This guide assumes you have already created your partition layout needed for your system. We will also assume your partition layout is:
/dev/sda1 /boot (formatted with vfat) /dev/sda2 /
Note: The adding of the archzfs-testing repo and pacman -Sy zfs-dkms will also need to be done inside chroot.
First we need to install the ZFS binaries we need and also the kernel module.
In /etc/pacman.conf add:
[archzfs-testing] Server = https://archzfs.com/$repo/$arch
Now we need to initialize pacman keyring
pacman-key --init pacman-key --populate artix pacman-key -r F75D9D76 pacman-key --lsign-key F75D9D76
Install ZFS module
pacman -Sy zfs-dkms
Load the module
modprobe zfs
Next we create the ZFS pool, named zroot.
This is to create a standard single pool, no mirror or RAID
zpool create -o ashift=12 zroot /dev/sda2
Next, decide how you want your ZFS datasets(can be looked as partitions) to be laid out.
Create your layout how you want now, or it is near impossible to redo besides doing another install
The following is how I do my basic layout
zfs create -o compression=lz4 -o mountpoint=none zroot/ROOT
zfs create -o compression=lz4 -o mountpoint=/ zroot/ROOT/default
zfs create -o compression=lz4 -o mountpoint=none zroot/HOME
zfs create -o compression=lz4 -o mountpoint=/home/{USERNAME} zroot/HOME/{USERNAME}
Tell the bootloader which pool to import/use
zpool set bootfs=zroot/ROOT/default zroot
Set ZFS' cachefile
zpool set cachefile=/etc/zfs/zpool.cache zroot
Now we need to export the pool
zpool export zroot
Now we import the pool, prior to installation. This mounts the pool to the location we need to install Artix Linux in.
zpool import -d /dev/sda2 -R /mnt zroot
Create the boot directory and mount
mkdir /mnt/boot mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
If you want a swap partition inside ZFS pool, it is easy to do and eliminates need of a separate partition.
We need to create a dataset just for swap:
zfs create -V 4G -b $(getconf PAGESIZE) -o compression=zle -o logbias=throughput -o sync=always -o primarycache=metadata -o secondarycache=none -o com.sun:auto-snapshot=false $POOLNAME/swap
Replace -V 4G with size you need
Now we format it:
mkswap -f /dev/zvol/$POOLNAME/swap
Mount it:
swapon /dev/zvol/$POOLNAME/swap
Now you can follow Installation
The more memory you have the better ZFS will do, as ZFS itself uses memory for it's L2ARC for cache which is one thing that generally makes ZFS feel faster. I personally run ZFS on a 8GB RAM system fine.
I recommend using rEFInd boot manager with ZFS, as it makes it easier, but you can choose to use GRUB and follow guides
on how to configure it.
After installing rEFInd and following the install guide
Create a linux_refind.conf in /boot with the following
"Boot Artix Linux" "root=ZFS=bootfs rw"
You can create a swap partition inside the ZFS pool:
zfs create -V {SIZE} zroot/swap
mkswap /dev/zvol/zroot/swap
swapon /dev/zvol/zroot/swap
Create a zfs init script in /etc/init.d with the following:
#!/sbin/openrc-run
command="zfs mount -a" Make the init script execuatable:
chmod +x /etc/init.d/zfs
Add zfs to default runlevel
rc-update add zfs default
We also need to add a ZFS hook to the mkinitcpio.conf
Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and change the hook to look like this:
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block keyboard zfs filesystems)
Following the normal installation guide, only add your /boot information, as ZFS does not need to be in it. If you created a swap partition add it also to the fstab.
Currently kmod-27-1 has issue with linux-lts-5.4.20. Downgrade to kmod-26-3
Only one ZFS partition should be on a single disk, as ZFS auto imports datasets and would cause file conflicts. For example, one pool has/usr/binand another pool's/usr/bingets imported as well.