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#1 2012-10-31 07:00:25

jorotg
Member
Registered: 2012-10-31
Posts: 2

Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

When I boot the Arch installer from CD I get stuck as root in zsh. /arch/setup doesn't work either. I tried @ home also to install as a VM but I hadn't success too.

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#2 2012-10-31 07:55:09

Pajaro
Member
Registered: 2004-04-21
Posts: 884

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

search the wiki for arch linux installation. there is n.o installer anymore. personally, i prefer it this way.

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#3 2012-10-31 08:34:42

DSpider
Member
From: Romania
Registered: 2009-08-23
Posts: 2,273

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM


"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

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#4 2012-10-31 09:12:27

brain0
Developer
From: Aachen - Germany
Registered: 2005-01-03
Posts: 1,382

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

jorotg wrote:

When I boot the Arch installer from CD I get stuck as root in zsh.

That is correct behaviour.

jorotg wrote:

/arch/setup doesn't work either.

Also correct.

May I suggest you actually read the documentation?

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#5 2012-10-31 11:20:04

jorotg
Member
Registered: 2012-10-31
Posts: 2

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

OK, OK Docs are one thing, but how come there's no installer at all? I've installed dozens of different UNIX-like OSs and I've never encountered such situation. Damn... We live in 21 centure after all.

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#6 2012-10-31 11:25:06

DSpider
Member
From: Romania
Registered: 2009-08-23
Posts: 2,273

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

https://www.archlinux.org/news/install- … -released/

Most notable change is that AIF (the Arch Installation Framework) is no longer included but instead some simple install scripts are provided to aid in the installation process. This means a menu driven installer is no longer available and we rely more on documentation to guide new users.

...

AIF had to be dropped due to lack of maintenance and contributions. Of course we would appreciate it if people would start hacking on it to bring it up to par.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/FA … _installer


"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

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#7 2012-10-31 14:18:58

jdarnold
Member
From: Medford MA USA
Registered: 2009-12-15
Posts: 485
Website

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

I think the web site needs to be much clearer on this. The Download page has a nearly hidden link to the "Installation Guide", which is a ridiculously abbreviated doc to getting Arch installed. I've installed Arch 3 or 4 times, and have been using it for a couple years, and it is no help to me.

There also isn't a link to the Beginner's Guide anywhere, either on the Download page or the "Installation Guide" page, which I personally think is a critical mistake.

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#8 2012-10-31 14:22:00

brain0
Developer
From: Aachen - Germany
Registered: 2005-01-03
Posts: 1,382

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

jorotg wrote:

OK, OK Docs are one thing, but how come there's no installer at all?

Because nobody bothers to actively work on a semi-automatic installer. The effort is not worth it.

Seriously, if you had read the docs, you would have known this before you even downloaded the Arch ISO.

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#9 2012-11-01 02:16:56

mhertz
Member
From: Denmark
Registered: 2010-06-19
Posts: 681

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

jdarnold wrote:

I think the web site needs to be much clearer on this. The Download page has a nearly hidden link to the "Installation Guide", which is a ridiculously abbreviated doc to getting Arch installed. I've installed Arch 3 or 4 times, and have been using it for a couple years, and it is no help to me.
[...]

As you're not offering to fix the previous installer, then please STFU and educate yourself about the new install-method, or go use some other OS!

If people cannot bother to read the news sections and are also not even prepared to glance through the install-guide to see if anything has changed since there last install, then this is clearly not the right OS to choose!

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#10 2012-11-01 08:02:01

*david_a*
Member
Registered: 2009-06-19
Posts: 80

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

mhertz wrote:
jdarnold wrote:

I think the web site needs to be much clearer on this. The Download page has a nearly hidden link to the "Installation Guide", which is a ridiculously abbreviated doc to getting Arch installed. I've installed Arch 3 or 4 times, and have been using it for a couple years, and it is no help to me.
[...]

As you're not offering to fix the previous installer, then please STFU and educate yourself about the new install-method, or go use some other OS!

If people cannot bother to read the news sections and are also not even prepared to glance through the install-guide to see if anything has changed since there last install, then this is clearly not the right OS to choose!

Really? I don't think he's criticizing the installer (or lack thereof) at all. More like pointing out a "bug" in the web site and/or documentation.

I have installed Arch quite a number of times, and never once have I used the Installation Guide (and I did try to use it - it just didn't work). The first x installs, I used the Beginners' Guide. After that, I didn't need a guide anymore, except for particular details/quirks of the machine I was installing on; such details, as expected, have to be found outside the guide. In fact, I would be surprised and interested to hear of people who make good use of the current Installation Guide. (I don't think it's good for new users, and I don't think experienced users need it.) Perhaps the Beginners' Guide should be promoted and re-titled as Installation Guide, and the current Installation Guide eliminated (after merging any unique content it may have into the Beginners). An experienced user can get a good-enough simplified overview of installing just from reading the TOC of the Beginners' Guide - a separate document is probably unnecessary.

