#Install arch linux on usb persistent install#
#Install arch linux on usb persistent iso#
#Install arch linux on usb persistent free#

Bootstraping the persistent Arch Linux installation If you'd like, you can check you've set up things correctly by running lsblk and verifying the mountpoints of the partitions are as shown in the image below. The -mkdir flag ensures the intermediate directories are created before mounting the partition. Below the commands for my case are shown. The next step now is to mount those partitions to the live Arch Linux system so we can put the system files into them. # EFI partitionīelow the messages you should expect from running these commands are shown.įinally, by running lsblk -fs you can check you've formatted the partitions correctly. Below the respective commands for my partition names are shown. For the EFI partition we want to format it into a FAT32 filesystem, while for the main Linux partition, we want ext4. The next step is to format each partition with the desired filesystem format.

You can check your work by running lscblk, which will now show the partitions you've just created. You should see a “The partition table has been altered” message on success and now you can quit cfdisk. To commit the selected partition scheme to disk, select then confirm it by typing out “yes”. cfdisk is pretty intuitive to use, so you can set up the partition scheme as shown below without very detailed instructions. Finally, partition the remainder of disk with a “Linux root (x86-64)” type. Now, as we are setting up an UEFI-based system, you will want to set up a UEFI partition with a “EFI system” type and at least 512MB.

I don't usually set up swap, but you might want to look into that for lower-end systems or memory-capped virtual machines. It allows the system to “swap out” unused memory pages into the disk, instead of failing by being out of memory, at the cost of a slower performance. NOTE: If the system has a low amount RAM, (say, less than 8 GB for a desktop machine running a GUI), you may want to look into setting up a swap partition.

#Install arch linux on usb persistent free#

Otherwise, the drive has never been partitioned and you will see the screen below with all the free space and no partitions. If the drive is already partitioned, you will see the existing partitions. If prompted, select gpt as the label type, as shown below. Run cfdisk /dev/vda, but replace vda with the device name of your actual main drive. The first step is to partition the storage drive. As I'm running this while in virtual machine, i'm getting a 10GB vda as the main drive, shown below. Check if the storage size is about what you would expect and consider unplugging unrelated storage drives, if any, for this step. Your main storage drive will appear as sda, nvme, or some other name. Run lsblk to list the block storage devices attached to your computer. The first step is to set up the partitions on the main drive of your computer. You can see the initial prompt on the screenshot below.

#Install arch linux on usb persistent install#

While no changes done to live environment itself will persist after shutdown, it will provide you a basic Arch environment with a variety of tools to actually install Arch Linux on your machine. This will start a live Arch Linux running straight from the USB Drive. Select “Arch Linux install medium (x86_64, UEFI)”.

If the USB Drive was flashed correctly and the machine was set to boot up from it, you will be greeted by a GRUB boot screen as seen below.

Most likely you can get into the BIOS by repeatedly pressing F2 or Delete while the computer boots up. īoot your machine from your USB drive by entering the BIOS boot menu and setting it as the primary boot option. On Windows, I usually use Rufus to do just this.

#Install arch linux on usb persistent iso#

įlash an USB drive with the ISO image to make a bootable drive. Grab the latest Arch Linux ISO from their official website.