Arch Linux

How to Dual Boot Arch Linux Windows

Arch Linux provides a compact platform to use a low-end operating system easily. On the other side, Windows offers impressive features in a great graphical interface. So if you are a fan of both operating systems and want to use both of them, then read this article completely.

This article explains how to dual boot to install Arch Linux and Windows 10 simultaneously on the same system, enabling both to run on the same machine.

It is a question of why you should install Arch Linux with Windows. Arch Linux is one of the most straightforward operating systems of Linux. Also, you can customize it according to your needs, and it is very easy to do. Therefore, it is very convenient to have Arch and Windows as operating systems since Windows can be used for gaming and Linux for coding.

Installing Windows first is the best way to set up a dual boot system. That way, your disk can be used for Windows’ partitions.

You will need an 8GB flash drive or DVD and a fast internet connection.

Download iso file of Arch Linux and store it to the USB drive or DVD.

Set-Up

Installing Arch will require some space, so the disk needs to be partitioned under Windows. For partition, open the run command by pressing the Windows and R buttons. In the run window, write diskmgmt.msc and press the Enter button.

Keep the C drive largest and create a drive to install Arch Linux in it.

The next step is to set the BIOS in UEFI mode, so reboot your system and press the F10 button continuously while your system is rebooting.

After starting the reboot, it is first to confirm which type (x86_64) is installed from the system. Some messages are issued on the screen.

For EFI, use the following command:

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

If everything is correct, DNS ping should set the time and date:

timedatectl status

The above command is to update the time and date.

Create and Format

Now it is time to make the parts on the hard drive, for which use the following command in the command prompt:

cfdisk

Click on yes to create a new volume by aggregating the free space on the disk partition itself, in which the partition size will be written.

The format of the sent disc is of utmost importance because it saves that part completely. Now execute the below command:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda5

Swap partition and use the below command to enable it:

mkswap /dev/sda6
swapon /dev/sda6

Now we can create a mount point with these commands:

mount /dev/sda5 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/efi
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/efi

Install Arch Package

The following command will install the package, which will take some time:

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware

Following arch installation, a few steps include generating fstab in mnt with the following command.

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

Post Installation Work

Following the creation of the ftab, navigate to the new root file with the following command:

arch-chroot /mnt

The following command detects the language, currency, date, serial number, etc.

vim /etc/locale.gen

Using the following command, you can use pacman at this location.

pacman -Sy vim

Using the following command, you can view and create locator configurations.

Locale-gen
echo "LANG=EN_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf

Use the following command followed by the name to name the arch.

echo linuxxyz > /etc/xyz

The name you have chosen is XYZ.

To make it possible to update the network further, you must run the following command during the installation process:

pacman -Sy netctl

In addition to creating a user, a password must also be created. This can be done as follows:

useradd -G wheel -m xyz
passwd xyz

XYZ is the system name created by itself.

Within the EFI boot manager, you will need to install the grub bootloader package. Here is the appropriate command for it:

pacman -S grub efibootmgr

Use the following command to help Windows locate Arch:

pacman -S os-prober

In order to install and grab the EFI directory, run the following command:

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

After setting the boot password and rebooting, both operating systems are now ready for use.

Conclusion

In this article, it is explained how to install Arch and Windows together. This was written in very simple language and proved to be very helpful in demonstrating how the small details used in this article have helped. The above information is essential when you want to install Windows and Linux on a single machine.

About the author

Ankit Sharma