• Arch on Air Instructions for installing Arch Linux side-by-side with OS X on a Macbook Air 2013.

Most of this information was taken from these two sources:

• [[https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=165899][ArchLinux Forums: Macbook Air 2013]]
• [[http://panks.me/posts/2013/06/arch-linux-installation-with-os-x-on-macbook-air-dual-boot/][ArchLinux Installation With OS X on Macbook Air (Dual Boot)]]

** Procedure *** 1. Make bootable USB media with Arch ISO image ([[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/USB_Flash_Installation_Media][wiki]]) *** 2. Hold the <alt/option> key and boot into USB *** 3. Create partitions The following example assumes Arch will sit on a single partition; adjust according to preference.

It may also be possible to create a data partition that can be accessed from both OS X and GNU/Linux systems: how to do that properly is left as an exercise to the reader. #+begin_src sh cgdisk /dev/sda #+end_src **** Partitions: ***** /dev/sda4 - [128MB] Apple HFS+ "Boot Loader" ***** /dev/sda5 - [256MB] Linux filesystem "Boot" ***** /dev/sda6 - [Rest of space] Linux filesystem "Root" *** 4. Format and mount partitions #+begin_src sh mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda5 mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda6 mount /dev/sda6 /mnt mkdir /mnt/boot && mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/boot #+end_src If you plan to use any memory-heavy applications (which includes most web browsers), it's a good idea to create either a [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Swap#Swap_partition][swap partition]] or a swapfile for system stability. Swapfiles are easier to resize or remove if you change your mind, so we'll create a 512M one: #+begin_src sh dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/swapfile bs=1M count=512 chmod 600 /mnt/swapfile mkswap /mnt/swapfile #+end_src *** 5. Installation This requires an internet connection. Options:

• Tethered phone via USB ([[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Android_tethering][instructions for Android]], [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/IPhone_Tethering][instructions for iPhone]])
• Wired (with some Apple proprietary ethernet thing ($$$?))
• Wireless (requires b43 wireless firmware ([[https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/b43-firmware/][AUR]])) #+begin_src sh pacstrap /mnt base base-devel genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab #+end_src *** 6. Optimize fstab for SSD, add swap #+begin_src sh nano /mnt/etc/fstab #+end_src #+begin_example /dev/sda6 / ext4 defaults,noatime,discard,data=writeback 0 1 /dev/sda5 /boot ext4 defaults,relatime,stripe=4 0 2 /swapfile none swap defaults 0 0 #+end_example *** 7. Configure system #+begin_src sh arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash passwd echo myhostname > /etc/hostname ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Sao_Paulo /etc/localtime hwclock --systohc --utc useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash myusername passwd myusername pacman -S sudo #+end_src *** 8. Grant sudo #+begin_src sh echo "%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL" > /etc/sudoers.d/10-grant-wheel-group #+end_src *** 9. Set up locale #+begin_src sh nano /etc/locale.gen #+end_src #+begin_src sh locale-gen echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf export LANG=en_US.UTF-8 #+end_src *** 10. Set up mkinitcpio hooks and run Insert "keyboard" after "autodetect" if it's not already there. #+begin_src sh nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf #+end_src Then run it: #+begin_src sh mkinitcpio -p linux #+end_src *** 11. Set up GRUB/EFI To boot up the computer we will continue to use Apple's EFI bootloader, so we need GRUB-EFI: #+begin_src sh pacman -S grub-efi-x86_64 #+end_src **** Configuring GRUB #+begin_src sh nano /etc/default/grub #+end_src Aside from setting the quiet and rootflags kernel parameters, a special parameter must be set to avoid system (CPU/IO) hangs related to ATA, as per [[https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid%3D1295212#p1295212][this thread]]: #+begin_example GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet rootflags=data=writeback libata.force=1:noncq" #+end_example Additionally, the grub template is broken and requires this adjustment: #+begin_example

