Archlinux VM -- Part the Fifth -- Get ALL the Files!!!

In Part Four, we finished mounting the newly-formatted drives into the Arch directory-structure. That means that the (temporary) Arch system thinks that these different hard-disk partitions are part of itself!

Which means that we can install the operating-system.

Freakin' finally. Sheeze, Louize ...


Fortunately, Arch makes this step really simple -- if you have a working Internet connection. I'm assuming that you're reading this online, and following along in your own VM instance.

If you're reading from a dot-matrix printout while hacking your Dot-Com-Bubble-era laptop (and doubtlessly binge-drinking PBR and taking blurry pictures of your many scruffy hats), and eager to get to the bit where I explain how to set up your WiFi adapter ... I hate you. Go read about that yourself, you stupid hipster.


But for all you good people, here's what you do:

Execute: pacstrap /mnt base syslinux

Cool, cool -- but what does it mean?

• pacstrap is the installation-script which automates Arch's package-manager
• /mnt is the "installation root" -- the base-directory we want to install the new system into
• base is the "base" package -- it has only the absolutely-necessary Arch system files
• syslinux is the boot-loader package. There are a couple of available bootloaders, and I prefer to use Syslinux.

Enough questions -- execute that sucker!

After a bit, you'll see pacman starting to retrieve the most recent package-manifests from different servers.

There are over a dozen available mirrors for Arch packages, so don't panic if you get a time-out error (like you see here).
If you see a dozen time-outs in a row, then -- well, yes, then you've got a problem. Your Internet is down, or your connection is bad, or something.

Anyway -- after pacman downloads a copy of all three manifests, you'll see a list of all the packages you need.

You'll see a prompt -- pacman says, "jus' wan'ed to check wi' you fust, guv'nah."

And then pacman breezes right past you, the little [redacted by censor], and you'll see a wall-of-progress-bars as all the files download.

And ... that's a lot of file there.

Make a cup of coffee. Pour yourself a beer. (No, don't pour the beer into the coffee, what's wrong with you?!?) Kick back and read Jalopnik or something, I don't know.


Eventually pacman will finish downloading, and start installing ...

(Installing linux? Hooray, we're finished!)

Part of installing linux is "building the boot-image" -- essentially, the most critical bits of the operating-system that get loaded right after the computer is powered-on ...

Until finally ...

We're finished!

And that's the way you install an operating system.

Of course, we don't have a functioning system yet. We've got all the right files there, but they're not configured quite right just yet.

We'll still want to ...

• Tell Arch how to mount our drives automatically at boot-time -- just like what we did manually in Part Four
• Set up the VM's hostname (i.e., "what do other systems call this one?") and timezone (so as to read the system clock properly)
• Make sure that the new system will be able to connect to the Internet when we turn it on.
• Configure the bootloader, so the computer can find the operating-system at all.
• Create the "RAM-disk", so the bootloader can have something to load right away.

But this'll all come in Part the Sixth ...