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#11 2012-11-01 12:00:10

Xaero252
Member
Registered: 2011-11-28
Posts: 107

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

Since apparently brain0's posts aren't getting the point across, let me as a user explain what has happened:

The Arch Installation Framework (the ncurses based installer that you used to use) is old. Really old. And nobody actively maintains or even attempts to maintain it. This is something that the developers of Archlinux didn't really work on, and it wasn't one of their target goals to begin with. They had someone who did work on it, and eventually they kinda stopped working on it. And now we are left with a mostly working, out of date installer, which is starting to not work anymore, and it became more of a hassle to maintain and make work with the distro as time went on. The simplest solution was to replace the AIF with something easier to maintain. The included pacstrap, and arch-chroot make up the replacement to AIF. Sure, its not graphical, and its not self-explanitory (although it is easy to use) but it gets the job done, and it works with new stuff without having to re-write large portions of code.
In other words; Arch has been around for a while, and the AIF has too. The current setup process, while not exactly straight forward, is actually probably MUCH faster than what you are used to seeing in Linux installers.

All of this said; I'm certain, if someone were to write a suitable install environment, that upheld a particular standard of code, and they were to be reliable in maintaining it; the arch developers wouldn't be completely opposed to the idea of having some form of installer again. However, to anyone who reads this post and goes on some epic quest to write a new installer, I suggest this to you: The developers wrote some BEUATIFUL installation utilities. These installation utilities are part of the KISS philosophy of Arch, and as such I would imagine the best way to ensure success would be to write a mere front-end to said utilities. This provides a great opportunity for both tha maintainer of such an installation method, and the Arch developers: They can continue to just focus on maintaining their tools and their distribution - all you have to do is keep up with changes to their tools. Pretty simple.

Hell, I might even be able to muster a script with ncurses to ask the user some simple questions and pass proper arguments to the new installation tools. All I need to do, is find the time to do it. Automated installs currently are as simple as adding "automated.sh" with the proper setup steps to the disc and running it.

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#12 2012-11-01 19:13:28

*david_a*
Member
Registered: 2009-06-19
Posts: 80

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

Xaero252 wrote:

Since apparently brain0's posts aren't getting the point across, let me as a user explain what has happened:

The Arch Installation Framework (the ncurses based installer that you used to use) is old. Really old. And nobody actively maintains or even attempts to maintain it.

I was already fully aware of that, and of everything else you posted. I see that It may have been something of a thread hijack, but if you hadn't noticed, the last several posts had turned away from talking about the installer itself, and toward the fact that the currently-available instructions are perhaps not shown prominently enough, and some of them don't work. The current official Installation Guide exposes its readers to so many "gotchas" that it might as well not exist. It does enumerate the bare outline of how an Arch installation is carried out - but the bare outline is, I submit, not relevant reading for anyone - either they need far more information to complete an install, or else with more experience they don't need the outline either because they already know how it goes.

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#13 2012-11-02 04:10:36

Xaero252
Member
Registered: 2011-11-28
Posts: 107

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

*david_a* wrote:
Xaero252 wrote:

Since apparently brain0's posts aren't getting the point across, let me as a user explain what has happened:

The Arch Installation Framework (the ncurses based installer that you used to use) is old. Really old. And nobody actively maintains or even attempts to maintain it.

I was already fully aware of that, and of everything else you posted. I see that It may have been something of a thread hijack, but if you hadn't noticed, the last several posts had turned away from talking about the installer itself, and toward the fact that the currently-available instructions are perhaps not shown prominently enough, and some of them don't work. The current official Installation Guide exposes its readers to so many "gotchas" that it might as well not exist. It does enumerate the bare outline of how an Arch installation is carried out - but the bare outline is, I submit, not relevant reading for anyone - either they need far more information to complete an install, or else with more experience they don't need the outline either because they already know how it goes.