fix broken grub.cfg gen

GRUB_DISABLE_SUBMENU=y #+end_example #+begin_src sh grub-mkconfig -o boot/grub/grub.cfg grub-mkstandalone -o boot.efi -d usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi -O x86_64-efi --compress=xz boot/grub/grub.cfg #+end_src Copy boot.efi (generated in the command above) to a USB stick for use later in OS X. *** 12. Setup boot in OS X Exit everything and reboot into OS X (by holding alt/option) and then choosing it. #+begin_src sh exit # exit chroot reboot #+end_src *** 13. Launch Disk Utility in OS X Format ("Erase") /dev/sda4 using Mac journaled filesystem *** 14. Create boot file structure This procedure allows the Apple bootloader to see our Arch Linux system and present it as the default boot option. #+begin_src sh cd /Volumes/disk0s4 mkdir System mach_kernel cd System mkdir Library cd Library mkdir CoreServices cd CoreServices touch SystemVersion.plist #+end_src #+begin_src sh nano SystemVersion.plist #+end_src #+begin_example <xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> ProductBuildVersion ProductName Linux ProductVersion Arch Linux #+end_example Copy boot.efi from your USB stick to this CoreServices directory. The tree should look like this: #+begin_example |___mach_kernel |___System | |___Library | |___CoreServices | |___SystemVersion.plist |___boot.efi #+end_example *** 15. Make Boot Loader partition bootable #+begin_src sh sudo bless --device /dev/disk0s4 --setBoot #+end_src

You may need to disable the System Integrity Projection of OS X:

• Restart the computer, while booting hold down Command-R to boot into recovery mode.
• Once booted, navigate to the “Utilities > Terminal” in the top menu bar.
• Enter "csrutil disable" in the terminal window and hit the return key.
• Restart the machine and System Integrity Protection will now be disabled.

Voila, Arch Linux is installed.

Reboot the computer and hold the alt/option key to select which operating system to boot. *** 16. Get wireless working in Arch **** Get broadcom drivers ***** Download and install [[https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/broadcom-wl/][broadcom from AUR]] (Make sure that b43 and ssb modules are not present in the output from lsmod) #+begin_src sh modprobe wl #+end_src ***** Alternatively, install [[https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/broadcom-wl-dkms/][broadcom-wl-dkms]] instead ...so that kernel updates don't leave you without wifi. DKMS is a service that recompiles external modules after every kernel upgrade. #+begin_src sh sudo pacman -S dkms sudo systemctl enable dkms.service #+end_src **** Select network #+begin_src sh sudo pacman -S dialog sudo wifi-menu -o #+end_src *** 17. Access common keys **** Tilde key The tilde key does not work on the keyboard out of the box. There are several solutions listed [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Apple_Keyboard][here]] but this one worked for me: #+begin_src sh sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/hid_apple.conf #+end_src #+begin_example options hid_apple iso_layout=0 #+end_example **** Insert and <F1..12> keys The key can be reproduced with fn+<Enter>. So to paste in an xterm window for instance, use S-fn-<Enter>.

F1-F12 require fn+<F1>, etc. *** 18. Improve battery performance Out-of-the-box battery performance on Arch Linux should be good and at least comparable to OS X.

If you want to try to improve battery life, there are two recommended packages documented in the ArchWiki:

• [[https://01.org/powertop][PowerTOP]]: a tool provided by Intel to enable various powersaving modes in userspace, kernel and hardware, available in the official repositories. ([[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Powertop][ArchWiki]])
• [[http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html][TLP]]: a collection of power-saving scripts available in the official repositories. ([[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TLP][ArchWiki]]) ** Additional Links There are other folks who have blogged about this process since I started this:
• [[http://frankshin.com/installing-archlinux-on-macbook-air-2013/][Installing Archlinux on Macbook Air 2013 - Frank Shin]]
• [[http://ryangehrig.com/index.php/arch-linux-on-macbook-air-2013/][Arch Linux – MacBook Air 2013 | Ryan Gehrig]] (broken)