# Installing ArchLinux With Btrfs in Vmware *January 13, 2023* ## Before installation Create a virtual machine and adjust depend config on your need(Except for the UEFI firmware part): ![overview](overview.png) ![firmwareConfig](firmwareConfig.png) To prevent the creation of vmem files for acceleration, [add the following lines to your .vmx file][1](: ``` prefvmx.minVmMemPct = "100" MemTrimRate = "0" mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE" sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE" prefvmx.useRecommendedLockedMemSize = "TRUE" ``` Boot up the vm, and check if the firmware is UEFI or not: ```bash ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars ``` if it's legacy BIOS, it will returns `No such file or directory.` ## Partitioning Create a [new GPT partition table and partitioned with an EFI Partition no less than 300MiB][2] and an Linux partition with `cgdisk` or any other partition tools you want to use: ```bash cgdisk /dev/sda ``` ### Format partitions #### EFI ```bash mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1 ``` #### Root system ```bash mkfs.btrfs -f -L Arch /dev/sda2 ``` #### Building BTRFS subvolume - `@`：corresponding to `/` - `@home`：corresponding to`/home` - `@cache`：corresponding to `/var/cache` - `@docker`：corresponding to `/var/lib/docker` - `@log`：corresponding to `/var/log` Enabling COW in `@cache, @log` is not needed. 1. Mount root partition to `/mnt`: ```bash mount -t btrfs -o compress=lzo /dev/sda2 /mnt ``` > Generally we lzo is good enough. Reports shows that btrfs is way slower even under Zstd:1, while lzo has nearly no difference compared with non-compressed. 2. Create subvolumes: ```bash btrfs subvol create /mnt/@ btrfs subvol create /mnt/@home btrfs subvol create /mnt/@cache btrfs subvol create /mnt/@docker btrfs subvol create /mnt/@log btrfs subvol create /mnt/@tmp btrfs subvol create /mnt/@swap # Use chattr to disable COW chattr +C /mnt/@cache chattr +C /mnt/@log chattr +C /mnt/@swap # Umount the partition umount /mnt ``` #### Mount partitions and subvolumes ```bash mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@ /dev/sda2 /mnt mkdir -p /mnt/{boot/efi,home,var/{log,lib/docker,cache},tmp,swap} mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@home /dev/sda2 /mnt/home mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@log /dev/sda2 /mnt/var/log mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@docker /dev/sda2 /mnt/var/lib/docker mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@cache /dev/sda2 /mnt/var/cache mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@tmp /dev/sda2 /mnt/tmp mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@swap /dev/sda2 /mnt/swap ``` #### Mount EFI partition: ```bash mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/EFI ``` ### Install the system ```bash pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware btrfs-progs networkmanager dhcpcd iwd vim sudo zsh zsh-completions {intel,amd}-ucode net-tools linux-headers curl git wget ``` ### Generate fstab ```bash genfstab -U /mnt > /mnt/etc/fstab ``` Check again carefully after generation. Then proceed to post installation. ## Post Installation ```bash arch-chroot /mnt ``` ### Set mirror for pacman Use reflector or just update `/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist`, then apply changes via `pacman -Syy`. ### Install bootloader In this article we use grub as the bootloader, since it is one of a few bootloaders has a good support to btrfs. ```bash pacman -S grub efibootmgr os-prober ``` ```bash grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=Arch ``` successful results is shown below. ![grub install success result](./grubInstallSuccessfulResult.png) Then do some optimization. Increase the log level and add `nowatchdog` param to accelerate the speed of booting and powering off: ```bash nano /etc/default/grub ``` and edit as below: ```diff - GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= "loglevel=5" + GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= "loglevel=5 nowatchdog" ``` Save it and then generate new grub config file to apply changes. ```bash [root@archiso /] # grub—mkconfig —o /boot/grub/grub.cfg Generating grub configuration file ... Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-linux Found initrd image: /boot/intel—ucode.img /bootzamd—ucode.img /boot/initramfs—linux.img Found fal Iback initrd image(s) in /boot : intel—ucode.img amd—ucode.img initramfs—linux—fallback.img Warning: os—prober will not be executed to detect other bootable partitions. Systems on them will not be added to the GRUB boot configuration. Check documentation entry. Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ... done ``` ### Set hostname and hosts ```bash newHostname="Your-new-hostname" echo $newHostname > /etc/hostname echo -e "127.0.0.1 localhost\n" "::1 localhost\n" "127.0.1.1 $newHostname.localdomain $newHostname" >> /etc/hosts ``` ### Set Timezone ```bash ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Hong_Kong /etc/localtime ``` ### ### Set locale ```bash nano /etc/locale.gen ``` and uncomment `en-US.UTF-8 UTF-8` and any locale you wanna to use, then generate locale and set en_US locale: ```bash locale-gen && echo 'LANG=en_US.UTF-8' > /etc/locale.conf ``` ### Setting up user accounts First set the root account password: ```bash passwd root ``` ```bash yourName="example" useradd -m $yourName && echo "Set a new password for the user $yourName" && passwd $yourName ``` ### Desktop Environment In this article we install [KDE](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE): ``` pacman -S plasma plasma-wayland-session egl-wayland kde-{accessibility,graphics,multimedia,network,pim,sdk,system,utilities}-meta ``` ### VMware Tools Arch Linux is not supported in the official VMware Tools. OpenVMTools is commonly used. Using Open VM Tools one cannot resize the screeen properly. Here's a solution following to a [reddit post][3]: ```shell sudo pacman -Syu sudo pacman -S open-vm-tools sudo pacman -Su xf86-input-vmmouse xf86-video-vmware mesa gtk2 gtkmm echo needs_root_rights=yes | sudo tee /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config sudo systemctl enable --now vmtoolsd ``` And you are good to go. Reference: [1]: https://gist.github.com/extremecoders-re/cf8d829c108d58bfbb2e3c1f4121d7e1 "Disabling vmem files creation." [2]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide#Example_layouts "Partition layout " [3]: https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/b0ona0/vmtools_on_arch_linux_full_screen_or_resizing/ "vmware tools how-to" https://blog.zrlab.org/posts/arch-btrfs https://wiki.archwiki.org https://ericclose.github.io/Installing-Arch-as-a-guest-with-UEFI-and-GPT.html https://arch.icekylin.online/rookie/basic-install.html https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/b0ona0/vmtools_on_arch_linux_full_screen_or_resizing/ ## In other languages - [简体中文](https://blog.ous50.moe/p/installing-archlinux-with-btrfs-in-vmware/index.md) - [广东话](https://blog.ous50.moe/yue-cn/p/installing-archlinux-with-btrfs-in-vmware/index.md)