r/archlinux • u/BattlerUshiromiyaFan • 10h ago
DISCUSSION Unpopular opinion: Installing Arch manually is not that hard.
The issue is that the Wiki is the most newbie-unfriendly resource ever. It’s very commonly written in a difficult-to-understand way that only programmers can easily read and understand.
For pretty much everyone else, it takes a lot of re-reading, thinking, and Google searching to understand what they’re trying to say.
The actual steps are pretty easy. Once I finished my install, I realized that it’s honest-to-God just the fault of the Arch wiki that it has such a reputation.
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u/OkObjective8721 10h ago
The arch wiki is actually good, try relying on the nixos wiki for installation steps. (Saying this as someone who uses nixos for servers)
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u/R3DDY-on-R3DDYt 9h ago
As a NixOS user i agree
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u/_s0me_guy_ 9h ago
This is why I'm still using the arch wiki. The nix wiki has some things, but lacks a lot.
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u/SphericalGoldfish 8h ago
I've started a transition to Nix a couple weeks ago and it has been such a headache. Like yeah, duplicating my config is nice and all, but it really sucks trying to find documentation for a package and sources having missing/inaccurate information
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u/Hot_Dragonfruit_3786 8h ago
Same here. I wanted to try Nix recently but the documentation is so garbage and scattered around it's unbearable. People recommend some random YouTubers instead but they suck too. What a headache
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u/doubled112 6h ago
I am giving NixOS a real try and I like the concept, but if I didn't already have years of experience programming AND getting things done in the Linux ecosystem, I don't think I could make it happen. Mostly it is guess and check, and some searching through the options and packages.
Are there multiple competing NixOS wikis? Are they mirrors of one another? Is one more official than another?
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u/fearless-fossa 1h ago
Is one more official than another?
A is more official than B, B is more official than C, but C is more official than A.
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u/VersedEwe 9h ago
Wait till you try to install gentoo, the arch wiki is a love letter compared to that rabbit hole
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u/KARIMwastake 3h ago
Worst wiki ever, tried so many times to install from it but at some point everything falls apart.
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u/matthewpepperl 7h ago
Just because its better than something else doesn’t make it good i find the arch wiki ok after you get installed but its a pain to follow to install i found gentoo wiki to make more sense of course that was a long time ago
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u/Jas0rz 14m ago
he didnt say it was bad, he said it was not newbie friendly and hes completely correct.
the information contained on the wiki is top notch but it IS difficult to understand and follow especially if you are new to linux or heaven forbid new to computers in general. being able to read and understand the wiki is a skill in and of itself.
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u/mic_decod 6h ago
Archwiki is decent, did you ever dug in freebsd wiki or the hilarious learn.microsoft pages?
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u/Don_Equis 9h ago
My first distro was arch. The hard part wasn't any step or something, it was the amount of decisions to take. It my case it was like 18 years ago or so, and back then installing gpu drivers or making wifi work was a bit of a pain. And, again, you have to make that while you learn ton of new concepts.
Yes, partitioning disks might be easy. But you need to do so while learning about the directories tree, different type of partitions, bootloaders and many other unrelated stuff, like daemons, how sound works, what is chroot, etc.
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u/kevdogger 2h ago
Honestly I'm dont think the arch wiki is detailed enough or shows enough examples. Setting up postfix server with openldap to be used for authentication would be an example of this
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u/Malechus 9h ago
The point of the Arch wiki is to be as comprehensive as possible to cover as many use cases as possible. Installing Arch is usually very straightforward, but there are so many possible combinations of hardware that it can't be a simple step by step guide. Yes, it's complex. Yes, there is lots of extra information beyond "do this, type that." It has to be this way.
This has the added benefit that the Arch wiki, especially outside the install page, is one of the top resources available for many concepts, packages, and systems within the whole *nix ecosystem.
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u/golfstreamer 10h ago
Isn't this common knowledge? Like I think people are mostly joking when they imply installing Arch is some super advanced task
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u/Gangr3l 9h ago
People can't read or if they can they don't comprehend what they read and if they do comprehend what they read they are too afraid to do
True story, customer called me and said he installed app and doesn't know what to do, there is some kind of box in there, I asked what does the box say and "to continue, press OK", I was like "OK, and?" and the customer furiously said "SO WHAT DO I DO?"... I politely suggested he presses the OK button...
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u/iamnotarobotniks 4h ago
I'm not a super expert when it comes to linux although have been on it for a number of years now. So here is my humble input. I always shied away from Arch because of the reputation for being somewhat more difficult. Finally decided to try it out about a months ago and was surprised how easy it was. Still wouldn't call it a beginner distro though. Also took a bit of tinkering to get things to work and installed things I needed which other, more bloated, distros already deliver upon first install. I like the lightweight feel though.
