The following includes complementary steps when installing Arch Linux inside a VirtualBox instance.
Download the most recent Arch Linux image and signature:
Arch Linux Downloads https://archlinux.org/download/
Verify the downloaded image using:
gpg --verify <sig-file>
Create a new virtual machine inside VirtualBox to run Arch. This guide assumes working with a large disk allocated (e.g. 400+GB). Consider the the following notables when creating/configuring this virtual machine:
General
Advanced
Shared Clipboard: Bidirectional
System
Motherboard
Base Memory: 10GB+
Processor
Processors: All physical cores (green)
Extended Features:
Enable PAE/NX: Checked
Display
Screen
Video Memory: Maximum
Graphics Controller: VMSVGA
Extended Features:
Enable 3D Acceleration: Unchecked
Network
Adapter 1
Attached to: Bridged Adapter
Adapter 2
Attached to: Host-only Adapter
Shared Folders
Create a path to desired working directory.
Before starting the machine, attach the downloaded Arch ISO.
Start the Arch image and wait until a terminal session is available.
If the font size is too small, increase the size by using:
setfont ter-118b
First step is to prepare the attached disk using cfdisk utility:
cfdisk
This will open up a TUI. Select the following options:
Initialize disk as GPT.
Create the following new partitions:
BIOS Boot: 1MB
Linux Swap: 6GB
Linux File System: (remaining)
Ensure the write option is selected with a confirmation of yes.
Gracefully quit the application.
After changing the partitions, verify they have been created with fdisk:
fdisk -l
Create and attach the swap area:
mkswap /dev/sda2
swapon /dev/sda2
Prepare the system’s primary file system:
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
Mount the primary file system onto /mnt:
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
Create a new system installation:
pacstrap -K /mnt base linux-lts linux-firmware linux-lts-headers \
curl dhcpcd grub networkmanager vim wget
With the initial file system prepared, configure mounts to use when the system starts up:
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
cat /mnt/etc/fstab
chroot on the mount path to perform final installation steps:
arch-chroot /mnt
Configure a local timezone:
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime
Prepare locale by enabling UTF-8 inside locale.gen, then generating
the locale:
vim /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
Install/configure GRUB2:
grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Create a new administrator user:
useradd -m -G wheel <username>
Exit chroot, unmount and reboot:
exit
umount /mnt
reboot
Login with the newly created user and start a DHCP network client:
dhcpcd
Verify an expected IP using:
ip link
Note
Users in proxy environments may need to configure their proxies now to ensure resources can be fetched from online.
(optional) Use reflector to configure an optimal mirror list:
reflector --country '<country-name>' --verbose --latest 5 --sort rate \
--save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist --ipv4 --protocol https
Ensure the system is updated with the most recent versions for packages:
sudo pacman -Syu
Install the following packages:
sudo pacman -S \
bc \
cpio \
docker \
docker-buildx \
docker-compose \
g++ \
gnome-control-center \
htop \
kdb \
less \
patch \
pkg-config \
python-build \
python-tox \
rsync \
shellcheck \
terminator \
tk \
virtualbox-guest-utils \
which
Configure a vi alias for vim:
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/vim /usr/bin/vi
Configure the user to have access to Docker and VirtualBox shared paths:
sudo usermod -a -G docker <username>
sudo usermod -a -G vboxsf <username>
Configure various services to startup on boot:
sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager
sudo systemctl enable docker
sudo systemctl enable gdm
sudo systemctl enable vboxservice
Configure Git options:
git config --global user.name "<name>"
git config --global user.email "<email>"
Reboot:
sudo reboot
This virtual machine should now be in a good state.