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

[zoomblab]

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.

[kpedersen]

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.

[Mez']

Are there big fundamental differences between Arch and Manjaro or EndeavourOS once the system has been installed?
On a day-to-day basis, regarding pacman and pacman-mirrors, pamac, yay, the AUR, etc...
Let's say I decide to switch from Manjaro and I'm already familiar with these. Would I really see a big difference in maintaining the distro once it's set up?
And before that, could you give me some benefits that would be killer enough for me to switch (and keep using the same tools as they work very well for me)? In other words, what makes Arch worth using beside its tailored installer?

[HighValueWarrior]

Good Move !

There is a difference between keep it simple and keeping it retarded.
I have run Arch for 12 years and this has been sorely needed. Even veteran users who go years without issues dread a reinstall.
Guided is Good.

[leipero]

I love pacman, but I also love the packaging format even more because it's so easy to create a package that integrates with the system -- just one straightforward text file. That's not what less technically inclined users are going to do or need. I don't think that the kind of user who would have enough difficulty with installing Arch Linux manually would care much about the packaging system beyond what packages are available. "pacman -S $packagename" is slightly less intuitive than "apt-get install $packagename".

Unopinionated packaging is coming more and more with the likes of flatpak and snap, and those also negate a lot of the advantages that being a rolling release distro has while retaining a minimally changing core. You have to update/upgrade regardless -- at least for security updates, and if you don't update anything you won't get any benefits of being rolling release anyway. I'd also argue that Arch being rolling release is only incidental; it's so vanilla that there's never a logical point to make a new release.
Ease of configuration again comes from being vanilla. There aren't custom layers on top, no alternatives system to deal with, so that might make it less friendly for a lot of users. Those commands to install are the same commands you'd use for maintaining your system. It doesn't do much of anything special in that regard.

As an aside, I wrote a simple Arch Linux installer ~9 years ago with pygtk, so I'm familiar with what it takes to do a simple streamlined installer. I'm also biased towards learning more about my system because I ran a Linux From Scratch system (with some changes to the base, like systemd for init) from 2011 to 2017. I'm working to get back to that soon.

Yes, PKGBUILD and ABS is great, even for advanced users, it makes sense and makes life easier (if you are package maintainer for example). I do agree that "apt install $packagename" is more intuitive than "pacman -S $packagename", and depending on keyboard layout, easier to type even, but once you get familiar with it, it really makes perfect sense (with other switches).

I really don't know if goal of the main creator of Arch was to be rolling release, but I do know that his goal was to create a simple, straightforward distribution, and you might be right that rolling model just makes sense if you have that goal/approach. Ease of use comes from that, but most comands you use, you really do it once, how many times you run grub-mkconfig for example after you do it on install? I don't use GRUB for a long time now, but unless you are changing something (like kernel, or kernel options) you never need to run it again AFAIK.

Sure, and you may have fun by doing so, the thing is, not everyone wants that, and IMO, Arch doesn't have alternative that would be as "user centric". I personally had fun making scripts for post-install process, but I never really end up using it, but "official installer" would not have disadvantage of need to be changed once in a while, so unlike install scripts, it will always be a valid choice.

Side note: Just tested archinstall script, and I like defaults they used, one thing that I do dislike is that there's no progress indicator while downloading/installing packages, I think allowing pacman output would be a good idea, because there are tons of terrible mirrors, and you are basically in the dark how long it will take. On that note, it's kinda hilarious that the fastest mirror I've tested comes from the US and not from Europe (that would be local for me).

[leipero]

Are there big fundamental differences between Arch and Manjaro or EndeavourOS once the system has been installed?
On a day-to-day basis, regarding pacman and pacman-mirrors, pamac, yay, the AUR, etc...
Let's say I decide to switch from Manjaro and I'm already familiar with these. Would I really see a big difference in maintaining the distro once it's set up?
And before that, could you give me some benefits that would be killer enough for me to switch (and keep using the same tools as they work very well for me)? In other words, what makes Arch worth using beside its tailored installer?

Yes, stay away from Manjaro, they keep their own repositories AFAIK and they use questionable configurations (and their iso's become broken after a while even for VMs). EndeavourOS have it's own repository for some extra packages, and it's preconfigured to the likings of the creator, otherwise, it's much closer to the clean Arch in comparison with Manjaro.

I never used Manjaro, back in the day, I wanted to use it, the issue is, their iso's were always buggy as hell, localization was broken, some "editions" were simply unbootable, it's a big disservice to Arch IMO, that being said, I had small contributions towards manjaro projects in the past.
To answer your question, once you have everything configured, you are more likely to experience less bugs on Arch, and more likely that it would be easier to maintain. I think those reasons are enough to not use Manjaro, it's not done in professional way IMO, despite the fact there are some good ideas that came from that project.

[lumks]

Are there big fundamental differences between Arch and Manjaro or EndeavourOS once the system has been installed?

At least between Arch an Manjaro, yes. (I dont know EndeavourOS at all)

On a day-to-day basis, regarding pacman and pacman-mirrors, pamac, yay, the AUR, etc...

What do you mean by this? The tooling usage? Not so much, but of course not. The same tools should behave the same everywhere. apt on Arch will also do the same that apt does on Ubuntu.

Let's say I decide to switch from Manjaro and I'm already familiar with these. Would I really see a big difference in maintaining the distro once it's set up?

That depends on you. In the long run you will. There is no waiting for package updates rolling in from Arch on Arch. There is no 'this AUR packages requires a newer version of this and that lib, thats not in your repo'-incompatiblity on Arch and there is no one that fucks around with your configuration files, except of yourself on Arch.

And before that, could you give me some benefits that would be killer enough for me to switch

Find them yourself. You're the one that knows whats killer enough for you to switch and stay. Nobody should invest time in this, except of you, if you want to.

(and keep using the same tools as they work very well for me)? In other words, what makes Arch worth using beside its tailored installer?

The installer is not what makes Arch worth. Nothing makes Arch worth anything. It's your system. You set it up, you keep it up. No help, no BS, no one else to blame, just you. Thats it. Thats what people like about it.

[lumks]

Yes, stay away from Manjaro,

I dont think you're in any position to say that, even if you just want to protect users. If someone wants to use Manjaro, thats fine. The only problem that still exists is that Manjaro Users come to Arch support spots and ask for help with "Arch" = Manjaro. Thats not OK.

[szymon_g]

Good. You can't install it yourself means you can't maintain it.

There have always been install scripts for Arch. My point is to keep them unofficial.

then you wonder why linux has the massive 1% of desktop market

[microcode]

No One is forced to use this tool, it's a command available in Arch Medium for anyone who like guided installation. Still manual , full customized installation is far better option for experienced users.

You have completely missed the point. This makes it possible to "install ArchLinux" without even seeing the package names on screen, and will increase the number of people coming to the community with draining, stupid questions that they would know how to find the answers for if they paid attention.