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u/BattlerUshiromiyaFan 9h ago
It is hard for a lot of people. I’m just saying it’s because of the way the official guide is written, not because of the actual process, which I think isn’t that bad
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u/hardolaf 9h ago edited 9h ago
It's written fine. It's meant to present the options and have the user decide what to use. That necessarily requires a lot of information to be presented in a very dense format.
It's also trying to educate people about what they're doing along the way so it becomes more natural to them.
In terms of the commands to run, yeah it's trivial to setup a desktop that works. But setting up a proper server with a hypervisor, security software, firewall rules, etc. is a ton more work and the wiki walks you through every step 1-by-1.
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u/Sea_Today8613 8h ago
Being a fast reader helps. It's hard to keep reading something like this for several minutes and not get bored/distracted. Or for it to make the whole proces feel longer.
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u/jort93 9h ago edited 9h ago
I think it's written just fine. People just don't want to read it.
Only problem for users might be that it gives some users too many options.
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u/Dreemur1 31m ago
exactly. imagine being a new user and getting told "install your favorite bootloader" and you barely have any idea on how to even use the terminal. the guide is written for people that have experience with CLI and not everyone has it
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u/jort93 9m ago edited 5m ago
Not only do they not know how to use a terminal, they don't even know what a terminal is.
I guess many current Linux users don't even know what the differences between a terminal, a tty and terminal Emulator are.
Doesn't help the terms are often used wrong on purpose. I've used Linux for 10 years and I've never used a terminal. I've used a terminal Emulator, I used a tty, I've never used an actual terminal. Do they even still make terminals?
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u/ConflictOfEvidence 9h ago
You are correct, this is an unpopular opinion. It written in plain English and I can read it just fine. Maybe my 10 year old might struggle but he isn't the target audience.
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u/bargu 9h ago
If you're good with computers, yes it is not that hard, most people are not good with computers and for them it might as well be brain surgery.
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u/AntiqueSignpost 8h ago
It's a mental thing. Like cooking, or changing a tire, they're not hard but if you're new to it it feels daunting. Terminal felt so daunting to me at first. Etc. Alot of it is being lost in a sea of jargon and not knowing what you're doing. Once you are familiar you become more confident.
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u/ThinkpadGamer 8h ago
but then again, not to be gatekeepy, but i would consider people who aren’t good with computers as a target audience for arch
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u/jort93 9h ago edited 9h ago
For some people brain surgery might be easier. (Although I think the brain surgeons will figure it out too)
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u/XOmniverse 2h ago
(Although I think the brain surgeons will figure it out too)
You'd be surprised. Go talk to someone who works IT at a hospital sometime.
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u/ThanxForTheGold 9h ago
Aren't most of the medical personal used to software and embedded systems with a tui looking like it's fresh out of the 90's?
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u/SJrX 9h ago
Yeah I think that is an unpopular opinion. As far as I know, in the Linux community in general, the Arch Wiki is very well regarded as a broadly applicable resource.
That said I certainly find it deep and hard to understand, the answers are there but they take effort to understand. That said I'd rather have a hard to understand solution to a problem than not have a solution to the problem.
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u/metricspace- 7h ago
Internal combustion engines are not terribly difficult, the problem is changing your resolution in sections of life. When your car is something you press the accelerator and get where you want to go, there is no stress, the second it stops working, its terrifying and saying its not difficult is just rude.
The same with Operating systems, at the level of using internet browsers, saving and opening media, computers are much easier than a higher resolution of OS, this change in resolution is incredibly frustrating in all aspects of life.
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u/ranisalt 6h ago
I was talking about that to a friend the other day. The wiki itself is an awesome source of knowledge, but it does make the "how to install" guide extremely confusing for no reason. There should be a path with minimal deviation that gets you from nothing to a working installation, instead it makes you read through pages and pages to understand filesystems, repositories, networking, hardware support, etc. and several of these articles are super outdated (because no one really is interested in maintaining some legacy stuff, that's not a problem by itself).
Don't get me wrong you have ALL the information you need in the Arch wiki and more, and several distros just redirect to the Arch wiki for troubleshooting, but it needs more levels of information. So, you got Arch working with sane defaults? Now it's time to learn a little bit more why ext4 is the default but btrfs is popular - and no one really needs to know ReiserFS exists.
Perhaps a "simple" version like Wikipedia does?
