As a very long time Arch user I wouldn’t say “easy” like everyone else seems to. I absolutely would not suggest it for a first distro for someone, which is what I would classify as the “easy” level.
But if you’re comfortable with using Linux, the terminal, and being able to follow written documentation you’ll be able to do it just fine maybe with a little frustration the first time. If you’re installing to a laptop, make sure to look up your model on the wiki first.
Give it a try, fuck it up, and give it a try again. Try not to fuck it up in the same way as the first time. Repeat until it works - it will work eventually.
It took me about 6 hours and 3 disk re-formats my first time. I was particularly bad at it. I barely knew what a disk was, nevermind a partition.
It’s not to bad as others are saying. Real question is to why you don’t want to use the installer?
They are quite good. I just used one for a Gentoo install because I have better things to do with my time. Can I do it for the millionth time sure by hand sure but what’s the point? End result is more consistent than me as a human doing it by hand
I always manage to forget the locale or NetworkManager or set a password for root etc… Unless you have a hyper-specific partitioning scheme or system config these work great
Exactly. archinstall is pretty nice, and if you want the frustration of dealing with random errors, it’s still there. But it’s straightforward (but keep the docs handy since you’ll likely need them).
Easy or not depends vary wildly. But the usual task is
partition the drive
format the drive
mount the drive
install the base system
That is the bare minimum, but we need to do more configuration to be able to boot. Hence the next task is configuring the following
fstab
timezone, hostname, and networking
boot loader (I just use the EFI directly nowadays)
That is it. Everything else is usually work specific. Like, if you wanted arch to be a server, you usually didn’t install a GUI. For workstation and gaming, you need more steps but it will vary depending on hardware. The archwiki covers a good deal of hardware from laptop to desktop and their quirks.
In general, I would say it’s not hard, but it’s not easy.
When I did it, I had some moderate Linux experience but I was by no means an expert. I did a few practice runs on a VM and made myself a runbook before I completed the install on my real computer. This allowed me to get a real sense for what I was doing and what each step did, exactly. When I ran into differences on my actual computer, the time I spent researching and doing it on the VM helped me to overcome any confusion and complete the install successfully. The wiki has all the information you need.
So, from beginning to end, I spent a weekend on it, including the few dry runs I did on the VM and configuring my system after the actual install was complete. If you’re not already quite familiar with Linux, I think it’s wise to do it this way because you build in time to learn, as opposed to just getting a working system as quickly as possible.
Easy if you go step by step and don’t accidentally skip anything. Archinstall will get you to the same result with lower risk of failure, in a tenth of the amount of time spent. And unless you install operating systems for a living, it doesn’t matter how you get there. Source: Installed Arch on about a dozen different devices, twice without Archinstall.
If you’re looking to learn something, do Linux from Scratch instead. The process is way more granular, way more documented, and way more educational than parroting the steps of installing Arch from the wiki.
Practice in a VM and see for yourself! I did that, set everything up, and ultimately decided it was more system admin detail than I wanted to take on. But as far as ease goes, it’s not especially hard, there’s just not much in the way of hand-holding or preset configs, and you’ll likely find there’s a lot of preinstalled drivers and things you take for granted.
archinstall is easy. The hard part about arch is maintaining it and keeping up to date with linux innovation. As long as you keep reading forum posts and news about linux and browse the arch wiki, there’s nothing wrong with it. If you do not ever read about advances on linux, then don’t use arch.
It’ll depend a lot on your experience. I can just install Arch without reading the wiki at all in about 5 minutes for something fairly vanilla. If you’re comfortable with Linux then following the wiki won’t be too hard, took me maybe 2-3 hours on my first install before I had my DE and everything all set up (12 years ago). If you’ve never used Linux before and take the deep dive then it could take hours and days depending on how fast you can absorb all that information.
“Easy” is very subjective, there’s stuff that’s so dumbed down for the sake of “easy” that it makes my life harder when I need to do more complex stuff. I know people for whom linear algebra in 11 dimensions is easy for them to do and solve. Easy is relative to your own personal experience level and what you’re trying to accomplish.
Install it in a VM as a test run, you’ll see by yourself.
Just follow the wiki and you’ll be fine. I did it when I was in highschool. My friend showed me Ubuntu and I used it for about a month then jumped straight to arch
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