Introduction

The goal of this guide is to set up a minimal installation of Artix Linux with OpenRC as an init system and full disk encryption on an UEFI or BIOS system. This guide is meant to be read alongside the Artix and Arch wiki respectively. It does not cover implementing Secure Boot

Acquire an installation image

1. Go to the downloads page https://artixlinux.org/download.php
2. Scroll down to the Official ISO images section.
3. Under the base section, download the file starting with artix-base-openrc and ending with .iso

Prepare an installation medium

sudo dd bs=4M if=~/Downloads/artix-base-openrc-*-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdb1 conv=fsync oflag=direct status=progress

Boot the live environment

1. Power off your PC.
2. Insert the flash drive into the computer on which you are installing Artix Linux.
3. Power on your PC and press your boot menu key.
4. Boot the installation medium.

Enter the live environment

Login with the default credentials.

• Username: root
• Password: artix

Connect to the internet

rfkill unblock wifi
ip link set wlan0 up
connmanctl

agent on
scan wifi
services

connect {your WiFi name}
quit

ping artixlinux.org

Update the system clock

Activate the NTP daemon to synchronize the computer’s real-time clock

rc-service ntpd start

Partition the disk

1. Install and run gdisk

pacman -Sy gdisk
gdisk /dev/nvme0n1

2. Delete any existing partitions. Repeat until none are left.

Command (m for help): d

3. Create a boot partition

Command (m for help): n
Partition number (1-128, default 1):
First sector (...):
Last sector (...): +512M
Hex code or GUID (...): ef00

4. Create a root partition

Command (m for help): n
Partition number (2-128, default 1):
First sector (...):
Last sector (...):
Hex code or GUID (...): 8300

5. Write the changes

Command (m for help): w
Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y

6. Verify partitioning

lsblk

NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE
nvme0n1     259:0    0 465,8G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   512M  0 part
└─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0 465,3G  0 part

Encrypt root partition

1. Encrypt your root partition

cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/nvme0n1p2
Are you sure (Type `yes` in capital letters): YES

2. Open the encrypted partition

cryptsetup open /dev/nvme0n1p2 root

Create file systems

1. Create the boot file system

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1

1. Create the root file system

mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/root

Mount file systems

1. Mount the root file system

mount /dev/mapper/root /mnt

2. Mount the boot file system

mount -m /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot

3. Verify mounting

lsblk

NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1     259:0    0 465,8G  0 disk  
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   512M  0 part  /mnt/boot
└─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0 465,3G  0 part  
  └─root    254:0    0 465,2G  0 crypt /mnt

Install essentials

Install the base system, kernel, init system and other essential packages.

basestrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware openrc elogind-openrc cryptsetup cryptsetup-openrc efibootmgr doas nano

basestrap /mnt amd-ucode

basestrap /mnt intel-ucode

Generate file system table

fstabgen -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Switch to new Installation

artix-chroot /mnt bash

Network stack

pacman -S wpa_supplicant networkmanager networkmanager-openrc iwd iwd-openrc
rc-update add NetworkManager
rc-update add iwd

<!-- /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf -->
[device]
wifi.backend=iwd

<!-- /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/00-macrandomize.conf -->
[device-mac-randomization]
wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=yes
 
[connection-mac-randomization]
ethernet.cloned-mac-address=random
wifi.cloned-mac-address=random

Localization

<!-- /etc/locale.gen -->
#en_CA.UTF-8 UTF-8  
#en_CA ISO-8859-1  
en_DK.UTF-8 UTF-8  
#en_DK ISO-8859-1  
#en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8  
#en_GB ISO-8859-1  

echo 'LANG=en_DK.UTF-8' > /etc/locale.conf
locale-gen

Set the time zone

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime

Set hardware clock from system clock

hwclock --systohc

Hostname

Set your preffered hostname, in this case I will be using artix

echo 'artix' > /etc/hostname

<!-- /etc/conf.d/hostname -->
# Hostname fallback if /etc/hostname does not exist
- hostname="localhost"
+ hostname="odin"

<!-- /etc/hosts -->
# Static table lookup for hostnames.
# See hosts(5) for details.
 