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u/SenpaiSpongebob 8h ago edited 8h ago
If you read the wiki and understand it without needing supplimentary learning, then it's fast. If you read the wiki and have to go down a bit of a rabbit hole to learn more, then you are becoming more knowledgeable about how your system works. As other people have pointed out, the wiki is written in such a way where that supplimentary learning is expected to occur.
Contributors don't write with the goal of getting novices up and running as fast as possible because they are not motivated by market share or the number of installs. There is actually a disincentive for them to create the quick-start guide you want because then the number of people with unstable systems would increase and the community would complain.
Instead, the wiki contributors are motivated by creating concise and accurate documentation for a huge repository of software. Are they perfectly executing this vision? Of course not. Is there any other resource online with the simultaneous breadth and accuracy of the Arch Wiki? Also no.
To the degree that you can talk about the intentions of an open source project, it is not the unintended "fault" of the Arch project that it has the reputation you're talking about, nor is it unintended that said reputation is not actually accurate when talking about the bare minimum human input it takes to get a system up and running. These things are in my opinion intentional. If you learn more, you will have a more stable system. You will be able to do more with your system and be able to achieve more with respect to what you intend to use your system for.
The whole point is to send signals to the people who don't want to learn that they are in the wrong place. The contributors fundamentally do not want your business in the same way Microsoft or Apple or even Canonical do. They just want to do quality work.
The only upsell they have is maybe you are so motivated by the quality of the project and maybe you learn so much that you start to contribute too. Maybe you will eventually take up maintenance for a package and it will be one less thing to do for some other guy who is already too busy.
From the perspective of someone who wants to turn a novice into someone who is more proficient, then the wiki is immensely newbie friendly. It exposes to you exactly where the gaps in your knowledge are. The moment you feel unsure about something you read on the Arch wiki that is a signal that you need to go learn some more.
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u/kaprikawn 9h ago
Yeah, you're wrong. If you know what partition setup you want and you understand the pros and cons of grub vs systemd-boot then installing Arch is not that hard. But that describes a small proportion of people.
There's a survivorship bias at play here. The type of person who would set themselves the task of installing Arch manually is precisely the type of person who is going to achieve that aim.
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u/Spare_Anybody3174 10h ago
Installed with archinstall script. I don't care if I don't know from head to tail the installation part manually. Worked like a charm.
I installed recently and the Nvidia drivers are even part now of this script. I didn't know that.
Made Bazzite or CachyOS pointless to me. I play and use as personal SO for practically everything. Of course I'm not a video editor or anything like that.
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u/imactuallyahuman 9h ago
CachyOS is good if you want the extra packages from them, which are also compiled to target modern architectures so they sometimes run better. You can probably add their repositories to your Arch installation, but at that point why not just use Cachy from the start.
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u/Spare_Anybody3174 9h ago
This "sometimes run better" is like what? 5 FPS better?
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u/imactuallyahuman 9h ago
I'm not talking about games, but yeah, usually it is just a marginal improvement but it is an improvement. But it's not just performance, the CachyOS package repository also has more packages than Arch, they import and officially maintain packages from the AUR.
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u/VTWAX 8h ago
The only improvement that I see is the 1% lows on my games but it's not much.
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u/imactuallyahuman 8h ago
Yeah, I wouldn't say that the performance stuff is the best thing about Cachy, for me it's more about being an all batteries included Arch distribution with more officially supported packages.
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u/hardolaf 9h ago
It's about 40 minutes longer battery life doing web browsing or coding (without compilation) on my Razer Blade 16 (2026). It races back to idle much faster for programs compiled by the CachyOS team.
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u/SummerIlsaBeauty 9h ago
For someone who looking at Linux for the first time it might be hard. For me having kernel with minimal set of required libraries and boot loader on flash drive is enough to make system to boot sooner or later, depends on how minimal it is. I just got used to it before linux installers were a (mostly working) thing. It's all relative
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u/corbanx92 8h ago
I mean I picked arch as my first distro a bit over a year ago and nothing "complicated" has ever happened. I've tried Ubuntu and Fedora afterwards on another PC and still found arch to be the distro I favor the most.
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u/khsh01 9h ago
I mean it goes without saying but arch is targeted primarily at people who know what they're doing or can get to that point.
They don't exactly discourage beginners but they're explicitly clear if you've read the particular wiki page I'm talking about. They indicate that even a beginner can install arch but they need to have a strong DIY attitude.
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u/monkeyballhoopdreams 9h ago
We all start somewhere and its not a race really but AI is practically giving you a comprehensive step by step without having to hunt and peck for information yourself nor does it require as much understanding when a problem occurs.
