Artixinstall

Table of Contents

I install Artix Linux with french settings in this guide.

What is Artix Linux ?

Artix Linux is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Arch Linux, the key difference between the two distros is the init system you want to use.

Arch Linux only has official support for systemd. Artix officially supports dinit, openrc, runit, and s6. Of course, the AUR is still accessible from Artix Linux.

Artix Linux uses real init systems, because PID1 must be simple, secure and stable.

Also, their logo looks really cool.

If you don’t know what you are doing when installing Arch or Artix, I recommend you watching/reading other guides too.

Artix Linux’s official installation guide

Setup optional things

Keymap

loadkeys fr-latin1

Connect to Wi-Fi

You first have to unblock wifi and enable the wifi card. Replace wlan0 with the name of your interface, list them with ip a

rfkill unblock wifi
ip link set wlan0 up

Then run connmanctl in interactive mode :

connmanctl

Replace id with the id of your Wi-Fi

scan wifi
services
agent on
connect id

You can then exit connmanctl, try to ping some website to make sure you’re connected to the internet.

Setup your disk

The commands in this section will destroy all the data of your disk.

Make partitions

I like to make a 1G partition for the EFI system and give the rest to the Linux Filesystem. You can use cfdisk instead of fdisk.

My disk name is nvme0n1, but you should use lsblk to get the name of the disk you want to install Artix Linux on.

(
echo g
echo n 
echo 1
echo
echo +1G
echo t
echo 1
echo 1
echo n
echo 2
echo
echo
echo w
) | fdisk "/dev/nvme0n1" &> /dev/null

Now we must format our partitions

mkfs.fat -F 32 -n ESP /dev/nvme0n1p1

mkfs.ext4 -L ROOT /dev/nvme0n1p2

Mount the partitions

Now we can mount our partitions to install Artix Linux on the disk.

It is really important to mount the ROOT partition first and then the ESP partition.

mount /dev/disk/by-label/ROOT /mnt

mount --mkdir /dev/disk/by-label/ESP /mnt/boot

Installing Linux

Basestrap

Use basestrap to install linux to your disk. Choose which kernel you want, I chosed linux but there is alternatives such as linux-lts, linux-hardened and others.

I also chose to use GRUB for the bootloader and runit as my init system.

Replace neovim with your favorite, terminal-based text editor.

basestrap /mnt linux linux-firmware sof-firmware base base-devel grub efibootmgr runit elogind-runit networkmanager-runit terminus-font git neovim

Fstab

Generate the fstab to tell your system how to mount the disk when your computer boots.

Fstab copies the order in which you mounted your partitions earlier.

fstabgen -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

You must have all the partitions you configured for Artix Linux in that file !!

Artix Chrooting

You can now chroot into your future system.

artix-chroot /mnt

Basic french config

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc
echo 'fr_FR.UTF-8 UTF-8' >> /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
echo 'LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8' > /etc/locale.conf
echo -e 'KEYMAP=fr-latin1\nXKBLAYOUT=fr\nXKBMODEL=pc105\nXKBOPTIONS=terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp\nFONT=ter-132b' > /etc/vconsole.conf

Setup user and hostname

Give a hostname to your computer (replace artix with your hostname) :

echo 'artix' > /etc/hostname

Setup root password :

passwd

Setup user and user password (replace billy with your username) :

useradd -m -G wheel billy
passwd billy

Install GRUB

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Reboot

Now you’re done, you can control-d or exit to quit the chrooting and you can then reboot the system.

Post reboot

Sudo

First of all, log in as root and uncomment the line starting with %wheel. Replace the value of EDITOR with the text editor you installed.

EDITOR=nvim visudo

Now you can save and exit, log out, and log in as your user.

NetworkManager

You lost your Wi-Fi connection if you didn’t noticed, you must enable it again.

On runit first link the file :

sudo ln -s /etc/runit/sv/NetworkManager /run/runit/service/

You can then start the service :

sudo sv start NetworkManager

To list available Wi-Fi :

nmcli device wifi list

To connect to Wi-Fi : (replace SSID with the name of your Wi-Fi)

nmcli device wifi connect SSID --ask

Brightnessctl

Install the brightnessctl package to adjust the screen’s brightness (only on laptop, on a desktop you change the brightness of the screen in the screen’s settings).

Just in case also add your user to the video group.

sudo usermod -aG video $(whoami)

You might be able to change the backlight of your keyboard.

Repositories

Omniverse

Artix Linux has special packages like ungoogled-chromium in the omniverse repository.

Append these lines to /etc/pacman.conf if you want to use the omniverse repo.

[omniverse]
Server = https://omniverse.artixlinux.org/$arch

Arch’s extra

If you need the extra repo from Arch Linux, you can add it too.

First install the support :

sudo pacman -S artix-archlinux-support

Then append these lines to the /etc/pacman.conf file :

[extra]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch

#[multilib-testing]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch

#[multilib]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist-arch

And run

sudo pacman-key --populate archlinux
sudo pacman -Syu

~~~

You might want to uncomment the Color and ParallelDownloads lines in /etc/pacman.conf for a better pacman experience overall.

Sound

We want sound, you can use pulseaudio but I prefer pipewire. Install it :

sudo pacman -S pipewire pipewire-pulse pipewire-alsa pipewire-jack sof-firmware wireplumber

Copy the config files :

sudo cp /usr/share/pipewire/pipewire* /etc/pipewire/

Then you must find a way to start pipewire, pipewire-pulse and wireplumber on each boot.

I do it in my hyprland.conf with the exec-once statement

More ?

For people that use runit : if an app you want to install doesn’t come with a *-runit package (for example pipewire), you can easily write an init script like zacoons for the blocky program.

Links :

You can easily have informations about your kernel like so :

uname -mrs