nano :

pacman -Sy nano

We need to edit the loacle.gen file using nano

nano /etc/locale.gen

Clear the # before en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

Scroll down to en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and clear the # before the text

Save by pressing CTRl+o, press enter and exit by pressing CTRL+x

Generate locale

locale-gen

You should see this as the result

Create locale.conf

nano locale.conf

Type the following into the file:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8

CTRL+o to save, press enter and CTRL+x to exit.

Step 10: Create Hostname

To create Hostname file

nano /etc/hostname

And type your desired hostname into the file.

My hostname is adithya and hence it type it,type yours into the file.

CTRL+o to save , press enter and CTRL+x to exit.

To create Hosts

nano /etc/hosts

At the end of the file(next line available), add the lines:

127.0.0.1    localhost
::1          localhost
127.0.1.1    adithya.localdomain adithya

Replace adithya with <your hostname> .

CTRL+o to save , press enter and CTRL+x to exit.

Step 11: Set Root Password

passwd

Enter the password, press enter and retype the pasword.

Step 12: Add user and set Password for the user

useradd -g users -G power,storage,wheel -m <username>

Replace <username> with a username of your choice.

If it doesnt work , try

useradd -g users -G power,wheel -m <username>

Add Password

passwd <username>

Replace <username> with your username.

Enter the password, press enter and retype the pasword.

Step 13: Install Boot Manager

pacman -S grub efibootmgr os-prober

check install by typing os-prober , it shouldnt show any error

Install grub

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/ --bootloader-id=GRUB

This is a single line command, with a space in between /boot/ and — bootloader-id

Mount Windows EFI System

fdisk -l

Here my EFI for windows is /dev/sda2. It may vary in your case

Find your windows EFI partition device id. Mine is /dev/sda2.

mkdir /mnt2/
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt2

(Replace /dev/sda2 with your windows EFI partition device id.)

After that we need to make the config file for grub .

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.config

If all goes well, It should show up like this

Step 14: Installing Network Drivers

This is a really important step as without network drivers, you will not be able to connect to WiFi. This is the step that most people forget to do and end up having to live boot into Arch USB again to install it later.

To install Network Drivers:

pacman -S networkmanager network-manager-applet dialog wireless_tools wpa_supplicant mtools dosfstools base-devel 
linux-headers

The whole command is a single line and not multiple lines, with space in between dialog and wireless_tools and space between base-devel and linux-headers.

After the installation is complete, type:

exit
unmount -a

And then

reboot

Step 15: Boot into Arch Linux

If you successfully boot into Arch Linux , congratulations!

Login -In as root user with:

username:root
password:<your password for root user set in Step 11>

Congratulations! You have done it! In spite of all odds!

Step 16: Activate Internet

To activate internet,

systemctl start NetworkManager
nmtui

Connect to your wifi network using the GUI.

systemctl enable NetworkManager

Step 17:Grant SuperUser Permission to User

EDITOR=nano visudo

clear the # before wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

clear the # before wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Save by pressing CTRl+o, press enter and exit by pressing CTRL+x

Step 18:Install Graphics and Display Drivers

To install Intel Card Drivers:

pacman -S xf86-video-intel

Now this is a mandatory install for everyone with an Intel CPU,

For People having AMD Graphics Cards,

pacman -S xf86-video-amdgpu

For people having Nvidia Graphics Card,

pacman -S nvidia nvidia-utils

To install Display Server

pacman -S xorg

Accept the defaults by hitting enter.

pacman -S xorg-server

Step 19:Installing KDE Plasma Desktop

KDE is one of the more refined and customizable Desktops for Linux.

To Install Display Manager

pacman -S sddm

Enable sddm

systemctl enable sddm

To install Plasma

pacman -S plasma kde-applications

OR

For a Minimal install, without any bloatware,

pacman -S plasma

accept all defaults by pressing enter and start the install.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have successfully Installed Arch Linux with KDE Plasma Desktop!.

Now to complete the installation,

reboot

Boot into Arch Linux with KDE Plasma Desktop, Login.

Your KDE Plasma desktop should look something like this

Open terminal and update the repositories.

sudo pacman -Syyu

“btw i use arch linux”

That’s it! You are done!

Now enjoy the plasma desktop environment. Try out different themes from the theme store. I really love the McMojave theme.Cheers!

Step 19(Alter): Installing GNOME

If u dont want to install KDE PLasma, then you can install GNOME.

Skip the step for installing KDE and follow the remaining tutorial

Install the Display manager

pacman -S gdm

Enable gdm

systemctl enable gdm

Install GNOME

pacman -S gnome gnome-extra

OR

For minimal Install,

pacman -S gnome 

Now reboot,

reboot

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have successfully Installed Arch Linux with GNOME Desktop!.

Boot into Arch Linux with GNOME, Login.

Open terminal and update the repositories.

sudo pacman -Syyu 

That’s it! You are done!

Now enjoy the GNOME desktop environment.!

If you have any doubts regarding anything at any point during the installation, or run into any problems during installation,you can refer to the fully fledged Arch Wiki.

Thank you guys!

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