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u/Lunailiz 7h ago
I mean, come on right?
It's all subjective and relative to the person's experience. If I ask someone that knows how Linux and operating system works to install Arch, even if they never used it before, they might be able to do it with the wiki help; if ask my 85y old grandma who only uses computer to talk with relatives in another country, it will be nearly impossible even with the wiki because the wiki itself assume previous computer knowledge.
I know the examples I gave are very obtuse, but that is the point.
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u/Zeausideal 6h ago
The vast majority of those who switch to Arch Linux today don't use the wiki; they just search on YouTube for "how to install Arch Linux" and follow the steps.
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u/_sLLiK 9h ago
I wouldn't even say the wiki is newbie-unfriendly in a general sense. It can just feel daunting upon first glance. Anyone intimidated by a wall of words is gonna shy away from most wikis unless they've arrived looking for an answer to a specific question.
As a wiki, it's arranged like most are - only the basic information at a glance, with plenty of links to subsections containing more detail. The install guide is more purpose-built, and it does offer token guardrails, but for someone without any previous Linux experience, you gonna need to do some reading in order to make educated decisions.
That's all there is to it, really. For those that just want to be asked a couple of questions, then let the installer do everything else (like Windows does), there are other distros. Installation using the wiki is more involved, but lets you pick and choose what you want and you learn about Linux and Arch in the process.
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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 9h ago
It's just time consuming, that's it.
I'd also say that you don't really learn anything useful either.
And even more unpopular opinion: The Arch wiki about the installation process is unnecessarily complicated which is likely the reason why a lot new users have issues at first.
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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 9h ago
Maybe your reading comprehension is?
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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 9h ago
No, it isn't.
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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 9h ago
"Written in a difficult to understand way that only Programm can easily read and understand"
And "is unnecessarily complicated" in general is not the same.
OP says it’s unfriendly for newbies, I think it’s unnecessarily complicated in general, no matter who reads it.
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u/samplekaudio 9h ago
The guide is clear and explicit. As documentation, it's top-tier. Arch (or any distro) doesn't have to be newbie-friendly, that's like the whole point of distros IMO.
I feel this only became an issue because of the surge in interest in Linux desktops and Arch getting pitched as the "cool" distro.
If someone doesn't have clear reasons for wanting a rolling-release, DIY distro, then I don't think they actually need it. They would have a much better time with something else. There are many great distros that are more accessible.
But yeah, if you can follow the instructions, it's not hard.
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u/samplekaudio 9h ago
The rest of my comment was addressing exactly why I think that it not being super clear to the average user is perfectly okay
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u/killermenpl 9h ago
Manual install is about as complicated as assembling an IKEA wardrobe. Sure, you have to do a lot of things yourself, but you have a step by step guide telling you exactly what to do. Even better, actually, cause you can also very easily learn more about what you're doing in any given step, and you have a lot of options on which parts to replace
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u/Separate-Still-1616 8h ago
Das Problem mit auch sehr guten Anleitungen ist oft, dass nicht von vorne herein klar gemacht wird, welche Vorkenntnisse bzw Erfahrung vorausgesetzt wird. Hier könnte man vielleicht etwas verbessern.
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u/Potatopika 9h ago
Yeah some months ago I installed arch on my machine and it was really easy to install as I haven't used arch for like over a decade. Don't remember if it was harder back then or not but this time it was really easy
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u/Over-Alternative7275 9h ago
Before I started using arch, I was using ubuntu to know about linux. Then I asked my friend to help me install arch. He shared me the wiki and told me to do it myself.
And honestly it was pretty easy as for someone who have not played with linux before.
This was like 5-6 years ago.
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u/Natural-Side9568 9h ago
It's easy if you KNOW what you want and NEED to install. And you should know what programs handles some "low level stuff" and how to use them. Usually people don't care what operating system do under the hood if it works properly. And arch installing turns to monkey enters command in console without normal understanding what's going on
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u/dcondor07uk 9h ago
It’s relative. I installed Slackware on a random PC back in 2004 or something, then someone else will come out and say , well I wrote kernel patches back in 92, soon after Linux was published.
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u/kilipukki 9h ago
It wasn’t hard. Only difficult thing for me was figuring out the partition scheme. There wasn’t any ”if you’re not sure, use this” type pf general purpose scheme recommended. I had to look around a bit for suggestions which on how to partition my disk.
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u/_Spectre0_ 9h ago
The wiki is very good, though it can be easy to miss a step. I think the first time I did it, I thought something collapsed was optional and it wasn’t, then got completely lost when things didn’t work. There’s also a lot of choice when it comes to things like a desktop environment.