127.0.0.1     localhost
::1           localhost
127.0.1.1     artix.localdomain        artix 

Initramfs

In the HOOKS array, add encrypt between block and filesystems

<!-- /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -->
- HOOKS=(... block filesystems ...)
+ HOOKS=(... block encrypt filesystems ...)

Generate initramfs images

mkinitcpio -P

Add a user

1. Set the root password.

passwd

2. Create a user and set his password.

useradd -m artix
passwd artix

Configure doas

1. Create the config file and set the appropriate permissions

touch /etc/doas.conf
chown -c root:root /etc/doas.conf
chmod -c 0400 /etc/doas.conf

2. Add the following

<!-- /etc/doas.conf -->
+ permit artix as root
+ permit nopass artix as root cmd pacman

Boot loader

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/nvme0n1p2

efibootmgr -c -d /dev/nvme0n1 -p 1 -l /vmlinuz-linux -L "Artix" -u "cryptdevice=UUID=xxxx:root root=/dev/mapper/root rw initrd=\intel-ucode.img initrd=\initramfs-linux.img loglevel=3 quiet"

pacman -S grub
grub-install /dev/sda

blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/nvme0n1p2

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="cryptdevice=UUID=550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000:root root=/dev/mapper/root"
GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y

<!-- /etc/default/grub -->
+ GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="cryptdevice=UUID=xxxx:root root=/dev/mapper/root" ...
+ GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y
- #GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Reboot

1. You can now reboot and enter into your new installation

exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot now

Post install

You will now be greeted with a similar screen as when you first booted from the flash drive. Login using the credentials that you set, if you followed the example your username would be artix.

doas pacman -Syu artix-archlinux-support curl
doas pacman-key --populate archlinux
doas sh -c "curl https://archlinux.org/mirrorlist/all -o /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch"

<!-- /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch -->
## Worldwide
- #Server = https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/$repo/os/$arch
- #Server = https://ftpmirror.infania.net/mirror/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
- #Server = http://mirror.rackspace.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
- #Server = https://mirror.rackspace.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
+ Server = https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/$repo/os/$arch
+ Server = https://ftpmirror.infania.net/mirror/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
+ Server = http://mirror.rackspace.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
+ Server = https://mirror.rackspace.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch

<!-- /etc/pacman.conf -->
##Arch
[extra]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch
 
##[multilib]
##Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch

doas pacman -Syu reflector pacman-contrib
doas reflector --verbose -p https -l 30 -f 5 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch
doas sh -c "curl https://gitea.artixlinux.org/packages/artix-mirrorlist/raw/branch/master/mirrorlist -o /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.bak"
doas sh -c "rankmirrors -v -n 5 /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.bak > /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist"

doas pacman -S --needed base-devel
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/paru.git
cd paru
makepkg -si
cd ..
rm -rf paru

doas pacman -Rdd sudo
doas ln -s /usr/bin/doas /usr/bin/sudo

doas pacman -S power-profiles-daemon power-profiles-daemon-openrc
doas rc-update add power-profiles-daemon
doas rc-service power-profiles-daemon start

doas fallocate -l 4G /swapfile
doas chmod 600 /swapfile
doas mkswap /swapfile
doas swapon /swapfile
doas cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | doas tee -a /etc/fstab

doas fdisk /dev/sdb
>g, n, w
 
doas cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdb1
doas cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdb1 hdd1
doas mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/hdd1
doas mkdir /mnt/hdd1
doas mount /dev/mapper/hdd1 /mnt/hdd1
doas chown artix:artix /mnt/hdd1
doas dd if=/dev/urandom of=/root/keyfile_hdd1 bs=512 count=4
doas chmod 0400 /root/keyfile_hdd1
doas cryptsetup luksAddKey /dev/sdb1 /root/keyfile_hdd1
UUID=$(doas blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/sdb1)
 
doas sh -c "cat << EOF >> /etc/conf.d/dmcrypt
target=hdd1
source=UUID='$UUID'
key=/root/keyfile_hdd1
wait=2
EOF"
 
doas rc-update add dmcrypt boot
doas reboot