The Installation Guide Is Open. I Am Not Ready.

The Arch Wiki installation guide sits in my browser. I’ve read it four times now. Each time, I understand a little more. Each time, I’m also more aware of how much I don’t understand.

This isn’t Pop!_OS where you click “Install” and grab coffee. This isn’t EndeavourOS with its friendly installer asking simple questions. This is me, a command prompt, and a very long list of things I need to do manually.

Partition the disk. Format the partitions. Mount them. Install the base system. Configure the bootloader. Set up networking. Create users. Install a desktop environment.

All of it. By hand. Through the terminal.

I’ve been staring at this screen for twenty minutes. The USB stick is ready. My files are backed up. There’s no reason not to start except that I’m terrified I’m going to brick my computer.

But I didn’t spend two weeks distro hopping just to chicken out now.

Let’s do this.

Hour One: Partitions and Panic

The Arch ISO boots to a command prompt. No GUI. No “Welcome to Arch Linux!” screen. Just:

root@archiso ~ #

Okay. Deep breath. First step: partition the disk.

I know I need to use fdisk or cfdisk or parted. The wiki mentions fdisk works for both MBR and GPT, or gdisk specifically for GPT. My system is UEFI so I need GPT. I think. I hope.

I type cfdisk /dev/sda and a text-based interface appears. It looks like something from 1995 and I’m oddly comforted by that.

I need:

  • An EFI partition (512MB)
  • A root partition (rest of the drive)
  • Swap? Maybe? The wiki says it’s optional. I skip it for now. I can always add it later. (Can I? I’ll find out.)

Creating the partitions isn’t hard. Selecting partition types, setting sizes - the interface is actually pretty logical once I stop panicking.

Write the changes. Confirm. Done.

I just partitioned my drive. Manually. From the command line.

Small win. Feels good.

Hour Two: Formatting and Mounting

Now I need to format these partitions. The EFI partition needs FAT32. The root partition needs ext4.

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

Commands execute. No errors. I’m not sure if I should be celebrating or if this is just the easy part.

Mount the root partition to /mnt. Mount the EFI partition to /mnt/boot. The wiki is very specific about the order here. I follow it exactly.

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

Everything’s mounted. My blank partitions are ready to become an operating system.

I type the next command before I can overthink it.

Hour Three: Base System Installation

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware

And we’re off. Packages downloading. Progress bars filling. This is actually happening.

While it installs, I read ahead in the wiki. Generate an fstab. Chroot into the new system. Set timezone. Set locale. Configure networking. Install a bootloader. Create a user.

So many steps. Each one critical. Miss one and the system won’t boot. Or won’t connect to the internet. Or won’t let me log in.

The base installation finishes. I generate the fstab file. I arch-chroot into /mnt and suddenly I’m inside my new system, configuring it before it can even boot on its own.

This is wild.

Hour Four: The Details That Matter

Time zone: Manila. Easy.

Locale: en_US.UTF-8. I edit /etc/locale.gen, uncomment the line, run locale-gen. It generates. I set LANG in /etc/locale.conf.

Hostname: I pick something simple.

Network: This one scares me. If I mess this up, I won’t have internet when I boot. No internet means no installing anything. No fixing problems.

I install NetworkManager. Enable it with systemd. Hope it works.

Bootloader time. GRUB seems like the safest choice. I install it, configure it, generate the config file. Each command completes without error, but I won’t know if it worked until I try to boot.

Root password. Then I create my user account, set a password, add myself to sudoers.

I think I’m done? I check the wiki again. Did I miss anything critical?

I exit the chroot. Unmount everything. Type reboot.

The USB stick ejects. The system restarts.

I hold my breath.

The Boot Screen

GRUB appears. That’s good. That means the bootloader worked.

I select “Arch Linux” and watch the boot messages scroll by. Lots of text. Some [OK] messages. No obvious errors.

Then… a login prompt.

Just text. No GUI. No desktop. But it’s asking for a username, which means the system booted.

I type my username. Type my password.

I’m in.

Holy shit. I’m in. I just installed Arch Linux from scratch and it booted.

My system is a command prompt. I have no desktop environment. No GUI. No browser. Just bash and whatever came with the base install. But it’s MY system. I built this. Every partition, every package, every configuration file - I set it up.

It’s the ugliest, most bare-bones system imaginable. And I love it.

What I Actually Learned

Partitioning isn’t scary. Once you understand what EFI, root, and swap partitions are for, it’s just setting up containers for different types of data.

The wiki is incredible. I mean this. The Arch Wiki is so detailed, so well-written, that even someone like me who barely knew what a bootloader was could follow along.

Commands are just tools. pacstrap, genfstab, arch-chroot - they’re not magic. They’re utilities that do specific jobs. Understanding what each one does made the whole process less intimidating.

Breaking it down helps. I didn’t “install Arch Linux.” I partitioned a disk. Then formatted partitions. Then installed packages. Then configured settings. Small steps. One at a time.

Taking notes is essential. I documented every command. Every decision. If something breaks tomorrow, I’ll know exactly what I did and can redo it or fix it.

Where I Am Now

I have a working Arch Linux system. It’s literally just a terminal right now. I can’t even browse the web. But it boots, I can log in, and pacman works.

Tomorrow: I need to install a desktop environment. Or a window manager. Or… something that isn’t just a black screen with white text.

Also need to set up audio. And probably a bunch of other things I don’t even know I need yet.

But tonight? Tonight I’m just sitting here staring at this command prompt, proud as hell that I got this far.

If you’d told me three weeks ago that I’d be excited about a blank terminal, I’d have thought you were crazy. But here we are.

The hardest part is done. Now comes the fun part: building the system I actually want to use.

The arch.log series: documenting my journey from Windows to Arch, from GUI to CLI, from avoiding the terminal to living in it. It’s messy, honest, and probably full of mistakes.