Arch Linux with Secure Boot

Arch Linux is a great Linux distribution for those that have dipped their toes into mainstream Linux for a few years and you want to get into the full Linux experience. I took the plunge after years of happy Pop!_OS experience. I still recommend this for almost everyone, especially for a laptop with a discrete GPU. But if you're confident in Linux, its time to try the peak open source experience, so hopefully the below guide is helpful.

Arch Linux is generally not too bad to install with the 'archinstall' program after running the live boot. But for gaming, the latest games will need secure boot and hence this guide. 

Getting secure boot to work with Linux is a bit tricky needing a few videos and some trial and error to learn and get working, especially with Arch Linux because there are post installation steps that need to be completed.

You will need to decide whether you want to use secure boot, I personally did want to use it for added security. To do this, I ensured I had secure boot enabled and put it into 'Setup Mode' ready for post installation steps after a archinstall. I had an MSI board, so the following video was helpful in working out how to put the BIOS and secure boot into Setup Mode before I booted into the live image:
Setting Up Secure Boot on Arch Linux Using sbctl

Then one can boot into a USB live image with Arch Linux built with RUFUS.

This will take you into an Arch Linux terminal as root. This video has some nice explanation around it that I used including making sure to sign the repository to be used with GPG:
Arch Install and Hyprland setup

You can also follow the steps above for setting up Arch Linux install using the archinstall script/program. I chose to partition my drives in /boot, swap, /, and /home. I chose KDE Plasma desktop as the type of install. I made sure to choose the correct graphics drivers and timezone etc. I chose systemd for the boot loader because this seemed easiest and enabled following instructions straight forward.

Upon finishing install, you will be asked to reboot, do post install terminal etc. Whether you decide to have a secure boot system means you will need to follow additional steps. Not doing so will give the error

error: prohibited by secure boot policy

Secure boot setup is important for security. At this point if you have secure boot disabled in BIOS, a reboot after installing will work fine. If secure boot is enabled, you need to drop to post install terminal instead of booting immediately.

I used the following steps in this video to setup secure boot properly after the install:
Install Secure Boot on Arch Linux (the easy way)

This page is a good reference, also used in the videos above, for the entire secure boot process and signing the boot images etc. This page was also very useful when I tried using GRUB for my loader and caused the error I mentioned above.

When I rebooted, everything works as intended.

Cheers Shakes - L3mming