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

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  • Mateus Felipe
    replied
    Originally posted by Vistaus View Post
    Ouch, the Arch diehards aren't going to like this as they believe that Arch shouldn't be quick and easy to install.
    But Arch is already quick and easy to install.

    Leave a comment:


  • Firnefex
    replied
    The best thing about this installer is not needing a second PC to look at the wiki.

    Have seen a video where this installer only created 2 partitions: EFI and / with btrfs.
    So the question is, can I also create a swap, a /home partition with XFS and do the btrfs snapshots really work without subvolumes?
    Last edited by Firnefex; 05 April 2021, 07:47 AM.

    Leave a comment:


  • Nocifer
    replied
    Originally posted by Mike Frett View Post

    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.
    A valid concern in theory, but really, it's practically impossible to have end-of-support forced on you for something like running common Linux commands in a terminal in order to manually install your system.

    Leave a comment:


  • Nocifer
    replied
    Originally posted by Old Grouch View Post

    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...
    The beauty of Arch IMHO is that it's one of those distros that encourages you to do those little things that could also be done in every other Linux distro, but that are usually not done because GUI tools have taken over and made us scared of manually changing conf files, reducing our systems into opaquely black boxes that mystify the user instead of empowering them to tinker with them.

    As an example, Arch does not forcefully present changes to conf files as a diff in the middle of an update. Instead it simply keeps the existing file (so everything keeps running in exactly the same way as before the update, even if you reboot) and saves the new file with a .pacnew extension (e.g. sshd.conf.pacnew) and then leaves it up to the user to go look for these new files and do whatever they want with them. No preprocessors. But here's the trick: it's actually really easy to write a so-called pacman hook, that will be called after each update and notify you about any new .pacnew files that have been created - and that's that. Or of course you could write yourself a cron task (or systemd-timer service) that does the same thing every X amount of time.

    Can we do that in other Linux distros? Of course we can. But do we usually do it? No, because we're used to convoluted, fully automated packaging tools like apt that we really don't want to mess around with because we're afraid (and rightly so) that we'll probably break them.

    Regarding simplicity, speaking for myself, I fell in love with Arch way back when because it showed me a simple truth: a complete Linux setup is as simple as partition disks, format disks, mount disks, install base packages, configure basic stuff like fstab/timezone/locales, configure network, optionally install GUI, enable services/init scripts, reboot, done*. Depending on your internet connection speed, you can literally have a brand new Arch system up and running in less than 10 minutes. And afterwards, it's a quick trip to the Arch Wiki (which let's not forget, it's the #1 go-to place for learning how to do stuff on any Linux system) to find out how to configure non-basic stuff like e.g. disk decryption on boot.

    (*Terribly sorry if I'm forgetting a step or two, it's been ages since I last installed Arch).

    Leave a comment:


  • Mike Frett
    replied
    Originally posted by chromer View Post
    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.

    Leave a comment:


  • Guest
    Guest replied
    Originally posted by Old Grouch View Post

    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.

    Leave a comment:


  • Old Grouch
    replied
    Originally posted by sandy8925 View Post

    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...

    Leave a comment:


  • Nocifer
    replied
    Originally posted by cl333r View Post

    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.

    Originally posted by TemplarGR View Post

    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.
    Last edited by Nocifer; 05 April 2021, 07:12 AM.

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  • Etherman
    replied
    Originally posted by Mez' View Post
    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.

    Leave a comment:


  • Old Grouch
    replied
    Originally posted by kpedersen View Post
    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.

    Leave a comment:

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