Arch Linux's Install Media Adds "Archinstall" For Quick/Easy Installations

Talk about gatekeeping users, forgetting the fact that there are different kind of scenarios where not all users are maintainers, example: family member.
Unofficial or not, making it easier for people PLUS an alternative is still better than nothing, best of both worlds even.

IMO it's better to install some easy-to-use distro like PopOS, Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE etc. for such users. Arch requires manual intervention for some updates, and some stuff is only available through AUR.

[YamashitaRen]

This is how Arch used to be actually. They had a nice simple installer in the early days before switching off to the "let's educate our users" BS. I'm a long time arch user but this was a bit "you'll do things our way" push I never understood. So good to get a "working man's installer" for people who don't have the time to bullshit around.

Same.
The first time I installed Arch, it was with the old installer.
Never bothered myself with the newer installer. Why waste my precious time with this ? I have better things to do...
So now I am using the Archboot iso installer, which is basically the old installer

[LightBit]

l33t Arch user: Oh muh god, they're pandering to noobs and making it too easy! Must make it tough to do things in Arch so I can have a sense of achievement!

That is the main reason why I don't use Arch Linux anymore. It had setup and they removed it. It is not hard to install manually, but why?

[Torxed]

This might keep some "user-friendly fanatics" happy for a bit. But it won't be long until they want a fancy X11/Wayland GUI installer.

They will cite the words "modern" like they do in OpenBSD communities.

There actually is an embryo to a fancy GUI installer: https://github.com/Torxed/archinstall_gui
But I never finished it, mainly because the backlash of even considering such a thing was equal to worshiping Satan in a catholic church. But as a side project it's been pretty fun to write and experiment with, but it never really ended up as flexible as archinstall became.

And that is considered progress. I remember my first PC with MS DOS 5 and it had way better installer in 1990. Also remeber amiga in 1985 having 100% GUI OS with multi tasking.

Yea, we kept it simple to start off with. I went full nuts and went over board with a UI design, but that was not really welcomed, so kept it simple.

[Torxed]

l33t Arch user: Oh muh god, they're pandering to noobs and making it too easy! Must make it tough to do things in Arch so I can have a sense of achievement!

There's a new achievement in town, it's called "Figuring out how to write my own installation script using this new library" :P

[Torxed]

I'm guessing said campus policy is that the network uses WPA2-Enterprise, which is a pain to do with no GUI tools. I had to go through that myself the first time I installed Arch, ended up writing out a wpa_supplicant config file manually and using that until I get to the point where the DE's NetworkManager frontend is available. Sadly this installer doesn't help with that, but it does make the setup a lot less tedious to the point where installing to an empty VM is a pinch.

I've thought about adding a wifi-configuration step some where.
Archinstall is branded as a "guided installer", but in it's basic form it's actually a lib/api that ships a guided installer. And I'm thinking to add wifi configuration to the library part - and users would be able to in a very simplified manner configure `iwd` to some extent. Essentially just ask "Which wifi? and what's the password?" and set up the appropriate iwd systemd script for it. But people haven't been outspoken about this specific need so haven't added it yet

But I'm always open to feedback (main developer here)

[Torxed]

Yeah, setting up a proper encrypted system gets annoying. On the other hand, I've kind of got the hang of it, and you don't really need a separate /boot partition if you're using GRUB to unlock LUKS partitions.

Grub is coming, and so is MBR support.
We kept it simple for the first launch to ease this into the community and focus on a specific "field" of support questions.

And it's worth remembering, this is an optional command - nothing that will ever run by default.
So users need to know about it to run it, and I try to be in every support channel answering questions and helping users

[Torxed]

Main developer here, trying to answer some questions and feedback

Man, Gnome looks positively retro in that screenshot.

Hah, gave me a good chuckle. The interface could use some polishing ^^ I did what I could at the time hehe.

I also think this is great - I appreciate how Arch can be as advanced or as simple as you want, with minimal compromises. Sure, even this guided installer isn't the most glamorous or user-friendly, but frankly, if you can't handle this then you can't handle Arch in general. So it's a good way for newcomers to get into Arch without getting too frustrated or overwhelmed.

I very much welcome this attitude and I think you nailed it.
The target audience is newcomers, who maybe don't want to commit the hours or days getting arch up and running just to realize the echo system isn't for them.
Or users who know what gets installed and just want a quick re-install before beginning final configurations.

It'll never replace a fully customized Arch installation, because there's no way it ever could hehe.
I just hope people remember this when they think of the debate. And any feedback is welcome!

This is amazing the arch team actually pays attention to the critiques, while still maintaining the kiss principle.

I really tried sticking to keeping it simple and "force" as little stuff as possible upon the users. Which is why desktop environments are optional, even network configuration is optional. The only "wasted" package I force in via the installer is nano, just to give new linux users something that's "as easy as notepad.exe".
I'm also bringing in statistics for which packages gets installed and logging will continuously improve so that giving support for these installs become easier.

I also welcome any feedback, and Giancarlo has done amazing work massaging this in to the official ISO in a smooth controlled manner, allowing some time for testing and people getting used to it.

I don't like it. Forums will be flooded with users not knowing what they have installed.

This is a guess, and my hope is that this will be no different from when people blindly follow the guide and copy paste commands not knowing what they installed.
While the repository was under my account all support information pointed towards me and I was guiding and helping everyone that used it, now that it had to be moved to the official Arch Linux repository on GitHub, I'm trying to follow all the support channels and questions can be redirected to me, but I would appreciate a ping every now and then because it's hard to get notifications properly from all the support channels.

forum is already full of people not being able to do simple things that they can do with other distros. and that same forum is full of people that slap the noobs and close their posts.
plus i for one would enjoy very much an easy way to install arch instead of running all over wiki on a phone and jumping from page to page to page to page to ....and having to come back from the start and so on and on....

Yeah, setting up a proper encrypted system gets annoying. On the other hand, I've kind of got the hang of it, and you don't really need a separate /boot partition if you're using GRUB to unlock LUKS partitions.

l33t Arch user: Oh muh god, they're pandering to noobs and making it too easy! Must make it tough to do things in Arch so I can have a sense of achievement!