Arch Linux Receives Guided Installer—At Last
One of the main gripes against using Arch Linux over the years has been the installer. For many newcomers to Linux and even some regular users, the Arch Linux installation process is very hands-on.
Now, that statement obviously discounts the existence of excellent Arch-based distros such as Manjaro or EndeavourOS, which make installation and setup much easier through the introduction of—you guessed it—guided installers.
The new archinstall package streamlines some of the most common aspects associated with the installation of a new operating system, including:
Selecting a disk and setting a disk password Clean and format disk with GPT (GUID Partition Table Installs a basic version of Arch Linux Install standard packages such as nano, wget, and git Includes option to install awesome window manager
Before jumping for joy, you should know that the new installation guide doesn’t come with a GUI. It’s still a command-line tool, but the difference comes in the ease of function and access archinstall brings to the table.
Arch Linux Installer: Good or Bad?
The general response to the new Arch Linux installer has been positive. Comments on the Phoronix forum note that the Arch development team making at least some installation steps easier can only be a good thing for the distro.
However, some users aren’t so sure, arguing that “Forums will be flooded with users not knowing what they have installed.” It’s a valid point, but given forums already have multiple posts with users not knowing how to install Arch, it might not be as big an issue as the poster thinks. Indeed, other commenters refer to exactly this point.
Overall, it’s a good step for Arch Linux that will help more people start using a Linux distro more traditionally associated with Linux power users. Of course, if all else fails, there are the aforementioned Arch-based distros to fall back to.