I have a hard time understanding that viewpoint. The reason there are so many gotchas is because of how technology has evolved. There isn't a foolproof way to detect Solid State disks or EFI booting. Therefore these sort of questions are neccesary to ask the users. The fact that other distributions (Every single one that I know of that uses a graphical installer) don't ask these sorts of questions of their users, is appauling. One of Linux's single greatest strengths is its ability to dynamically adapt to new hardware and different situations, and they are just brushing that under the rug because it "might be confusing" or "is too much effort" Where Arch has embraced such changes by giving users options when they install the OS. Even if you were to have an installer, it would still have the same number of gotchas (just presented during the installation, instead of its companion installation guide) That said, the current installation guide does exist in two forms: The Beginner's Guide and the official install guide. The latter has much less in-depth analysis of the different decisions you will be presented as you install the OS, as you likely know what those decisions entail, and just need to know how to accomplish the task. The former however, goes into excruciating detail in explaining nearly every facet of the new installation process so that new users won't make the wrong decisions for their hardware setup. I'll agree that it isn't exactly pretty, and it probably could use some fine-polishing, but considering how young the new Arch is, I'd say its damn fine documentation. I mean, look at X11's documentation, and then back to this, and tell me which is easier to follow, understand and utilize.

As an annex to my statement above, I would also like to share that I now recommend Arch as many beginner's (depending on their current level of knowledge on Windows or Mac) first step into the Linux world, simply because it starts with two of the most CRUCIAL tools the Linux user has: Documentation, and the Terminal. It forces them to get comfortable reading documentation and typing commands in based on the documentation alone. Granted, I'm usually there to hold their hand through some of the first installation, but past that they usually only ever have good things to say about Arch, barring the occasional question about how to do this or that. At which point I either A) Point them to a wiki page, or B) puzzle it out with them.

Last edited by Xaero252 (2012-11-02 04:14:22)

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#14 2012-11-02 05:39:18

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

I just recently got a new SSD, and decided to just reinstall, as it only takes a few minutes.  I wanted to change partition layouts and sizes and whatnot, and I definitely just used the installation guide.  I think that it is really meant for users who are familiar enough with [Arch] Linux to know their way, yet need to make sure they are hitting all the steps.  In retrospect, I guess I could have done it without, but it was nice to have the confirmation there.  And for everyone else, the install media includes netcfg as well as links (not to mention a functional pacman) to access the beginners guide if necessary.

Just my two cents...

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#15 2012-11-02 06:07:53

*david_a*
Member
Registered: 2009-06-19
Posts: 80

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

Xaero252 wrote:
*david_a* wrote:
Xaero252 wrote:

Since apparently brain0's posts aren't getting the point across, let me as a user explain what has happened:

The Arch Installation Framework (the ncurses based installer that you used to use) is old. Really old. And nobody actively maintains or even attempts to maintain it.

I was already fully aware of that, and of everything else you posted. I see that It may have been something of a thread hijack, but if you hadn't noticed, the last several posts had turned away from talking about the installer itself, and toward the fact that the currently-available instructions are perhaps not shown prominently enough, and some of them don't work. The current official Installation Guide exposes its readers to so many "gotchas" that it might as well not exist. It does enumerate the bare outline of how an Arch installation is carried out - but the bare outline is, I submit, not relevant reading for anyone - either they need far more information to complete an install, or else with more experience they don't need the outline either because they already know how it goes.

I have a hard time understanding that viewpoint. The reason there are so many gotchas is because of how technology has evolved. There isn't a foolproof way to detect Solid State disks or EFI booting. Therefore these sort of questions are neccesary to ask the users. The fact that other distributions (Every single one that I know of that uses a graphical installer) don't ask these sorts of questions of their users, is appauling.

Excuse me, but again you seem to believe that I am talking about an installer which doesn't exist anymore. I'm not, not at all. I'll talk about it now, just so I can be understood: The installer was nice when it worked. It's gone now. That's OK, it doesn't matter.

What DOES matter, to me, is that I don't believe anybody can effectively use the current Arch Installation Guide Guide Guide Guide [No, NOT The Installer, The GUIDE], for anything. I think the Beginners' Guide is the only reasonably useful installation document that Arch has, and that it should be renamed to reflect that, and that it should physically take the place of the non-functional other document wherever that other one currently appears. Just to be perfectly clear, again, I don't care that there's no installer program anymore. I just care that the main set of instructions, the one presented as the Arch Installation Guide and put onto the installation CD, is something that people can follow, and should be able to reasonably expect to get a working system from following it.

To put it another way, relating to what you said: The Arch Installation Guide, as it currently exists, does not alert users to the existence of many many questions they might need to ask or answer. I think that situation (and that documentation) is not helping anybody.

Sorry that this has come off as a rant - but I've been blithely misunderstood twice already when I thought I had made my somewhat-minor point perfectly clearly the first time.

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#16 2012-11-02 13:42:41

DSpider
Member
From: Romania
Registered: 2009-08-23
Posts: 2,273

Re: Can't install Arch Linux 2012.10.06 on physical machine and on VM

This will probably end up as TGN (topic going nowhere).


"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

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