how easy is it to install arch? (no anarchy/archinstall)
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 :)
Yep, completely agree. We only (really) learn when we make mistakes.
I usually aim to do my “first” (of whatever) as best I can, but totally prepared to wipe & restart…
Easy if you go step by step and don’t accidentally skip anything. Archinstall will get you to the same result with lower risk of failure, in a tenth of the amount of time spent. And unless you install operating systems for a living, it doesn’t matter how you get there. Source: Installed Arch on about a dozen different devices, twice without Archinstall.
If you’re looking to learn something, do Linux from Scratch instead. The process is way more granular, way more documented, and way more educational than parroting the steps of installing Arch from the wiki.
Endeavour os done.
Even tho i love EndeavourOS to install my Arch, OP asked without archinstall etc. So I assume it includes EndeavourOS.
what?
Endeavour is an Arch flavor that has a bunch of ease of use features, like a simple® installer.
The wiki holds your hand through it so it’s pretty easy.
With archinstall? Ridiculously easy.
I’d just look up each of the options it gives you so you can decide what you want or what works best, but as long as you have an internet connection you can just choose your options and away you go.
If you only have wifi, add another 5-8 minutes of learning how to connect to your access point with iw
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.
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.
Just follow the wiki and you’ll be fine. I did it when I was in highschool. My friend showed me Ubuntu and I used it for about a month then jumped straight to arch
well damn, im currently in highschool, so it’ll probably be fine.
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
I can do it with my eyes closed. And using the number shortcuts to navigate through the menus.
It’s as easy as following any set of instructions. Whether or not you actually understand what the instructions are doing is an entirely different story. If you actually want to learn how to operate a posix system, doing a bunch of command line installs of Linux isn’t going to help you with that. What will help is living in something with excellent documentation like OpenBSD, with minimal reliance on external tooling. Once you have the skills, they’ll transfer anywhere.
It’s better than it used to be. It might still require some basic cli skills. Especially formatting disks and mount points. And file system types. Etc.
I know manjaro makes it even easier.
I had done a few easier Linux installs on Raspberry Pis and VMs in the past, but when I decided I wanted to try using Linux as my daily driver on my desktop (dual-booted with Windows at the time) I decided to go with a manual Arch install using a guide and I would 100% recommend it if you’re trying to pick up Linux knowledge. It’s really not a difficult process to just follow step-by-step, but I looked up each command as they came up in the guide so I could try to understand what I was doing and why.
I don’t know what packages archinstall includes because I’ve never used it, but really the biggest thing for me learning was booting into a barebones Arch install. Looking into the different options for components and getting everything I needed setup and configured how I wanted was invaluable.
That being said, now that I know how, is that how I would choose to install it? Nah, I use the CachyOS installer now, but if I wanted stock Arch I’d probably use archinstall.
Cant do if you never try
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!
As a very long time Arch user I wouldn’t say “easy” like everyone else seems to. I absolutely would not suggest it for a first distro for someone, which is what I would classify as the “easy” level.
But if you’re comfortable with using Linux, the terminal, and being able to follow written documentation you’ll be able to do it just fine maybe with a little frustration the first time. If you’re installing to a laptop, make sure to look up your model on the wiki first.
