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Fully encrypted Arch Linux in Dual Boot with macOS on a MacBook Pro Mid-2014 - Part 3

6 min read

Welcome to Part 3 of my multi-part guide on Installing Arch Linux alongside macOS on a Mid-2014 MacBook Pro with full disk encryption.

With the hard drive partitioned and encrypted, it’s time to start the base installation of Arch Linux. By the end of this section, you’ll have a functional, minimal Arch Linux setup ready for customization and use.

Navigation:

Base Arch Linux installation

With partitions created and mounted, let’s install the essential Arch packages to get our system running.

Bootstrap the system

  1. Install essential Arch packages to the root partition:
pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware
  1. Generate the fstab file:
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
  1. Change the root into the new system:
arch-chroot /mnt

With this command, you’re effectively “entering” the new system environment (mounted at /mnt), allowing us to configure it as if we were (kind of) fully booted into it.

Set system timezone

  1. Find your timezone with:
ls /usr/share/zoneinfo

The structure is /usr/share/zoneinfo/[Region]/[City]. In my case it’s Europe/Lisbon. 2. Set the timezone (replace Europe/Lisbon with your location):

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Lisbon /etc/localtime
  1. Sync the hardware clock:
hwclock --systohc

Install essential packages

To create a basic yet usable system, install the following essential packages. (Feel free to adjust based on your preferences—e.g., using nano instead of vim.)

pacman -Syu vim which sudo man-db man-pages texinfo intel-ucode lvm2 broadcom-wl iwd

Many of these packages come recommended in the official Arch installation guide.

Localization

  1. To set your locale edit the file /etc/locale.gen (vim /etc/locale.gen ) and uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and any other needed locales
  2. Create the file /etc/locale.conf and set the respective LANG:
echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf
  1. Generate the locales
locale-gen

Networking

  1. Set your hostname. I chose macbooky, but you can name it as you prefer:
echo "macbooky" > /etc/hostname
  1. I chose systemd-networkd as the network manager (other options are available, but this is simple and reliable for Arch). Enable it:
systemctl enable systemd-networkd.service
  1. Enable DNS resolution:
systemctl enable systemd-resolved.service

Configure mkinitcpio for Encryption Support

Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf to support encryption. Modify the HOOKS line as follows:

HOOKS=(base systemd autodetect microcode modconf kms keyboard sd-vconsole sd-encrypt block lvm2 filesystems fsck)

To improve TTY readability, set a larger font by creating /etc/vconsole.conf:

echo "FONT=latarcyrheb-sun32" > /etc/vconsole.conf

Bootloader Configuration

  1. Install systemd-boot in the boot partition:
bootctl --path=/boot install
bootctl update
  1. Configure the bootloader by editing the file /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf (vim /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf) and adding the following:
title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
options rd.luks.name=<DEVICE-UUID>=<VOLUMEGROUP> root=/dev/VOLUMEGROUP/root rw

Replace DEVICE-UUID with the ID of the entire encrypted LVM partition. To get it, run the command blkid and take note of the the device UUID of the partition with type crypto_LUKS.

Replace VOLUMEGROUP ( macbooky in my case).

For me, the file becomes:

title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
options rd.luks.name=bla-bla-bla=macbooky root=/dev/macbooky/root rw
  1. Add the following contents to the loader configuration file (/boot/loader/loader.conf):
timeout 5
default arch.conf
editor no

This sets a timeout of 5 seconds, sets the default entry to arch.conf and disables any edits and boot time (for security reasons).

Build mkinitcipio

Finally run:

mkinitcipio -P

Make sure no errors appear (warnings are ok).

Configure user accounts and passwords

  1. Create your user (replace YOUR_USER with your desired username):
useradd -m YOUR_USER
  1. Give your user root powers by adding it to the wheels group:
usermod -aG wheel YOUR_USER
  1. Grant root privileges to the wheels. run visudo and uncomment the line that reads: Uncomment to allow member of group wheel to execute any command :
%whell ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
  1. Set root passwd (use a secure password!):
passwd
  1. Ser your user password (use a secure password different from root!):
passwd YOUR_USER

Reboot!

You’re now ready for the first boot into Arch Linux!

  1. Exit the chroot:
exit
  1. Unmount all partitions:
umount -R /mnt
  1. Reboot and remove the installation medium:
reboot

In case of a failed boot

If your first boot fails due to configuration issues, not all hope is lost. You can still troubleshoot without starting over:

  1. Boot again from the live usb stick
  2. unlock the encrypted volume:
cryptsetup open /dev/sda4 cryptlvm
  1. Mount the partitions:
mount /dev/macbooky/root /mnt
mount --mkdir /dev/macbooky/home /mnt/home
mount --mkdir /dev/sda3 /mnt/boot
swapon /dev/macbooky/swap
  1. Change root into new system:
arch-chroot /mnt
  1. Fix what you suspect is broken and reboot again

If you’re still stuck, feel free to reach out in the comments.

First boot

  1. On boot, you should see entries for both Arch Linux and macOS. Choose Arch Linux.
  2. When prompted, enter your encryption password to unlock the LVM.
  3. If all goes well, you’ll reach the login prompt, marking a successful installation! 😃

Configure wireless adapter

Similarly to what was done during the installation process, we need to connect to the Wi-Fi (you’ll only need to do this once):

  1. Enable and start the iwd service:
sudo systemctl enable iwd
sudo systemctl start iwd
  1. Run iwctl
  2. Get you device name (probably it’ll be wlan0):
device list
  1. Put station in scan mode and list available networks:
station wlan0 scan
station wlan0 get-networks
  1. Connect to your network (SSID is your network name. Quotes are required):
station wlan0 connect "SSID"
  1. Confirm connection was succesfful: station wlan0 show
  2. exit from iwctl.

You’re now connected to the network, but you’ll probably won’t have a connection to the internet because DNS resolution is not enabled. Let’s take care of that:

  1. Get the network interface name (it’ll probably be wlan0):
ip link
  1. Create a file in /etc/systemd/network/25-wireless.network with the following contents:
[Match]
Name=wlan0

[Network]
DHCP=yes
IgnoreCarrierLoss=3s
  1. Enable and start systemd-networkd and systemd-resolved:
sudo systemctl enable systemd-networkd.service
sudo systemctl start systemd-networkd.service
sudo systemctl enable systemd-resolved.service
sudo systemctl start systemd-resolved.service

Give it a few seconds and test connectivity by pinging google:

ping www.google.com

Conclusions and next steps

And that’s it for now! 🎉 You now have a basic, functional Arch Linux setup. Upcoming steps that I still need to take core of include:

  • Setting up fan control to prevent overheating (Do not do any heavy processing before getting this configured!)
  • Configuring macOS booting from systemd-boot. As of now, if MacOS is selected in the boot menu, it won’t boot. The workroud for now: hold down the Option (⌥) key until the Apple logo appear and then select the MacOS boot partition.
  • Installing a Desktop Environment/Window Manager. We need a graphical user interface for a fully usable system
  • Configuring firewall for security
  • … and anything else I feel like it 🙂

Let me know if you’d like more posts covering these next steps!

Thanks for following along! Feel free to ask questions or suggest improvements in the comments.

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