These instructions are based on this blogpost by Anton Semjonov and this video by Animortis Productions. Please follow the link if you want more details, they go into much more detail about each step, whereas this document is more focused on being a concise cheat sheet. Let's go.
Boot the Ubuntu installation medium. When asked, choose the "Try Ubuntu" option and open a terminal.
Switch to root, otherwise you'll have to type sudo all the time:
sudo su -
Enable the universe repository and install required tools:
add-apt-repository universe
apt update
apt install debootstrap arch-install-scripts
Create partitions. You'll need an EFI partition and a Linux filesystem partition, swap is optional:
gdisk /dev/vda
o
n 1 (default) +512m ef00 # EFI system partition
n 2 (default) +16g 8200 # Linux swap (optional, same size as RAM)
n 3 (default) (default) 8300 # Linux filesystem (if no swap - change partition number to 2)
w
Create the filesystems:
mkfs.vfat /dev/vda1
mkswap /dev/vda2
mkfs.btrfs /dev/vda3
Create the BTRFS subvolumes:
mount /dev/vda3 /mnt
btrfs su cr /mnt/@
btrfs su cr /mnt/@home
btrfs su cr /mnt/@root
btrfs su cr /mnt/@srv
btrfs su cr /mnt/@cache
btrfs su cr /mnt/@tmp
btrfs su cr /mnt/@log
umount /mnt
Mount the partitions/subvolumes to /mnt:
mount -o defaults,noatime,autodefrag,compress-force=zstd:1,space_cache=v2,discard=async,subvol=@ /dev/vda3 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/{home,root,srv,var}
mkdir /mnt/var/{cache,tmp,log}
mount -o defaults,noatime,autodefrag,compress-force=zstd:1,space_cache=v2,discard=async,subvol=@home /dev/vda3 /mnt/home
mount -o defaults,noatime,autodefrag,compress-force=zstd:1,space_cache=v2,discard=async,subvol=@root /dev/vda3 /mnt/root
mount -o defaults,noatime,autodefrag,compress-force=zstd:1,space_cache=v2,discard=async,subvol=@srv /dev/vda3 /mnt/srv
mount -o defaults,noatime,autodefrag,compress-force=zstd:1,space_cache=v2,discard=async,subvol=@cache /dev/vda3 /mnt/var/cache
mount -o defaults,noatime,autodefrag,compress-force=zstd:1,space_cache=v2,discard=async,subvol=@tmp /dev/vda3 /mnt/var/tmp
mount -o defaults,noatime,autodefrag,compress-force=zstd:1,space_cache=v2,discard=async,subvol=@log /dev/vda3 /mnt/var/log
mkdir -p /mnt/boot/efi
mount -o defaults,nosuid,nodev,relatime,errors=remount-ro /dev/vda1 /mnt/boot/efi
swapon /dev/vda2
Install base system using debootstrap. Since I'm installing 22.04, use the jammy identifier. You can also specify your mirror, choose one that is faster/closer to you:
debootstrap jammy /mnt http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
The mirror will also be written to sources.list, so choose an actually good one. If you don't specify one, the default is the main repository located in US.
There are some packages I do not want to get installed. Create a file /mnt/etc/apt/preferences.d/ignored-packages:
Package: snapd cloud-init landscape-common popularity-contest ubuntu-advantage-tools
Pin: release *
Pin-Priority: -1
Edit /mnt/etc/apt/sources.list, add -security and -updates suites, as well as restricted and universe repositories:
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-security main restricted universe
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe
Chroot into the installation environment:
arch-chroot /mnt
Update and add more necessary packages:
apt update
apt upgrade
apt install --no-install-recommends \
linux-{,image-,headers-}generic-hwe-22.04 \
linux-firmware initramfs-tools efibootmgr
This is also where you pick your kernel. I'm using 22.04 HWE kernel. Now install a text editor:
apt install vim
Configure your timezone, locales and keyboard layout. I use Europe/Berlin timezone, en_IE.UTF-8 and en_US.UTF-8 locales, and a standard US keyboard:
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
dpkg-reconfigure locales
dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration
Set your hostname:
echo "your-hostname" > /etc/hostname
echo "127.0.0.1 your-hostname" >> /etc/hosts
We need fstab also. Identify all partitions by UUID.
blkid
Then create your fstab file.
nano /etc/fstab
Here is an example how it could be, but with different UUIDs.
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
UUID=96194de7-954e-4fd3-b7f0-f6aef75bf678 / btrfs defaults,noatime,compress-force=zstd:1,discard=async,space_cache=v2,autodefrag,subvol=@ 0 1
UUID=96194de7-954e-4fd3-b7f0-f6aef75bf678 /home btrfs defaults,noatime,compress-force=zstd:1,discard=async,space_cache=v2,autodefrag,subvol=@home 0 2
UUID=96194de7-954e-4fd3-b7f0-f6aef75bf678 /root btrfs defaults,noatime,compress-force=zstd:1,discard=async,space_cache=v2,autodefrag,subvol=@root 0 2
UUID=96194de7-954e-4fd3-b7f0-f6aef75bf678 /srv btrfs defaults,noatime,compress-force=zstd:1,discard=async,space_cache=v2,autodefrag,subvol=@srv 0 2
UUID=96194de7-954e-4fd3-b7f0-f6aef75bf678 /var/cache btrfs defaults,noatime,compress-force=zstd:1,discard=async,space_cache=v2,autodefrag,subvol=@cache 0 2
UUID=96194de7-954e-4fd3-b7f0-f6aef75bf678 /var/tmp btrfs defaults,noatime,compress-force=zstd:1,discard=async,space_cache=v2,autodefrag,subvol=@tmp 0 2
UUID=96194de7-954e-4fd3-b7f0-f6aef75bf678 /var/log btrfs defaults,noatime,compress-force=zstd:1,discard=async,space_cache=v2,autodefrag,subvol=@log 0 2
UUID=5A33-360B /boot/efi vfat defaults,nosuid,nodev,relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
UUID=50aeaaa6-f1c1-40b2-8713-e261fcf26c12 none swap sw 0 0
Set your root password:
passwd
Create your sudo user and set a password for it:
useradd -mG sudo your-user
passwd your-user
For most single ethernet cable setups, you can just:
systemctl enable systemd-networkd
And then create a configuration in /etc/systemd/network/ethernet.network:
[Match]
Name=enp1s0
[Network]
DHCP=yes
Replace enp1s0 with your interface name, find it out using ip a.
You can install other useful packages that you need, here's what I install:
apt install at btrfs-progs curl dmidecode ethtool firewalld fwupd gawk git gnupg htop man \
needrestart openssh-server patch screen software-properties-common tmux zsh zstd
After that, you can install you desktop environment:
apt install sway swayidle swaylock xdg-desktop-portal-wlr
Finally, install a bootloader of your choice. I will install GRUB:
apt install grub-efi-amd64
grub-install /dev/vda
update-grub
write /etc/fstab