Archinstall 2.6 Released For Latest Easy-To-Use Arch Linux Installer

[Quackdoc]

Well, at least you're honest...

Seriously though. I may be judged as having little room to speak, seeing as I'm just one of those freeloading Arch users who doesn't meaningfully contribute to the ecosystem. But the whole "let's keep the platform difficult to use so we can scare away the users we don't want" mindset has always been one that irks me.

Anyway, I love archinstall. Keep it coming!

it's not about scaring away users that the community doesn't want, it's about keeping users that will wind up having a terrible time because they refuse to learn to maintain their system away, it does no one any good. not the arch community, and certainly not the user that needs to spend hours trying to solve a simple issue, or wind up reinstalling a different distro, which happens plenty.

Those are actually very fair points.

But if the Arch devs make Arch Linux more accessible, should they also make it easier to maintain? I lean towards yes. I know that goes against the traditional spirit of Arch, but if Nu-Arch is going to make it more accessible to start using, they should make it more accessible to keep using.

Seems like a lot of problems would be solved if people used distributions that catered to their needs...Manjaro...or if Valve would quit dragging ass on a non-Deck SteamOS.

I don't think arch has an accessibility issue at all, it has a learning curve issue, and that learning curve is being able to read and comprehend the arch wiki. see the last parapgrah below.

I don't think it's this kind of elitism (at least for the vast majority). In my experience the arch-community is by far the most helpful i have ever seen. But it requires you to at least put in a minimum amount of effort by yourself (ok, i guess you could call that 'user we don't want'...). If you are not willing to at least look at the wiki, you won't be happy with arch. And i don't think that this 'requirement' is negative in any way. Those supporting others do that in their free time after all.

The issue with archinstall now is that the installation process is simplified, but everything else is still the same. I mean, i love it for quickly setting up a VM and the like, but i don't think it's wrong to point out that issue.

exactly, arch is absolutely one of the easiest distros to use if you are willing to learn, I've been able to use arch to teach computer literacy to a very succsessful degree to both older folk and kids. but one must be willing to learn how to do things themselves. a distro is not just a collection of software, it's also the community around it, and arch has carefully cultivated a community of people who want a real and proper DIY distro and are willing to work on it themselves. asking questions when you don't understand something the arch wiki says is fine. not following the wiki at all (like many are now doing) is not.

if someone really wanted to make arch more accessible, you wouldn't make arch easier to install, that's just out right a bad idea. no, the absolute best thing one could do is provide a really good guide on learning how to learn (this is the approach I take when teaching computer literacy). if using the arch wiki is too hard, teach them how to use the arch wiki, teach them how to research and solve problems, that will be immensely more useful then "making arch easier to maintain" or "making arch easier to install". and in the end, if someone doesn't have enough time to learn this skill, then arch simply isn't for them. there are literally hundreds of distros out there. many of them are excellent too with some tools being used to emulate the aur. use one of them, fedora, popOS, opensuse etc. plenty of excellent distros out there.

[guildem]

This archinstall inclusion on the archiso is not a bad idea, this is only a communication issue (not even by the arch news, I didn't see any news saying that archinstall would be the main installation way, only another tool to help advanced arch users to automate some steps).

But socials and press made it a way for newcomers to install archlinux easily, which is a lie, and as said by Quackdoc, a source of future mistakes for people not familiar with the wiki because they didn't even used it on installation, and so don't really know anything on archlinux maintenance.

Archlinux is not for elite. It's a DIY distribution for people with more or less knowledge, but with time and motivation to search and learn by themselves, and maybe sometimes, when no solution is found, will find help on socials/forums/others.

Every arch derivative is IMO a mistake too, because they are built on a DIY distribution and you can't make them accessible to users easily and stable in time. Debian, Fedora, Alpine, and lots of other distributions are really great and give more ways to manage installation and maintenance, and there's no shame to choose another one. Ubuntu (even if I don't like it much those days) is really on the opposite side, with everything needed to help you do all the installation and maintenance.

I hope the hype for archlinux will go down, this is not helping anyone.

[Estranged1906]

Why doesn't Arch just use Calamares, like Endeavour OS?

[Quackdoc]

This archinstall inclusion on the archiso is not a bad idea, this is only a communication issue (not even by the arch news, I didn't see any news saying that archinstall would be the main installation way, only another tool to help advanced arch users to automate some steps).

But socials and press made it a way for newcomers to install archlinux easily, which is a lie, and as said by Quackdoc, a source of future mistakes for people not familiar with the wiki because they didn't even used it on installation, and so don't really know anything on archlinux maintenance.

Archlinux is not for elite. It's a DIY distribution for people with more or less knowledge, but with time and motivation to search and learn by themselves, and maybe sometimes, when no solution is found, will find help on socials/forums/others.

Every arch derivative is IMO a mistake too, because they are built on a DIY distribution and you can't make them accessible to users easily and stable in time. Debian, Fedora, Alpine, and lots of other distributions are really great and give more ways to manage installation and maintenance, and there's no shame to choose another one. Ubuntu (even if I don't like it much those days) is really on the opposite side, with everything needed to help you do all the installation and maintenance.