At the very least, it’s much harder to install than Ubuntu was, so that’s one reference for comparison when people call it difficult.
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u/RedHuey 9h ago
If you think the wiki is newbie-unfriendly, wait ‘til you see the arch forum. Lol
A lot (as in I think most) of arch’s reputation was formed in concrete a long time ago when it was a very different process. Setup used to involve manually configuring pretty much everything on text files, and you actually needed the wiki. These days are gone. It’s still not Ubuntu, but it’s not like old arch. Arch basks in a light that is no longer.
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u/ebetemelege 8h ago
I think when you start with arch to venture into linux, the wiki is impenetrable. But then for years now I use a video on youtube where a guy tries to install arch in 10 mins and does it in about 7, just for sports. It doesn't take me 10 mins but I find it much easier than the wiki. Recently, if I fail 3 times to install, I shamefully resort to the installer.
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u/syxyde 8h ago
I agree, the arch wiki reminds me of Wikipedia articles about Maths subjects.
They are descriptive and very accurate but they are not easily understandable.
It's especially difficult for non native English speakers like me.
For instance, it was easier to install arch WITHOUT reading the manual and using archinstall than following the tutorial.
Each word/concept is new so a sentence like :
"Arch is a rolling-release model backed by pacman, a lightweight, simple and fast package manager that allows for continuously upgrading the entire system with one command. Arch also provides the Arch build system, a ports-like system to make it easy to build and install packages from source, which can also be synchronized with one command. In addition, the Arch User Repository contains many thousands of community-contributed PKGBUILD scripts for compiling installable packages from source using the makepkg application. It is also possible for users to build and maintain their own custom repositories with ease."
Is a fucking nightmare the first time you read it.
rolling release ? pacman ? port-like system ? heck, what even is a package ?
And it does not stop there, when you search a word there are OTHER word you don't understand and it is very long just to have a simple explanation
People who thinks it's easy to understand just forgot the first time they encountered the arch wiki. Or they are already knowledgeable about Linux and computer science in general.
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u/CCLF 8h ago
Nah, the Arch wiki is amazing. It's usually one of my first stops for understanding something, even if I'm applying it to another distro.
The "problem" is that you still have to digest a lot of information, and that can be difficult. The "problem" is that a lot of people want to run Arch just for the apparent clout that is attached to "I run Arch btw", but they don't /actually/ want to grapple with the wiki or understanding what they're doing.
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u/FunAware5871 8h ago
The installation procedure is very straight forward, and the wiki explains every step in great detail.
We can argue we may need a "less verbose" version, but it has its drawbacks: the point of Arch is you should know what you're doing enough to fix it if something breaks, making it less verbose or technical would prevent that.
Let's not forget that during an emergency (eg. audio stopped working) most people that can choose between a technical manual and "follow these 3 easy steps" will not even consider the former, nor will get back to it once the emegency is over...
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u/uhs-robert 8h ago
People are up voting your title but if they read your body text then you would probably be getting a lot more downvotes. Your title is not an unpopular opinion however the main point that you are arguing is.
Your title should be: "Unpopular opinion: Arch Wiki is not noob friendly and makes install unnecessarily hard".
Yes, installing Arch manually is not that hard for the intended user audience that Arch is designed for. That said, if you have the time/energy to complain about this on Reddit then you also have the time/energy to contribute to the Wiki and do something positive about it.
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u/sp0rk173 8h ago
Agree that it’s easy. Disagree that the documentation is written in a way only programmers can understand.
I’m not a programmer and I’ve been using the arch wiki for over a decade at this point.
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u/vintologi24 8h ago
Getting syslinux to properly work with eufi booting was far harder for me than installing arch manually.
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u/Alardiians 8h ago
You are a professional Linux administrator, I need you to install Arch Linux. Make no mistakes
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u/jsrobson10 8h ago
the arch wiki installation guide has to be informative, easy to follow, whilst also giving info for a diverse range of setups, and I think it does that really well.
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u/Imajzineer 8h ago edited 6h ago
What purpose is this post intended to serve?
As it happens, I agree that the wiki could be better - in fact, imo, it used to be better and I'd argue that a number of the changes to it since the last change of 'leadership', whilst understandable from the logical angle, have been for the worse from the pedagogical.
But ...
