Microsoft-Surface-Pro-3-Arch-Linux-i3/README.md

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with Arch Linux and i3

!!! documentation unfinished !!!

(Dual) Booting Arch Linux (and Windows) with UEFI and Secure Boot

• Save all your files, will will format the whole file system.

• Download Arch Linux ISO [archlinux-yyyy.mm.dd-dual.iso] [arch] via HTTP Direct Downloads (choose a Mirror) or BitTorrent Download [arch]: https://www.archlinux.org/download/ "Arch Linux Downloads"

• Create UEFI bootable USB device (with [Rufus] [rufus] and default settings) [rufus]: https://rufus.akeo.ie/ "Rufus"

• Disable Secure Boot Source: Windows [win:sb]

  1. Shut down your Surface.
  2. Press and hold the volume-up button on your Surface and at the same time, press and release the power button.
  3. When you see the Surface logo, release the volume-up button. The UEFI menu will display within a few seconds.
  4. Disable Secure Boot Control [win:sb]: https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/how-to-use-the-bios-uefi?os=windows-10&=undefined "Windows"

• (Optionally: Disable Windows Fast Boot — to switch between operating systems)

Installing the Linux distro

Insert the live USB and boot by holding volume down, then the power button.

Optionally set the keyboard layout (default is US)

$ loadkeys de-latin1

Set or in this case increase the font size

$ setfont latarcyrheb-sun32

Connect to the Internet

$ iw dev                # list wireless devices
$ iw dev wlp1s0 link    # Print information about the current link
$ wifi-menu -o wlp1s0   # -o hides the password

Update the system clock

$ timedatectl set-ntp true
$ timedatectl status
$ timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Berlin

Partitioning

Note: Using parted with mkpart defines partitions via a from and a to argument.

$ lsblk                                         # list devices /dev/sda?
$ parted /dev/sdx                               # could be /dev/sda
(parted) mklabel gpt                            # for UEFI
(parted) mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 513MiB           # EFI System Partition
(parted) set 1 boot on
(parted) mkpart primary linux-swap 513MiB 9GiB  # for 8GB DRAM
(parted) mkpart primary ext4 9GiB 40%           # Linux partition
(parted) mkpart primary ntfs 40% 60%            # Shared partition
(parted) quit

That last entry is for a shared NTFS filesystem that both operating systems (Linux and Windows) can use, e. g. for a cloud service like Dropbox, email, downloads, etc. The Windows section is left unallocated, it will be formatted by the windows installer.

Formatting

$ mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdx1            # UEFI boot must be fat32
$ mkswap /dev/sdx2
$ swapon /dev/sdx2
$ mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdx3                # Linux root
$ mkfs.ntfs -f /dev/sdx4

Mount

Mount the root partition on /mnt and for the boot partition first create directory and then mount it also.

$ mount /dev/sdx3 /mnt
$ mkdir -p /mnt/boot
$ /dev/sbx1 /mnt/boot

Install the base packages and configure the system

Edit /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist and select a download mirror (uncommenting the specific line). see also Arch Linux Wiki: Mirrors [arch:mirrors] [arch:mirrors]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mirrors "Arch Linux Mirrors"

Install the base packages or more

$ pacstrap /mnt base
# or
$ pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel btrfs-progs

Generate an fstab file, so the filesystem knows how to mount the disk partitions. see also Arch Linux Wiki: fstab [arch:fstab] [arch:fstab]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fstab "Arch Linux fstab"

$ genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Change root into the new system

$ arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash    # bash shell instead of the default sh

For localizations uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and other needed localizations in /etc/locale.gen, e. g. de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8. Finally generate the locale files:

$ locale-gen

Set the LANG variable in /etc/locale.conf accordingly

LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Optionally set the keyboard layout and set the font in /etc/vconsole.conf

KEYMAP=de-latin1
FONT=latarcyrheb-sun32

Set the time zone, e. g. for Germany as Europe/Berlin. Three ways possible: see also Arch Linux Wiki: Time zone [arch:tz] [arch:tz]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fstab "Arch Linux Time zone"

• interactively with tzselect (e. g. 7) Europe, 16) Germany, 2) Germany, 1) yes),

• via timedatectl

    $ timedatectl                             # check the current zone
    $ timedatectl list-timezones              # list available zones
    $ timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Berlin  # change your time zone
  

• or create the symlink manually

    $ ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin /etc/localtime
  

Set the Hardware Clock from the System Clock, and update the timestamps in /etc/adjtime via:

hwclock --systohc --utc

...