I usually use BIOS for installing Linux system. However, on this T440, a Windows is already installed in UEFI boot mode and I want to keep it. Thus, I decided to try installing Arch on UEFI mode. And actually, it turned out to be easier to use UEFI boot mode. You can see whether you’ve enabled UEFI mode on boot setting or simply type the command when you boot into your Arch iso.
efivar -l
And it’s very easy to make an Arch bootable USB disk. Just download it on another computer and run the command:
dd bs=4M if=/path/to/archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdx && sync
with sdx to be your USB disk (e.g. sdc, NOT sdcY)
Let’s start!
When you boot into your Arch iso, connect to wi-fi first using wifi-menu. Then partition your disk with fdisk /dev/sdx. type d to delete partition, type n to add partition. After that, formating the root partition using ext4.
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdxY
#EFI partition can be formated with mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sdxY
The EFI partition is already generated by Windows with name “EFI system” in fdisk -l. So we just leave it there.
Now let’s mount root and boot partition.
mount /dev/sdxY /mnt
#Assume /dev/sdxY is the root partition
mkdir -p /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sdxY /mnt/boot
#Assume /dev/sdxY is the boot partition. In UEFI, this is just the EFI partition
Then we can start installing the system, simply use:
pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel iw wpa_supplicant dialog sudo
And then generate fstab:
genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
Now we have the new system, arch-chroot into it to configure everything!
arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
vi /etc/locale.gen
# I uncommented en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 zh_CN.UTF-8 UTF-8 zh_TW.UTF-8 UTF-8
locale-gen
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Vancouver /etc/localtime
#Set time standard to be UTC
hwclock --systohc --utc
#For windows, need to edit registry in
#HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation\
#Add a REG_DWORD key RealTimeIsUniversal with value 1
passwd
#set password for root
bootctl install
#use bootctl for UEFI, if it's BIOS, grub is recommended
vi /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
#add a boot entry
#title Arch Linux
#linux /vmlinuz-linux
#initrd /initramfs-linux.img
#options root=PARTUUID=xxxxxxxxxx rw
#
#You can get PARTUUID by running blkid /dev/sdxY
vi /boot/loader/loader.conf
#Edit loader config
#default arch
#timeout 1
#editor 0
echo #myhostname > /etc/hostname
vi /etc/hosts
#<ip-address> <hostname.domain.org> <hostname>
#127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost #myhostname
#::1 localhost.localdomain localhost #myhostname
reboot
#REMOVE YOUR USB DISK
Next, add a main user.
useradd -m -g users -G audio,video,floppy,network,rfkill,scanner,storage,optical,power,wheel,uucp -s /bin/bash YourUserName
passwd YourUserName
Make it a sudoer:
visudo
#After root ALL=(ALL) ALL
#Add YourUserName ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
Install Yaourt, a package management tool to manage packages from AUR:
vi /etc/pacman.conf
#Put the following into this conf file
#[archlinuxfr]
#Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch
#SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
pacman -S yaourt
Add finger print authencation support:
yaourt -S fprintd imagemagick
vi /etc/pam.d/system-local-login
#put the following line at the top of auth section
#auth sufficient pam_fprintd.so
fprintd-enroll
#create your finger print signature
Now the new system should be dual-bootable.