First Time on Arch Linux - Part 1/undefined

Last updated: 1st February 2025

I wanted to make a dev box, at least run it on VM, rice it, use Hyprland and install it on a real machine to use it as a daily driver for Work and Programming. I've found showcases of it on r/unixporn and it was visually appealing to me, so I decided to try it out, the showcases are cool, uwu and very kawaii—and it's relaxing to look at. However, even though I liked the Linux ecosystem and installed and used a few distros repeatedly, such as Linux Mint (Cinnamon, XFCE), Manjaro, KDE (Kubuntu), Kali Linux, CentOS, Debian and Ubuntu; I was not very familiar with Arch Linux... since it was.... you know, it's like for Wizards! - like being comfortable with Linux is like also for Wizard, but being able to use Arch Linux is like a higher rank of Wizard!

"Late Night, around 1:00 AM onwards... It begins... "Let there be a Arch"

I ran my Virtual Box on my Windows 11 PC, and created a Virtual Machine. Booted up the Arch Linux iso file and tried to install it. I configured the VM to have 4-Cores, 8GB Memory and at least 12GB of Storage.

I am reading on the Install Guide and I was stuck on the terminal - I was looking for some guided install and found archinstall it was fine, but reading on it, I feel that it might not be the best way for me to install Arch, there were mentions of side effects that I don't understand at this point. So I go back to the manual install guide.

I'm on the Partitioning Step, I believe this is the initial phase for installing just like how I do it on installing other operating systems, I need to make sure the drive is properly partitioned. But... I was stuck. Ah good thing I was on a Virtual Machine!

[File: 716b8f57-54e9-47e0-b709-03afd27b6cbe]

"What...", "why did it say MBR?", "Ain't I'm supposed to use GPT ?", "Where the UEFI at?"

These are my questions to myself, and its almost 1:21 AM. I was reading on the Partitioning section and on the EFI Section of the Arch Wiki. (I'm also writing this thing as I install it, it's nice to have a documentation of my first hand experience with Arch Linux.)

I'm sleepy. Maybe I should continue this tomorrow night. But.. it's Friday night! It's video game night. So maybe continue it on Saturday... I'll read a more on the Arch Wiki on while on bed to fall asleep, and maybe play on a bit of a mod of Nin####'s Pok##### (Censored. I don't want to get in trouble) on Retro Arch on my Android Phone.

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It's Friday night, back at 9:39 PM and I skipped the game night ("for a while" 😂). There was nothing to play. Video Games these days are so boring... or am I getting old?... I currently play Persona 5 Royal and a few offline-oriented games with optional co-op or online features like Corekeeper and Stardew Valley, these are good game that respects my time. 🫡

I think I've found what I need. I was reading on the "EFI system partition" on the Arch Wiki. It gave me an insight on how what to look at when dual-booting when I need to perform it on a real machine.

So I decided to use fdsik and followed the steps to create the partition.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fdisk#Changepartitiontype

Time passed by it was 11:00 PM, I was busy on figuring out how can I add the images on my Listed.to blog post. - Currently, I am writing this on Standard Notes and publishing it on Listed.to. Also was thinking of streaming this Arch Linux thing but it's so hard to decide because I don't have a Youtube channel for myself and I don't want to use my other persona's Youtube channel which is more of a gaming🎮 channel. Man... forget about streaming the Arch thing. — I think I figured out a great way where to host my images! I used my old personal Github Pages, it was a "Hello World" page for 6 years (2019) and counting since I didn't bother to change it after I saw it.

Back on partition, I am taking my time to read the Arch Bible and learn a lot of things. I'm really sure I will have a hard time doing on a real machine.

The struggle is real.😂

I ended up watching a video on Youtube for installing Arch Linux.

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It's already 1st of February 2025