Installing Arch Linux in VMware Workstation Player

5-minute read
Tech

During this time when we are all isolated in our homes because of COVID-19, I have tried to make the most of it and learn some new skills. Something I’ve wanted to get better at is Linux. I learn best by diving into the deep end of the pool, so I decided to install Arch Linux in VMware Workstation Player as a learning experience. This blog post is to document the process for future reference. The installation guide on the Arch Wiki was very helpful as well, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a link. Here goes nothing…

First thing is to create the virtual machine in VMware. I created a 50 GB virtual hard drive, and added this next to the bottom of the *.vmx file so the machine would boot with EFI.

firmware = "efi"

Next download the latest version of Arch and boot from the ISO. You should end up at a command line.

Verify there are results when you run the commands below. I did my install on a host machine with a wired connection. If you are performing a bare metal install on a laptop with Wi-Fi only, additional steps are required. Refer to the Arch install guide.

# ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
# ping google.com

If EFI is working and you have a network connection, let’s move forward. Next we’ll set the date and time…

# timedatectl set-ntp true

Now we’ll partition the disk with cfdisk. Run lsblk to determine your particular drive path first. Mine happened to be /dev/sda.

# cfdisk /dev/sda

I allocated 512MB to /mnt/boot, 8GB to the swap, everything else to root. Next we’ll format the drive.

# mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1
# mkswap /dev/sda2
# swapon /dev/sda2
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3

Now we’ll create the boot and home directories, as well as mount the partitions…

# mkdir /mnt/boot
# mkdir /mnt/home
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
# mount /dev/sda3 /mnt

Before going forward let’s check our work by running lsblk. Once you are happy with the drive move forward.

Now we’ll recreate the mirrorlist file based on download speed. This will rate and sort the 10 most recently synchronized mirrors by download speed, then overwrite /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.

# reflector --verbose --latest 10 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Now the moment of truth. Let’s install Arch.

# pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware

Next we’ll generate and examine the file system.

# genfstab /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
# nano /mnt/etc/fstab

Arch is now installed on the hard drive. Let’s login to the new system, and install some packages. I’ve included a couple text editors, networking, sudo, git, grub bootloader, and the linux-lts kernel. Using this kernel will (hopefully) increase system stability down the road.

# arch-chroot /mnt
# pacman -S dhcpcd efibootmgr git grub linux-lts nano sudo vi

Set the time zone. I happen to be on US Central time.

# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtime
# hwclock --systohc

Now we’ll generate the locale, and uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 in locale.gen, and configure the hostname. Mine is archVM.

# locale-gen
# nano /etc/locale.gen # Uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
# echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" >> /etc/locale.conf
# echo "archVM" >> /etc/hostname

Next is setting up the hosts file.

# nano /etc/hosts

Add the following text and save.

127.0.0.1	localhost
::1		localhost
127.0.1.1	archVM.localdomain	archVM

Now we’ll set the root account password.

# passwd

Install the grub bootloader.

# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

…And enable networking

# systemctl enable dhcpcd.service

After all that’s done, let’s unmount the hard disk, reboot, and cross our fingers. Be sure to unmount the installation ISO at the point.

# exit
# umount -R /mnt
# reboot

Once the system reboots, you should have a login prompt. Congrats! You’ve installed Arch. Everything else from this point forward is icing on the cake.

I happen to like the KDE Plasma desktop environment and yay AUR helper. The next steps can be used to get those running, as well as installing VMware’s guest tools.

First let’s update Arch and create a non-root user account.

# pacman -Syu
# useradd -m [username]
# passwd [username]
# visudo #Uncomment relevant lines to allow all users to run sudo. Save and quit.

Now we’ll install xorg and our desktop environment, as well as enable the login screen and network manager. This will take awhile depending on your network speed…

# pacman -S xorg
# pacman -S plasma-meta kde-applications
# systemctl enable sddm.service
# systemctl enable NetworkManager.service

Now let’s install VMware guest tools as well as some drivers that will help us out. After that finishes issue the reboot.

# pacman -S open-vm-tools
# pacman -S xf86-input-vmmouse xf86-video-vmware mesa gtk2 gtkmm
# systemctl enable vmtoolsd.service
# systemctl enable vmware-vmblock-fuse.service
# reboot

You should now see a login screen for KDE Plasma. It’s starting the feel more like a finished system. Let’s login with as the newly created non-root user.

Open up Konsole or whatever terminal you like, now let’s install yay. If you don’t intend to use the AUR, you can stop here.

$ cd /opt
$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
$ sudo chown -R [username]:[username] yay
$ cd yay
$ makepkg -si

Now you can update your entire system just by opening a terminal and issuing the yay command. That feels pretty good!

I hope this little guide was helpful. I certainly learned a lot in the process, and am glad to have completed the exercise.