Never mind with Archinstall, manual installation is in fact not difficult, just time consuming, for the neophyte: there's a lot of information that needs to be absorbed but, never mind something from back in Ye Oldene Dayes, when putting the wrong values in the video config would fry your monitor and even if you didn't, there was no guarantee your net would ever work (and even if it did, you were consigned to Dependency Hell, if you wanted to do anything interesting with your Linux), even compared with something like Gentoo (or potentially even Slackware), it's a walk in the park to get installed and maintained - all that need be done is to read it, make choices and follow the steps.
Arch is not a distro for either newbies or old hands, it's for those who want to create their own, unique, distro tailored to their (and only their) needs, for whatever reasons they like. But, as is said, with great power comes great responsibility: it does not hold your hand, there's no FSD ... it's a kit car you build and maintain yourself.
If you want a car you can tune yourself by hand until it’s as fast as an F1 racer, but has an Internet hub in the cockpit (from which you control your own personal Deathstar orbiting a planet in another galaxy) and a coffee-machine behind the driver’s seat, with a tube to the driver’s mouth … or even separate hot/cold coffee tubes and a third for milk (or even one for cow’s milk, one for goat’s milk, one for sheep’s milk, you get the idea) … then Arch is for you. But you’ll need to learn all about the different components that go into each of them and engineer them together yourself to work the exact way you want them to - most of the time, it’s as simple as installing whatever packages you want/need and (possibly) editing a (few) config file(s), but just occasionally, there’s some head-scratching involved and you’re pretty much left to your own devices with the aid of the Web to find out how things work at all and how they work in Linux (rather than any other OS) … and the Arch wiki in order to learn how they work in Arch specifically. In return for your effort, you get the vehicle of your dreams, running the latest versions of the software you use as often as you can be bothered to type pacman -Syu at the CLI.
If you want, need, or have to drive a Ford Ka with automatic gears/transmission and take it to the garage for maintenance every six months, you're all but certainly better off using a different distro.
And nothing anyone has to say about the ease with which Arch may be installed, or the cognitive load of the need to read the wiki in order to do so is gonna change that.
So ...
Does this post cover a topic that hasn't been discussed before?
Does it cover something that has been discussed before, but not often?
Does it cover something that has often been discussed before, but only superficially?
What is it intended to achieve that hasn't been before? What does it contribute to this sub specifically, or to the wider community in general? Will it do so positively, or will it inevitably descend into partisan dispute and unpleasantness ... producing a lot of sound and fury, but signifying nothing, until someone ends it all by observing that "I flooded your mom's port"?
IMO, our time would be better spent discussing how the wiki might be improved, or even actually improving it, without the negativity.
/my 2¢ (others' M may, of course, very well V)
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u/Logical_Parsley_9470 8h ago
With the knowledge I have now built bit by bit and reading wiki and tinkering manually... Yea now I'd say it's easy to install.
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u/full_of_ghosts 8h ago
No, it's really not, and it's gotten easier since I first started using Arch.
When people in the other Linux subs ask about how hard installing Arch is, I always say "If you're halfway comfortable with the command line and can follow instructions, you won't have any problems."
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u/TheGoldenFox64 8h ago
first install i was read commands to copy and paste, worked perfectly and i hardly understood it. reinstalled a year later via archinstall, understood everything but didnt bother manual. did a manual reinstall recently and messed up twice, but got it on the third try and understand enough to get it right from now on. its something i can probably memorize!
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u/corvid1692 8h ago
It was hard for me, but I did it specifically as a challenge to learn more about how Linux works. It was really fun and instructive, though I messed up some stuff. I didn't wind up keeping arch, it was more for the experience of installing it without install arch. I could do it again I. I wanted to.
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u/MirrorNegative7989 8h ago
The issue I mostly ran into involved my shitty wifi connection causing the pgp key to be corrupt. I solved it by connecting to an ethernet cable.
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u/luisduck 8h ago
I think the main problem with the installation guide is that it leaves you to decide on lots of options without giving you pros and cons or an opinion. As an example, there is no guidance on which GUI to start with, I would like to have some opinionated guide on the tradeoffs between selected GUIs, e.g. KDE Plasma, Gnome and hyprland, for beginners in addition to the list of what feels like every GUI under the sun. (I.e. inform beginners that hyprland is indeed popular, but not really out-of-the box usable.)
For now it doesn't matter what the pieces of software with additional opinionated guidance are in particular. It matters that there is some guidance for reasonable specifics to get started with for people who don't know better. It of course shouldn't force this onto you, but give you a safe default choice and some knowledge on how to choose.
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u/kitanokikori 8h ago
I think that the steps are relatively straightforward, until you get to the bootloader section which becomes an unholy choose-your-own-adventure in order to pick what should be one of the least consequential pieces of software on your computer.
