how easy is it to install arch? (no anarchy/archinstall)
If you have reading comprehension of, at least, an 8th-grader, you’ll do just fine. The instructions are all there
at most, an 8th-grader
Phew, looks like my 6th grade education is finally paying off!
There is no such thing as easy or hard.
Give it a try, fuck it up, and give it a try again. Try not to fuck it up in the same way as the first time. Repeat until it works - it will work eventually.
It took me about 6 hours and 3 disk re-formats my first time. I was particularly bad at it. I barely knew what a disk was, nevermind a partition.
Actually I’m still not sure what a partition is.
You’ll do fine :)
It’s not to bad as others are saying. Real question is to why you don’t want to use the installer?
They are quite good. I just used one for a Gentoo install because I have better things to do with my time. Can I do it for the millionth time sure by hand sure but what’s the point? End result is more consistent than me as a human doing it by hand
I always manage to forget the locale or NetworkManager or set a password for root etc… Unless you have a hyper-specific partitioning scheme or system config these work great
You always forget to set a password for root?
Exactly. archinstall is pretty nice, and if you want the frustration of dealing with random errors, it’s still there. But it’s straightforward (but keep the docs handy since you’ll likely need them).
The wiki holds your hand through it so it’s pretty easy.
Easy or not depends vary wildly. But the usual task is
- partition the drive
- format the drive
- mount the drive
- install the base system
That is the bare minimum, but we need to do more configuration to be able to boot. Hence the next task is configuring the following
- fstab
- timezone, hostname, and networking
- boot loader (I just use the EFI directly nowadays)
That is it. Everything else is usually work specific. Like, if you wanted arch to be a server, you usually didn’t install a GUI. For workstation and gaming, you need more steps but it will vary depending on hardware. The archwiki covers a good deal of hardware from laptop to desktop and their quirks.
It’s easy if you have a second computer or phone or something and can read and plan first.
It’s hard if you want to just click click click through.
if you know your way around a Linux system, it’s really quite easy.
archinstall is easy. The hard part about arch is maintaining it and keeping up to date with linux innovation. As long as you keep reading forum posts and news about linux and browse the arch wiki, there’s nothing wrong with it. If you do not ever read about advances on linux, then don’t use arch.
i can do it on about 15 minutes without the wiki for a fairly basic install
and then about 30 minutes to set up sway how i want, install common software i like, etc
but for a more complex setup it will take longer and i will need to check the wiki
A lot easier than Gentoo
Now I’m kind of wanting to go mess with Gentoo again…
Honesty I found gentoo more easy to install then arch. Mainly because the Gentoo handbook is soo good and is in laid out in a good order. Compare that to the arch wiki that has a ton of sub pages and redirects. Which is just a load harder to follow.
PS. This is before their was a guided installer for arch.
The reason to follow the archwiki install instructions is because it teaches you how to do a lot more than just install the OS. This will help you a lot down the line and not just with arch.
If you can put together Lego with the instructions or IKEA furniture, you’ll be fine. It took me three tries, and I learnt stuff from each mistake, so the worst that can happen is you learn.
Its easy, follow the steps in the wiki and you’ll be fine.
Since nobody else said it: make sure you have backups of any data you don’t want to lose. It’s really easy to accidentally partition any connected drive and wipe your data on it. (Learned it the hard way, but at least I had backups.)
yeah, i figured.
