Comments on How to install Arch Linux on VirtualBox

Suggestion: use Arch-Anywhere distro

 

Some corrections..

Remove the period at the end of this command:  mkswap/dev/sda2. 

It's usr and not user in this command: ls user/share/zoneinfo_

Should be prober and not rober in this command:  pacman –S grub os-rober

There will be no home directory mounted, this tutorial is not helpfull for newcomer to ArchLinux

Do you know how to do that?

would be nice to add on tutorial how to install a desktop environment and a window manager

Thanks!

Just a fix: in the end, before rebooting, you need to exit the chroot by typing exit, and then reboot.

I suggest adding a tip to change your mirror by modifying /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist before you run pacstrap!

First of all: WTF is with you command typing dude? Correct your code!

Second of all this line should be: ln –sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata /etc/localtime

No one wanted your opinion

 

There is a typo in: "pacman –S grub os-rober" at the end shoud be "prober"

 After installation, just after rebooting, you need to exit the chroot command. So it should be "exit" [enter] and then "reboot" [enter].

 

Great tutorial.

This is a great tutorial for newbies like me. You just need to correct typos.

This tutorial does not follow the current version of VirtualBox, does not completely cover the process for creating the partitions, and is full of typos. Time for a rewrite.

finally! got Arch on VirtualBox. Thank you. Very helpful

Great tutorial, but only takes things to a very basic level. A follow up on setting up users, desktop environment etc. would be useful or at least some links.Echo other users comments on typos - needs a serious clean up.

This article seriously needs cleaned up in the command line parts. There's some absolutely **terrible** typos in the commands.

Thanks good explantion for this install for noob tome

for the second partiton, does it need to be primary or extended? Sorry for the dumb question. There is no specific instructions there.

Good post but quite a few errors in your instructions.  The only way to make it through this is to go off of the screen shots.

Thank you for the notice. I've fixed the commands.

Got me through the install, however you need to go double check everything. the mistakes you have made (like mistaking a lowecase L for the number 1) are shocking!

Thank you for the notice. I've fixed that in the tutorial.

Best ArchLinux installation tutorial! Just please fix all the typos to make it more than perfect:-)

please look through everything and spell-check this stuff

this one is wrong:

arch-chroot /mnt/bin/bash

should be:

arch-chroot /mnt  /bin/bash

Please revise the entire guide, or just remove it. The fact this guide is the number 1 google search result for "Install arch linux in virtualbox" is terrible.

 

Almost all the commands have many typos, and the only way to understand the guide is too look at the screenshots. But that doesn't even work most of the time because you type clear in the console (why?)

Thank you for the notice. The tutorial has been revised and updated now.

The install went mostly smooth except for a few problems. The 'ls /usr/share/zoneinfo_' command wouldn't pull up the time zones for whatever reason.

 

Also trying to run the 'Reboot' command told me I needed to 'Exit Chroot' which was confusing at first but just typed 'exit' after searching on google(Confusing from never using Arch before)

 

Everything seems to be working though and thanks for the tutorial!

two typos: /user/share should be /usr/share, and you need to exit chroot mode using exit or ctrl-d before trying to reboot

Thank you for the note. I've corrected the tutorial.

great tutorial for a newbie like me.

started learning linux with RPi. ther is a tutorial how to add GUI / desktop env (google it) for a basic system, for those interested.

other issues:

please correct ls /use/share/zoneinfo_  to ls /usr/share/zoneinfo

brgs/evangel

Does not work for me, every time i login it puts me back to the terminal and it says as the user [root@archserver ~]#

ls /use/share/zoneinfo

should be usr instead of use?

That's wrong in the tutorial text indeed, thank you for the notice. I've corrected that.

after i type nano /etc/locale.gen i see only black screen without  language configuration. GNU nano version 2.9.4

at the end, how do i get into the desktop and out of the command thing.

Thank you, I followed the tutorial and I got Arch in Virtual Box. There was only an error: after writing "ln –s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/UTC /etc/localtime" I received a message "/etc/localtime: The file already exists". Have I to worry about it?

Works if you use the following instead;ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/UTC /etc/localtime

Got to the point "ping google.com", it keeps pinging, I can't do anything, help!!! 

Press [ctrl] + c to stop the command.

Jeez! It should be time for archlinux to create an actual installer

My archlinux boots into grubshell

Why do we create a mount point at /mnt/ and a separate "logical" memory mount point at /mnt/home ? What is the purpose of the logical memory? 

This part was throwing me errors (Host: Windows 10, Guest: archlinux-2018.12.01-x86_64.iso):

grub-mkconfig –o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

The error was:

WARNING: Device /dev/loop0 not initialized in udev database even after waiting 10000000 microseconds.

(And the same warning appeared for /dev/sda and /dev/sda1. This repeated every 10 seconds, resulting in an endless loop, hence the error, not warnings :) )The solution is described here: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1820949#p1820949Basically, when in installation media's console (not chrooted already, use these commands):

mkdir /mnt/hostlvm mount --bind /run/lvm /mnt/hostlvm arch-chroot /mnt ln -s /hostlvm /run/lvm

However, I still encountered problems with "automatic" boot, I had to boot manually after reboot, here are the commands (based on this article: https://www.linux.com/learn/how-rescue-non-booting-grub-2-linux%20%20).

grub> set root=(hd0,1)grub> linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda1grub> initrd /boot/initramfs-linux.imggrub> boot

After that Arch booted properly. Many thanks for this tutorial it helped me a lot, arch wiki installation guide (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/installation_guide) is not virtual-machine oriented. Even an article about VirtualBox (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VirtualBox#Installation_steps_for_Arch_Linux_guests) was not as helpful as this tutorial, because it focuses on installation in EFI-mode, not the minimalist version with simple dos label type.