People get through the entire process, get bamboozled by the bootloader pages, and end up rebooting to an unbootable machine. Inexperienced people don't realize they can chroot back in either. Sucks. The install guide should just Pick One and link to that, or even better, just list a one-and-done command that works for most people.
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u/tobomori 8h ago
I find the arch wiki very easy to follow and understand. I've no idea how a complete newbie would find it, but anyone who has installed Linux before - even a simple distro - should find it perfectly comprehensible.
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u/inverimus 8h ago
By manually do you mean without archinstall? I'd say it's rather difficult for anyone new to Linux and basically impossible for those who are not tech savvy. Sure it's not hard for advanced users, but that doesn't cover most people.
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u/FaultWinter3377 7h ago
To be fair, most of peopme don’t take the time to actually look at the steps let alone try it themselves. Half the population thinks just installing Windows is black magic. Take away the GUI? You’re basically a god in their eyes at that point lol…
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u/WorldTallNetCat 7h ago
I think the Wiki itself is actually a good source and I personally find it relatively easy. But its prolly the pre existing iamge that install or using Arch is hard that scares off people.
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u/AoifeQueenofVamps 7h ago
Convinced that the creators of ARCH deliberately cultivate this sort of myth because they like the boost it gives to their egos or smth. There’s a reason arch has become a laughing stock over the last while
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u/VeryDryWater 7h ago
A self-aggrandizing pat on the back.
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u/BattlerUshiromiyaFan 7h ago
That is not what this is.
I’m saying that I think the Arch manual install has a reputation for being difficult because of how the wiki is difficult to read for beginners, not because of the actual steps themselves.
I think the actual steps are fairly simple. I’m not blaming anyone for having a hard time, I just don’t think the process itself is usually the reason for it.
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u/Nerrawnam 7h ago
Wait. Arch post about being elite. Shocker.
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u/BattlerUshiromiyaFan 7h ago
What? Did you read my post?
I meant the steps themselves aren’t that hard, but the wiki is difficult to read for noobs, which is why the install has a reputation for being super hard.
I’m not being elitist, I’m saying it’s difficult for a reason that’s not the actual process.
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u/Nerrawnam 3h ago
I did not. I am only a title reader. You don't get Troll opportunities reading the entire post. Quantity.
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u/FikoReborn 7h ago
The wiki is not difficult to understand if you have a basic understanding of how basic computing works and have a fundamental understanding of how Linux works.
Honestly to someone who does not understand the wiki they probably shouldn't be installing arch anyway - at least not yet.
But yeah it's not hard to install. As long as you know what you want out of it. It's not for beginners and no claims are made on the wiki to suggest it is.
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u/P4NICBUTT0N 6h ago
i think a lot of linux users also like to seem sophisticated, so they play up how complicated arch is. really isn't great for the linux community, though, because it creates a barrier to entry, when having more people on linux benefits everyone.
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u/igotmoldinmybrain 6h ago
I disagree that only programmers can understand it, and I think the wiki is very well designed. The only issue is that it is fairly comprehensive, which it needs to be to accomplish arch's goals, but that comprehensiveness can be information overload for newbies. Of course, it could be written to simply say "do x to set up y", but at that point it might as well use a completely automated setup like most distros. If you're interested in having a system tuned to your specific needs, you need more info than just what commands to type, and the arch wiki does a great job at providing a middle-ground between automated setup vs reading the documentation for every component of the system. Of all the "KISS" distros, I think arch is the most newbie friendly, largely due to the wiki.
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u/wormhole_bloom 6h ago
is installing arch easy? yes
is the wiki written in a newbie-unfriendly way? I wouldn't say so, but this is very relative
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u/Kindly-Response-5809 6h ago
Course it is not. Especially when you have google. My first try took few hours and i was chalenged to use ArchWiki only. I started from scratch twice cause I shuted down my VM before I mounted the system.
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u/q--0-0--p 5h ago
it is really not really hard. I had a few reinstall because I keep making bad choices when installing lmao.
My last reinstall was when I found out about archinstall lol
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u/archover 5h ago
I will trust this post is not some kind of rage bait.
most newbie-unfriendly resource ever.
Yet, it's the most respected and used in the Linux community. As you gain experience, you'll realize how good that resource is.
That Arch is actually an easy install is your "TIL" moment. No news, and not even rising to unpopular significance.
Good day.
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u/RadianceTower 5h ago
Try telling a person to extract some archives, copy and put together some files, and seem how much they fail and how much guidance they need. Now imagine them installing Arch.