I hope the hype for archlinux will go down, this is not helping anyone.

im not sure if I agree or not, while I think I do, the basis that it's a communication issue... hmmm, on one hand I do agree that communication was bad, but on the other, that also kinda hinges on users not just ignoring it. hmmm not sure,

[skeevy420]

exactly, arch is absolutely one of the easiest distros to use if you are willing to learn, I've been able to use arch to teach computer literacy to a very succsessful degree to both older folk and kids. but one must be willing to learn how to do things themselves..

There is so much truth to that statement.

My Dad is 63 and can't figure out left and right clicking. When anyone goes to show my Dad anything regarding technology he starts of with 5 minutes of bitching and whining followed by getting frustrated and complaining after one or two steps to the point that he can barely use a smartphone and has never used a computer. One of his friends is 75 and a few weeks ago I was teaching him how to edit forum posts. His wife is about the same age and I was teaching her Facebook account management (the irony is that I've never used Facebook outside of tech support for friends and family). My Mom is 65 and I show her how to do all sorts of crap on phones, TVs, and PCs. They're all people that are willing to learn and, as frustrated as they are when they can't figure out how to do something, they're still willing to stay calm, listen, and ask questions so they actually learn things. My Dad, unlike them, comes at learning anything technological with an angry, unpleasant disposition and an expectation to fail...so he does fail.

[skeevy420]

Why doesn't Arch just use Calamares, like Endeavour OS?

The traditional Arch install is 100% manual, 100% up to the user on what they use, and all the choices and software combinations all the freedom entails just can't easily be replicated with Calamares/a GUI. Archinstall, however, is a Python script so it's easier for them to push more and more functionality without having to worry about a GUI.

If you've ever created a BTRFS or ZFS volume with a GUI, with Calamares, versus with a powerful script or command line you'd get it. Because they offer ZFS with Calamares, this is the CachyOS ZFS setup, I'll use it as an example. That isn't very in-depth and it isn't user customizable at install time. You have to know about that file and edit it ahead of time, create your own custom install media, as well as you also have to cross-reference the Calamares ZFS sources if you edit it to ensure that what you're editing will be able to be processed by Calamares.

[Quackdoc]

There is so much truth to that statement.

My Dad is 63 and can't figure out left and right clicking. When anyone goes to show my Dad anything regarding technology he starts of with 5 minutes of bitching and whining followed by getting frustrated and complaining after one or two steps to the point that he can barely use a smartphone and has never used a computer. One of his friends is 75 and a few weeks ago I was teaching him how to edit forum posts. His wife is about the same age and I was teaching her Facebook account management (the irony is that I've never used Facebook outside of tech support for friends and family). My Mom is 65 and I show her how to do all sorts of crap on phones, TVs, and PCs. They're all people that are willing to learn and, as frustrated as they are when they can't figure out how to do something, they're still willing to stay calm, listen, and ask questions so they actually learn things. My Dad, unlike them, comes at learning anything technological with an angry, unpleasant disposition and an expectation to fail...so he does fail.

I'm pretty lucky with my pops in this regard, he ran a computer store since I was a wee kid, programming for c64 stuff and was working on PCs right up till win7, so all I really need to do is keep him up to date with the latest trends and he can do more or less everything himself, my mother on the other hand, well lets say they have been together for the better part of 40-50 years now, and well, he never succeeded lmao.

[foolishgrunt]

Why doesn't Arch just use Calamares, like Endeavour OS?

Because, as skeevy420 alluded to earlier, it's not the Arch Way. Calamares, like most graphical installers, aims to be easy to use, but not necessarily easy to understand what's going on behind the scenes. The Arch Way would be, for example, to have the user direct the process, not simply accept the few options presented by the installer.

I, unlike some in this thread, feel that archinstall is a fine compliment to the Arch Way - it still lays out what steps its taking and requires you to direct it. It just saves you a bunch of keystrokes along the way.

Will some nincompoops still click on through without understanding what they're doing? Of course. But seriously, what's the alternative? Keep it time-consuming and tedious? Isn't that a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face?

[hyperchaotic]

Well, at least you're honest...
Screenshot 2023-07-31 083142.jpg

Seriously though. I may be judged as having little room to speak, seeing as I'm just one of those freeloading Arch users who doesn't meaningfully contribute to the ecosystem. But the whole "let's keep the platform difficult to use so we can scare away the users we don't want" mindset has always been one that irks me.

Anyway, I love archinstall. Keep it coming!

Agreed, it’s good to have the choice. I’ve used Linux in various ways since the late nineties and know my way around really well. However I don’t have time and patience for an install, I’m over that, leave it to the elitists and the newbies. When I got my new gaming laptop I grabbed EndeavourOS, did a few customizations with btrfs-assistant+btrfsmaintenance, Wayland, installed a couple of things, mounted my old Steam SSD and I was playing BG3 in 20 min give or take.

If some likes fiddling or need to learn that’s fine but I value getting a full desktop installed with sane defaults while I’m brewing a coffee. And if Arch breaks later I just boot a snapshot. It doesn’t seem to break though but I’m prepared.