Arch Linux is one of the most popular if not the most popular GNU Linux distro. Arch Linux was first released back in 2006 by Judd Vinet and if we take a look at distrowatch we can see that Arch Linux uses a rolling release cycle is rated 60 (180 hits per day) on the popularity count.
But it is notoriously hard to install Arch into your main machine, seeing this few Linux enthusiasts have put forward a script called archinstall, and using this script it’s a breeze to install Arch! So let’s not waste any more time and move forward to the tutorial!
Downloading and Booting the Arch Linux ISO
To install Arch Linux using the archinstall script, first download and boot the Arch Linux ISO. Then, run the archinstall script with the commands ‘sudo pacman -Syy’, ‘sudo pacman -S archinstall’, and ‘archinstall’.
Follow the prompts to configure settings such as language, keyboard layout, disk partition, filesystem, bootloader, swap, hostname, user accounts, desktop environment, audio, additional packages, and network configuration. Once all settings are confirmed, proceed with the installation.
After installation, reboot the system and log in with the created user account.
First visit this link and install the Arch Linux ISO. Now you will also need an 8GB or higher capacity pendrive, connect it to your computer and make sure it is empty. Now you can use Rufus or Balena Etcher to create the bootable pendrive.
Once created plug in the pendrive to the computer you want to install arch on, boot up the machine and look for boot from Installation Media or the name of the pendrive. You can see it will boot into the pendrive and there will be an arch linux prompt in a shell.
Ensure your computer has a stable internet connection before proceeding to the next step.
Running the Archinstall Script to Install Arch
Now give the following command to install and run the latest version of the archinstall script.
sudo pacman -Syy
sudo pacman -S archinstall
archinstall
Now after you launch the script the first option is going to be the language settings. By default it is set to en-us which is fine for our purposes and we’ll leave it at that.
Next, we have the keyboard layout and the Mirror region both of which we will aslo leave as is. Now you can choose your own locale language for us we’ll choose English USA. Now go to the drive menu and select it.
It will show you all the drives that are connected to your computer and you will have to choose your drive carefully. Be cautious when selecting the drive, as any data on the chosen drive will be wiped and may be difficult to recover.
Now select the Disk Layout option and then choose the second option which is to wipe the disk and use a best-effort default partition layout. Next we’ll go with an ext4 filesystem. Additionally you can also choose a disk encryption and setup a password for that.
Next, leave the bootloader settings as is and move on to the Swap settings. You can choose to have swap enabled or disabled, we’ll go with the default. Now choose a hostname for your archlinux machine. Then setup a root password and keep a note of this password as it will be very important.
Now, create a new user and you can then choose to give the user root privileges. It is recommended to keep one user as non-root and one another user as a root user.
You can now move on to the Profile settings where you can choose some pre-defined settings for the desktop environment. You have many choices here. We went with the GNOME desktop. Also choose the graphic drivers in this step.
Next you can choose the audio tab and choose the pulseaudio package. Now under additional packages you can list out the packages you want on your system for us it would be: neofetch, vim, firefox.
Then, under Network configuration choose Network Manager. Finally set your timezone and you’ll be done.
Completing the Arch Linux Installation
Now check through all of the setting and see if you have missed out on anything, once confirmed go ahead and hit the Install option. Next you will be prompted to press Enter to continue, do that and wait for the installation to finish.
Now a popup might appear about chroot, ignore it for now and choose no. Next reboot the system and log in with the user you have created. And that’s how you install Arch Linux in just 5-8mins in your main machine!
Conclusion
So there you go guys! In this article we learned how to install Arch Linux the easy way using the archinstall script. For more such content be sure to follow LinuxForDevices! Check out this article if you are finished with the Arch Linux installation and move on to the terminal!