Some hints on installing Arch Linux on Dell Vostro 5480

Arch Linux is a great distro for people who wants to learn the behind the scenes about GNU/Linux systems. And it's a good way to assemble a very light environment. Morever, the community is very engaged by producing documentation and providing install packages.

Here are some additional hints for helping you on the first steps of Arch Linux installation. I'm posting them because I had some difficulties with such points. But reading the official documentation is mandatory ;)

Dell Vostro 5480 works with a UEFi system for booting. The UEFi boot system is installed on the first partition of the disk.

The hard disk is partitioned in a GUID Partition Table (GPT) layout. In GPT partioned disks there are no more "primary vs logical" partitions. Now you can just create how many new partitions you need. Simple.

Before install Arch I advise to boot with GParted to prepare the partitions. GParted will ask about fixing something. Say NO.

Hint about USB booting: use the F12 key rather than configuring the USB boot on setup, so you can boot on UEFi mode, and not on legacy mode. Verify if the USB has booted on UEFI mode (ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars). If not, enter the firmware setup (F12 on boot) and set the "Boot > Load Legacy Option Rom" entry to "Disabled".

Before mounting the arch partition (arch-chroot), mount the swap (swapon command) and mount the UEFi partition on /boot/efi.

I had no luck with Grub. So I recommend you to install Refind.

If you want to dual boot with Windows, install os-prober too.

Before login in the system, install dialog and wpa_suplicant when in chroot mode, so you can use wifi-menu after.

 

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