Arch Post-Installation Checklist

Passwords & User Creation

Make sure root has a password.

Make sure you have a primary user set up.

sudo useradd -m -u <id -ge 1000> -g users -G wheel,games,video,audio,optical,storage,scanner,power <user>
sudo passwd <user>

Time Zone

sudo ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/<region>/<city> /etc/localtime
sudo hwclock --systohc

Localization

Un-comment your desired locales in /etc/locale.conf, then run

sudo locale-gen

If you don't have the default /etc/locale.gen file:

sudo rm /etc/locale.gen
sudo pacman -Syu glibc

Edit /etc/locale.conf as you see fit

/etc/locale.conf

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_US
LC_COLLATE=POSIX
LC_MESSAGES=C
LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
LC_NUMERIC=en_US.UTF-8
LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8
LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8
LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8
LC_NAME=en_US.UTF-8
LC_ADDRESS=en_US.UTF-8
LC_TELEPHONE=en_US.UTF-8
LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8
LC_IDENTIFICATION=en_US.UTF-8

Set up /etc/vconsole.conf with a keymap and (optionally) a font:

/etc/vconsole.conf

KEYMAP=us
FONT=Lat2-Terminus16

Initramfs

Look for and edit the following lines:

/etc/mkinitcpio.conf

MODULES=([amdgpu|bochs_drm|cirrus|i915|nouveau|(nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm)] [ehci_pci usb_storage]>)
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block [zfs] filesystems keyboard fsck [encrypt] keymap consolefont)
COMPRESSION=lz4

Networking

Host Name

Make sure a host name is set in /etc/hostname

Then edit /etc/hosts

/etc/hosts

127.0.0.1	localhost.localdomain	locahost
::1		localhost.localdomain	localhost
127.0.1.1	<hostname>.localdomain	<hostname>

Static Addressing

Use systemd-networkd when a machine will use a static address without consulting a DHCP server.

IPv4 Only

/etc/systemd/network/network.network

[Match]
MACAddress=<mac-address>
[Network]
Address=<ipv4-address>/<mask>
DNS=<ipv4-address>
Gateway=<ipv4-address>
LinkLocalAddressing=no
IPv6AcceptRA=no

IPv4 & IPv6

/etc/systemd/network/network.network

[Match]
MACAddress=<mac-address>
[Network]
Address=<ipv6-address>/<mask>
DNS=<ipv6-address>
Gateway=<ipv6-address>
Address=<ipv4-address>/<mask>
DNS=<ipv4-address>
Gateway=<ipv4-address>

Dynamic Addressing

It's preferable to use connman or Network Manager for dynamic addresses as systemd-networkd doesn't play well with interfaces coming and going.

If you'd rather use systemd-networkd for DHCP:

/etc/systemd/network/network.network

[Match]
MACAddress=<mac-address>
[Network]
DHCP=yes
[DHCP]
UseMTU=true

Packages

Mirror List

Install and use reflector to automate the use and selection of mirrors.

sudo pacman -Syu reflector
sudo reflector -c <country> -p https -l 5 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Yay

Make sure you have the base-devel group installed.

sudo pacman -Syu --needed base-devel git

Create a directory where AUR build files will go

sudo mkdir /var/lib/pacman/aur
sudo chmod 1777 /var/lib/pacman/aur
mkdir /var/lib/pacman/aur/$(whoami)

Build yay.

cd /var/lib/pacman/aur/$(whoami)
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
cd yay
makepkg -Ccisr

The create the configuration file.

~/.config/yay/config.json

{
	"aururl": "https://aur.archlinux.org",
	"buildDir": "/var/lib/pacman/aur/$USER",
	"editor": "nano",
	"editorflags": "",
	"makepkgbin": "makepkg",
	"makepkgconf": "",
	"pacmanbin": "pacman",
	"pacmanconf": "/etc/pacman.conf",
	"tarbin": "bsdtar",
	"redownload": "no",
	"rebuild": "no",
	"answerclean": "none",
	"answerdiff": "all",
	"answeredit": "",
	"answerupgrade": "0",
	"gitbin": "git",
	"gpgbin": "gpg",
	"gpgflags": "",
	"mflags": "",
	"sortby": "votes",
	"gitflags": "",
	"removemake": "yes",
	"requestsplitn": 150,
	"sortmode": 0,
	"completionrefreshtime": 7,
	"sudoloop": false,
	"timeupdate": false,
	"devel": true,
	"cleanAfter": false,
	"gitclone": true,
	"provides": true,
	"pgpfetch": true,
	"upgrademenu": true,
	"cleanmenu": true,
	"diffmenu": true,
	"editmenu": true,
	"combinedupgrade": false,
	"useask": false
}

General Utilities

These packages supplement the base system.

yay -Syu --needed adduser archey3 arj bind-tools bzip2 dmidecode dnsutils fail2ban git haveged htop hwdetect inxi iotop lshw lzop nano ncdu openssh p7zip pacman-contrib perl-rename pkgfile polkit ranger rsync strace sudo tmux unrar unzip vim whois zip

If you are not running inside a VM, you may also wish to add these packages:

yay -Syu hddtemp lm_sensors memtest86+ smartmontools

The havaged service can be enabled and started right away as no configuration is needed.

sudo systemctl enable --now haveged

Your sensors need to be configured before starting the lm_sensors service.

Note: This package is useless inside a VM.

sudo sensors-detect
sudo systemctl enable --now lm_sensors

Don't start fail2ban or sshd quite yet as they have configuration that needs to be done.