How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

ff2005 · 2025-11-20 21:32:17

Hey I am completely new to arch and I've only ever downloaded ubuntu but I basically had to do nothing so didn't learn anything. I am a student and took an operating systems class last sem so I have a basic understanding of how unix like systems work and have worked around writing drivers as projects for the class. I hear a lot of horror stories about how downloading arch is difficult, but how much is it really? I want to do it without arch install, because I want to experience that process, but am curious from people before I jump into it.

ewaller · 2025-11-20 21:45:03

It is easier without Arch Install. Seriously.

You should start with a plan, however. In particular, you might want to figure out how you want your drives partitioned, whether you want encrypted drives, or if you want LVM. I suggest no to both those options for your first attempt.

With a boot media in hand, one can actually install Arch on a blank hard drive in about 15 minutes; but don't fret if it takes a couple hours. Also, don't panic -- things may come off the rails the first time, but unless your formatting plan is poor there is almost never a need to have to start over from the beginning. If you run into problems (like things not booting), you can always boot from the install media and fix things. And ask here.

seth · 2025-11-20 21:49:43

"less", follow https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide

The "hard" part is making up your mind about what you want, but installing arch is either really easy or super-hard and that depends somewhat on how much attention you pay but mostly on how cooperative your HW is (ie. whether the kernel lacks drivers or drivers or main software currently has bugs etc) - not on whether you follow some instructions step-by-step or try to wrangle the install script.
The main advantage of not using any scripts is that the install guide will guide you (phrasing…) through the bits you'd eventually have to learn anyway.

how downloading arch is difficult

Depends on how fast your internet connection is

kgtuning · 2025-11-21 00:07:42

I think it's subjective. I find arch extremely easy to install. Take your time, READ the wiki and decide what you want to do. Good luck

Nikolai5 · 2025-11-21 13:17:49

You might hit some bumps in the road, but you just gotta do a bit of reading, figure it out and you're done.

One example I've seen crop up, is people following the instructions and using fdisk, but then not changing the type to GPT, because they practised using Virtualbox using MBR.
But once you've successfully done it once, you'll be able to smash out a manual install in minutes. It's only hard because you don't know, which is the same for literally everything you'll ever do in your life. You can genuinely install Arch manually in a few minutes, but expect it to take a lot longer the first time, just enjoy figuring it out.

Remember to "keep it simple".
Just do a root partition and a boot partition (and swap if you're not using zram), and ext4 file system.

The bootloader part is one of the hurdles that trip a number of people, just take your time with it.

But yeah, the first time I ran Arch I used the archinstall script, then decided I want to do it "properly", after doing that, I have zero interest in using that script again.

Computatrum · 2025-11-21 19:42:36

Above average computer literacy is all you need when you install Arch manually. Wiki is good for those who are interested in Arch or/and can comprehend, but newcomers astonish when they try to read it, I used to astonish too. I think installing it with a friend who knows the stuff and can explain what is going on with every command will teach a lot. No friends? There are a lot of howto guides to install Arch. Later on, you'd probably understand the Wiki's itself.

cryptearth · 2025-11-21 20:33:38

if you need to ask that question arch maybe not the distro for you
archinstall isn't the easy way for people new to arch - and it hides a lot of things a user is expected to know about how thier system was installed
also from timevto time has some issues or breaks for some stupid reason - or simply just doesn't work right
example: last few times i tried it was just not able to properly set language to german - so i always ended up with an english system although i have selected german - required me to fix some stuff - something i expect to not have to from such a tool

also: with careful reading the manual guide is something everyone can do - even people not familiar with linux at all (have tested this among my friends and even a 55 year old which speaks better rusdian than english manage to end up with a working system)

lvsl · Yesterday 15:06:15

The first thing I thought is LFS (Linux from scratch). I never tried it before but I think you will eventually get to the point where you want to play with that too.

But for now. If you have experience setting up your own internet connection at home, and is familiar with installing things on your own, it would not be a very hard pass.

There are two things I found hard in install Arch linux. First is having the computer boot after the installation. The second is whatever hardware (sorry should be drivers) I need for my computer to play sound and view pages

Very so often, I found myself booting in, and forgot to setup a user account, as well as my own root password

Last edited by lvsl (Yesterday 15:09:14)

ua4000 · Yesterday 16:25:32

I come from from Lubuntu, the one with the simple LX desktop.
I took this as "template" and 1st target : get a minimal arch with an LX desktop running, similar to Lubuntu.
Looking at the Ubuntu installation, the partitioning, the installed programs /packages helped a lot.

Mase · Yesterday 22:37:56

The wiki does an amazing job of walking you through it, sure you're going to have your moments of frustration but that's with just about anything right?
Just follow the wiki to a T, if you're confused, read the section over again or take your time to sit with it, I think installing vanilla arch is a really great experience for getting a fundamental understanding of terminal and familiarity within your system. (It's the first distro I installed).

system72 · Yesterday 23:33:32

the wiki holds your hand through the process basically, the only confusing part for a user who has never installed arch before would be the partitioning because the wiki exposes you to fdisk which i would say is a difficult to use partitioning tool for a new user. later down the road in your arch journey you become more literate at the terminology being used, and it becomes a cake walk

even harder than the install i would say would be going through "post" install troubleshooting problems and mistakes that you made during your install, for example say you originally went down the encryption rabbit hole did everything necessary but forgot to set some necessary kernel parameters like rd.luks.uuid and root (if not planning on using systemd gpt automounting) then after trying to boot into this new system it wouldnt work due to your root partition never being opened, or another example would be if using mkinitcpio and after modifying hooks in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf forgetting to regenerate your initramfs image(s) well the original initramfs image doesnt contain the necessary tools to open your root partition whoops.. or maybe debugging why audio doesn't work on a laptop (sof-firmware?), maybe you chose grub as your desired bootloader but forgot to generate the config file (common mistake), or systemd-boot and forgot to write the necessary configuration (no grub-mkconfig), what happens if you chose iwd as something that provides you with wifi and you dont have a dhcp client installed or you do have one installed (or chose to use the built in dhcp client) but you have no resolv.conf configuration or something like systemd-resolved isnt running then you wont be able to make a connection to sites

there are a lot of mistakes you could make during the install process that your future self will agonize over

and then after the install, you have to dive into a whole lot more, choosing a graphical environment and then configuring that environment (configuring more or so if you picked a window manager that doesnt come with anything ootb), then a shell, and basic programs for use on cli, learning about file permissions and what the fuck drwxr-xr-x means, maybe down the road you decide to spice up your installation a bit and ditch mkinitcpio for an alternative initramfs generator like dracut, or trying to boot your kernel directly from an nvram entry and ditching a third party bootloader altogether.

the journey is a long one, and a learning experience, if you want a wealth of knowledge and you want to learn how everything works at a low level then arch is a great distro for that.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-11-20 21:32:17

How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

#2 2025-11-20 21:45:03

Re: How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

#3 2025-11-20 21:49:43

Re: How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

#4 2025-11-21 00:07:42

Re: How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

#5 2025-11-21 13:17:49

Re: How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

#6 2025-11-21 19:42:36

Re: How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

#7 2025-11-21 20:33:38

Re: How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

#8 Yesterday 15:06:15

Re: How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

#9 Yesterday 16:25:32

Re: How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

#10 Yesterday 22:37:56

Re: How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

#11 Yesterday 23:33:32

Re: How difficult is it to install arch without arch install?

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