Install Archcraft On A BIOS System (With Encryption)

Follow the steps below to install Archcraft on a BIOS system (with optional encryption).

1. After creating a bootable USB, boot system with it & select "Archcraft install medium".





2. On login screen, enter "liveuser" as the password & login to openbox desktop.





3. Press Window or Alt + F1 key to open launcher, select "Install Archcraft" & launch installer.





4. Select the language & press Enter. You'll see some messages like "All checks passed!"





5. Each step must be followed in ORDER. Now, select "Prepare Installation" & press Enter.





6. Select "Set Virtual Console" & press Enter.





7. I'm selecting "US". Choose whichever you prefer & press Enter.





8. Select "Set Desktop Keyboard Layout" & press Enter.





9. Again, whichever you prefer. I'm selecting "US".





10. Select "List Devices (optional)" & press Enter.





11. Here, you can see a list of devices and partitions on your system. Remember the name of device or partition on which you want to install Archcraft.





12. Now, go ahead and select "Partition Disk" & press Enter.





13. Select the device/disk you want to partition & press Enter. I'm going to install Archcraft on first HD, /dev/sda.





14. Select "cfdisk" & press Enter. You can also use "gparted" if you prefer GUI.





15. I'm installing it on an empty disk, so let's create a partiton table first. Select "dos" & press Enter.





16. You can create root, boot, home and swap partitions. When done partitioning, write the changes.





17. I created boot and root partitions. I'm going to use encryption, that's why I need a separate boot partition.





18. Let's setup encryption. Select "LUKS Encryption" & press Enter. If you don't want to use encryption, you can skip these steps & jump to Step 28 "Mount Partitions".





19. I am selecting "Automatic LUKS Encryption". Again choice is yours, select whichever you prefer & press Enter.





20. Select root partition & press Enter. (In my case it's /dev/sda2)





21. Set the name for encrypted partition. I choose the default.





22. Enter the password used to encrypt/decrypt the partition & press Enter.





23. Re-enter the same password & press Enter. Wait & ignore any warnings like /run/cryptsetup is missing.





24. Now the partition is open and ready for mounting. Press Enter to exit.





25. Select "back" to exit this screen.





26. If you want to use LVM, select "Logical Volume Management" & press Enter.





27. Here you can setup LVM settings. I'm skipping this step as I don't want to use it.





28. Mount the partitions we've created. Select "Mount Partitions" & press Enter.





29. If you've setup encryption, choose "/dev/mapper/cryptroot", otherwise just select "/dev/sda2" to mount as ROOT & press Enter.





30. Select "ext4" & press Enter.





31. Select "Yes" & press Enter.





32. Press Cancel and ignore it. Or, if you know what you're doing, choose what you want.





33. You'll see Mount Successful! message when mounted successfully.





34. Now, mount swap partition (if you've created any). I'm using a swapfile here.





35. Enter the size of swap file (must be equal to "System Memory (RAM)") & press Enter.





36. Now let's mount the boot partition. If you haven't created one, just use Done and move to step 42. Otherwise select it ("/dev/sda1" in my case) & press Enter.





37. Select "ext4" & press Enter.





38. Select "Yes" & press Enter.





39. Type "/boot" & press Enter. If you've created a separate home partition, you can mount it this way.





40. Again, ignore that.





41. Select "Done" & press Enter.





42. Select "Back" & move to next step.





43. Select "Install Base" & press Enter.





44. Select "Install Base Packages" & press Enter. It will copy the rootfs to your root partition.





45. Wait till it finishes.





46. Now, select "Run Mkinitcpio" & press Enter.





47. It'll generate the initramfs and fallback initramfs images.





48. Select "Install Bootloader" & press Enter.





49. Select "grub" (recommended) & press Enter. You can choose syslinux if you want.





50. Select the disk & press Enter. Wait till it's installed.





51. Go back to the main menu.





52. Select "Configure Base" & press Enter.





53. Select "Generate FSTAB" & press Enter.





54. Select "Device UUID" & press Enter.





55. Select "Set Hostname" & press Enter.





56. Enter the hostname (default is archcraft) & press Enter.





57. Select "Set System Locale" & press Enter.





58. I'm selecting "en_US.UTF-8". Choose the one you want & press Enter.





59. Select "Set Timezone and Clock" & press Enter.





60. Select your continent. Mine's "Asia".





61. Select the city. Mine's "Kolkata"





62. Select "Yes" & press Enter.





63. Use "localtime" if you're dualbooting with Windows, otherwise UTC.





64. Select "Set Root Password" & press Enter.





65. Enter the password for the root account.





66. Select "Add New User(s)" & press Enter. You can create multiple user accounts here.





67. Type your username, must be lowercase. This will be your regular user account.





68. Enter the password for the new user.





69. And a regular user will be created.





70. Select "Security and systemd Tweaks" & press Enter.





71. Choose whichever tweaks you like. When you're done, hit Back.





72. Select "Review Configuration Files" & press Enter.





73. Here's a list of all config files you can review and modify.





74. When you're done reviewing & modifying config files, select "BACK" & press Enter.





75. Finally Select "Done" & press Enter.





76. Select "Yes" & exit the installer.

That's it! Archcraft is installed on your system. Reboot the machine & enjoy your new OS.