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

[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.

[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?

[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

[Guest]

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.

[Old Grouch]

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.

'Modern' is never a reason for doing something.

At some point in time, in England, water closets, oil lamps, and refrigerators were 'modern'. So too were hooped skirts, silk stockings for men, and wigs (for all sexes). Some have stood the test of time, others have not. People arguing for change should describe both the benefits and the disadvantages of the new approach, and let people decide. Pushing things because they are 'modern' demonstrates a vacuity of thinking.

[Etherman]

Wow, that's a thing? For real?

Sure. I found it a convenient way to "install Arch linux". Especially on my rpi, but I have done it on amd64 too.

BTW I can install it the normal Arch way, I've done LFS for fun.

[Nocifer]

So you're implying that there are still assholes who think that if they run this or that Linux distro it makes them better, I hope they're all teenagers otherwise they're just morons.

But of course. And no, unfortunately they're not all teenagers, much of the time they're just sad little people who like to hate on other people in order to pretend they feel superior and hide the fact that what they actually hate is their sad little self.

This is reverse elitism. You are hating the "elitists" and telling them to go LFS, because "only n00bs don't automate". Well, i am not a n00b, and i don't automate my Arch installations. Why would i? I am using it on my personal computers, i don't reinstall that often. Automating it would be a waste of time, when i can simply do it manually in the not frequent occasion i need a reinstall.

And honestly, i wouldn't use Arch for professional environments. I would use a stable distro for that, whether it was for servers or workstations. So again, i don't see the use case for using automation. I mean, you can do it, all the power to you, but automation has some downsides vs fully manual and there is no reason to do it for 1-2 computers only.

I agree, I too don't use a script for the installation because it would be too much of a hassle to have to check and verify that it's still up to date with current standards (easiest example: packages having been added/removed/modified in the repos). I've simply made myself a short guide which briefly describes the needed steps in generic terms ("partition and format the disks", "bind mount X Y and Z", "chroot into the new root partition", "set up network, locales and tzdata", "install the following list of packages", "do the following configurations in this or that conf file", etc), and then whenever I need to setup a new Arch system I just consult that guide and then go look up any particular details/commands that I don't remember or that I suspect may not be up to date.

But that's why an official automation tool will be beneficial: it will always stay up to date with current installation standards without needing us to update any custom scripts that we may have written. And if it's customizable as someone previously mentioned (i.e. able to run custom scripts or install custom package lists or copy over configuration files) then IMHO it'll be just perfect for the job.

[Old Grouch]

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.

I have not tried Arch yet, but you are saying the right things to make me think it is an option. With 'a bit' of finagling I set up my personal Lubuntu* system fully encrypted with a non-mainstream filesystems, but standard installers make this unnecessarily complicated, so if it is easier on Arch, I may well be persuaded to move to it.

*I used Debian from version 2.0 (Hamm), but got fed up setting up DEs, WMs etc, and went for the ease of a pre-packaged distribution that was 'minimal-enough' (LXDE). While I enjoy fiddling with stuff, being forced to audit config changes on upgrades gets rapidly irritating**, so I chose to let someone else do all the boring integration work for me. Hence Lubuntu, which has since 'jumped the shark', so I'm on the hunt for a grown-up distribution that 'just works' in a sane manner.

**I suspect Arch does just this, which is fine when you are learning, but gets really, really irritating when you are using your workstation as a tool for getting non-Linux things done.When you are in the middle of an update, and a breaking change in a config is presented as a diff with the option of using a cli/non-gui text editor to make fundamental changes, shorn of context, I get...irritated. It would be nice to have a dry-run/preprocessor that would detect if config changes were necessary and flag them up to allow me to research them beforehand. In principle, I just need to set an LVM checkpoint, run an upgrade and revert back if a breaking change occurs. Which is a bit of a faff - but maybe I'll start doing just that...

[Guest]

I have not tried Arch yet, but you are saying the right things to make me think it is an option. With 'a bit' of finagling I set up my personal Lubuntu* system fully encrypted with a non-mainstream filesystems, but standard installers make this unnecessarily complicated, so if it is easier on Arch, I may well be persuaded to move to it.

*I used Debian from version 2.0 (Hamm), but got fed up setting up DEs, WMs etc, and went for the ease of a pre-packaged distribution that was 'minimal-enough' (LXDE). While I enjoy fiddling with stuff, being forced to audit config changes on upgrades gets rapidly irritating**, so I chose to let someone else do all the boring integration work for me. Hence Lubuntu, which has since 'jumped the shark', so I'm on the hunt for a grown-up distribution that 'just works' in a sane manner.

**I suspect Arch does just this, which is fine when you are learning, but gets really, really irritating when you are using your workstation as a tool for getting non-Linux things done.When you are in the middle of an update, and a breaking change in a config is presented as a diff with the option of using a cli/non-gui text editor to make fundamental changes, shorn of context, I get...irritated. It would be nice to have a dry-run/preprocessor that would detect if config changes were necessary and flag them up to allow me to research them beforehand. In principle, I just need to set an LVM checkpoint, run an upgrade and revert back if a breaking change occurs. Which is a bit of a faff - but maybe I'll start doing just that...

Hm, I haven't used LVM or anything like that, but yeah, Arch does give you the freedom to set it up in whatever way you want.

[Mike Frett]

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.

For now. This is all I heard when I used Windows. Don't like it? Keep using the current version. Sorry but it doesn't work that way in real life. Support ends and what you hate becomes the only option. You have no choice.