Once again, thank you for this tutorial. If I may suggest something, you can add optional information at the begging about how to increase windows size and terminal font size for HD displays: * Higher window resolution (window gets bigger): https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/320419/258734 (for me, adding video=1200x800 was sufficient, it didn't work when I also appended nomodeset) * Larger terminal font size: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/320396/258734

Good tutorial.  Thank you for a lot of hard work. 

 

Superb! Thank you!

It says "failed to update community(invalid url)"

"failed to sychronize full database"

"failed to install new packages to the new root"

superb tutorial !

that pacstrap doesnt install the kernel. so if you actually want to install linux youre probably going to want to go head an add that...

pacstrap /mnt base  base-devel linux linux-firmware

 

Thanks for adding this!  The article should be edited to prevent driving newbies nuts.   Also, for some reason, my chrooted environment was missing both vi and nano so I have to run pacman -Sy vi.  I used the 2020.02.01 iso.

I installed this arch 4 times and it isn't working. It always boots into GRUB. I've done everything correctly, every command was listed as "successful" or "done" so it may be a problem with this particular version of Arch --- I don't know -- but something isn't right. It always boots into GRUB!!!!!!! What the hell!!!!

use this:

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware

instead of this:

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

Same problem, i cannot understannd...i trying on a virtual box, but at the end only grub

Typo: fsdisk -l should be fdisk -l.

you are right.

When I boot to the OS it boots me to the GNU GRUB command line

Go back to this step and run as below, it will work!

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware

Thanks very simple steps.

Just to mention there is one typo fsdisk -l which should be fdisk -l on the code snippet screenshot.

I faced an issue after complete all the steps grub bootloader wasn't working properly as some files were missing such as:

1. vmlinuz-linux

2. initramfs-linux-fallback.img

and the solution was to add linux package alongside others in pacstrap as below:

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux

Hopefully will help anyone facing the issue i faced as newbie!

To avoid booting into grub prompt.....

It's very important to update this guide to Bootstrab with this [pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware] , rather than [pacstrap /mnt base base-devel]. Otherwise you will stuck in the "grub" prompt.

April 10, 2020 Thanks for the tutorial. Just installed for the second time. Both times, the systemctl enable dhcpcd command failed with "dhcpcd.service does not exist", and I also had to install nano separately.

After the first installation, on reboot, I came to the grub prompt, and got stuck there. Followed Widda's advice and revised the pacstrap step to read: pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware and booted into the OS as hoped/expected.

The second installation went better, and I booted into the OS command prompt, but I had no network connectivity. The network adapter enp0s3 is present but DOWN. I suspect a network package has to be installed before reboot. Any ideas?

April 11, 2020 I have solved my networking issue: My pacstrap input looks like this:

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware nano netctl dhcpcd dhclient

A question. Is there a reason not to format the swap partition with Id 82 Linux swap/Solaris?

WARNING: Do not attempt to open the /etc/localtime file with cat. I did and ended up with only gibberish characters in my command line. I'm guessing it is a binary file... I had to delete the VM and start the installation process over.

Install #5 here we go. I'm learning a lot.

ping is not an acronym for packet internet groper (you said gopher btw which is a dead protocol and also a rodent), muuss intended it to be like pulse in sonar

is it solved for you now?

If you execute 

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware nano dhcpcd

instead of pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

you will have a working system when complete.

If you follow these steps to the end and then discover you should have run the above bold command, you can use the same image and go back to the swapon command and complete each step from there. Some of the steps will prove to be complete because the files are not overwritten when you execute pacstrap again.

That said, yes, these steps will get you to a working base level ArchLinux system. Make a copy so you don't have to do this again and you can then create as many VirtualBox systems as you wish. Happy Arching!

You should edit this guide to alter the command for the pacman bootstrap. The command should be pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux. Otherwise when running the grub-mkconfig command towards the end of this tutorial, grub won't find the kernel and when you boot into the OS you will boot into the Grub CMD.

hi,

I go through all these steps one by one (And i have done it twice now), but both times i get:

"Generating grub configuration file...

done"

after typing in the command : 

grub-mkconfig –o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

and not the warning as illustrated above. then when i reboot, it takes me to a grub command line instead of the arch linux login terminal. How do I resolve this if this is a problem at all?

tried this tutor 3 times. all the time boot is broken, and grub console apears!!!

I installed arch linux alongside windows 10 and fedora, but now grub is only showing arch linux

Any solution?

aaaaaaaand what if...arch didn't find nano?

This tutorial is absolutely terrible, lots of correcting you have to do on your own, and in the end the system booting into grub is just a joke

I used this tutorial, but some of the steps were in the wrong order and a few important steps were missing. It took a few web searches to get from where this tutorial left me to a working Arch Linux system.

I don't see a date on anything here so, of course, some of this may just be outdated.

You have some weird characters inside these text lines:

pacman –S grub os-probergrub-mkconfig –o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

They can't be seen normally, but they get transfered on copy-paste into the terminal.

People doing this should manually write these commands, not use copy-paste.

For those stucked at GRUB prompt, I think this can help. Found how to boot from Grub in this page: https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/how-rescue-non-booting-grub-2-linux/

 

Basically, you have to configure Grub properly. For example:

grub> set root=(hd0,1) grub> linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-29-generic root=/dev/sda1 grub> initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-29-generic grub> boot

Names of 'vmlinuz' and 'initrd' were different for me, but using Tab for autocomplete should help.

 

How do I use the archinstall to install on VirtualBox?