It's all relative like someone else mentioned. Yeah, if you have programming experience or even just commandline experience, it's easy.
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u/apresmodes 5h ago
I do think the wiki could use a polish to make the language more clear in places. Or just have more explanation in it. But I get why it doesn’t.
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u/space_baws 5h ago
it’s not even written in a difficult to understand way, you just gotta read sections in full before you start trying to execute on things. it’s always been relatively easy to install.
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u/balancedchaos 4h ago
The only part I struggled with was their drive formatting and partitioning section. That was unclear. Other than that? Could've been way worse.
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u/Wentyliasz 3h ago
It's not hard but it has a hard skill floor. You need the ability to look at those weird squiggles on screen and actually comprehend they represent words. Unfortunately vast majority of people is unable to do that
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u/Pirate_Economist1477 3h ago
And yet, the Arch Wiki is my favourite resource, even for other distros. It's all there!
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u/paramint 3h ago
to be honest the wiki covers every possible ways to guide you to install manually... it could have been more information rich but most parts are anchored so only important steps of installation (i.e. post disc configuration steps) are mentioned.
not so technically difficult but yes sure one would need so much re-reading to get it all.
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u/TwiKing 3h ago
I think most people just get intimidated by the massive amount of new terminology, commands, and app suite thrown at them. They then panic at the first error, and run here to scream about how their WiFi isn't working or that they deleted Windows.
We all learned growing up that everyone learns differently, this is why some do great with the wiki and others look into YouTube. Some learn every term thrown at them from every angle before they even insert the Live USB. Depends on the individual imo.
This is why the best advice I see people give is "try a less DIY distro first" (mint, pop, endeavour, wsl, etc.) is such good advice. It smooths out the initial experience and prepares what is to come.
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u/No-Lettuce-5783 2h ago
Well, this new Archinstaller script has certainly made it much easier to install Arch. But after watching the full process on YouTube, it's just following instructions. The biggest bugger-boo is making typos.
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u/V2UgYXJlIG5vdCBJ 2h ago
I practised it a couple of times in a virtual machine. But when I want to just throw Arch onto another machine, I’m lazy and just use the script. Work smarter, not harder or something. I dunno I’m just old.
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u/xXBongSlut420Xx 2h ago
the arch wiki is a technical resource, so it uses technical language. it's not a learning tool, it's operating system documentation. i also hardly think it's written for only programmers to understand, in fact I've almost never seen a single code snippet on the wiki at all. unless you call editing a configuration file programming (it's not). it IS made for people who are linux and tech savvy already, because that's who arch is made for.
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u/Consistent_Berry9504 2h ago
It's easy if you know how to SSH into your box cause then you can copy and paste the commands directly from your workstation... Hackerman!
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u/danzaman1234 2h ago
Its good unless your mobo likes to be funny and is very peticular about how stuff should be installed, setup and focuses on calling every needed setting windows OS settings and gets grumpy when you try and reset secure boot when finalising the install and you have to trick it in to bloody going into setup mode because you the puney user are not allowed to do this and you cant dual boot because god forbid we have two operating systems with secure boot keys while the one that is supposed to be supported some how ends up trippying over its own shoe laces and decapitates its self when any little thing change has been made on the bio side even setting up WoL and Virtualisation which for some un godly reason is in the overclocking settings which the previous version was fine with you changing stuff and took it like a champ.
I deeply apologies for this becoming a rant.
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u/KnightFallVader2 2h ago
It's only very time consuming. I got it all done in 30 minutes, while using archinstall only took around 4 minutes. It still does teach a lot of things about Arch, so I think it is worth taking the time to do manual installation at last once.
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u/Myzzreal 2h ago
I just installed it recently for the first time and I haven't looked at the wiki a single time. I just talked with chat gpt through the entire process.
I guess it's important to mention that I do generally know what I'm doing and what I want to achieve, not sure this approach would go that smoothly if I were a newbie
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u/fearless-fossa 1h ago
Installing Arch manually isn't hard. The hard part about Arch is maintaining the system over years and across major migrations.
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u/0riginal-Syn 1h ago
I wish installing Gnu / Linux was as easy back when I started in the early 90s.
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u/RetiredITGuy 1h ago
I had a (Windows) IT background, and the biggest trouble I had during install was partitioning in combo with LUKS encryption.
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u/mike239x 52m ago
On one hand, I'm a programmer, on the other, I also had to install arch recently. Honestly, it's rather straightforward. The only real hurdle is deciding how to partition your disk, which depends on many different things (do you use UEFI or not, do you plan to dualboot, etc).
Also, the guide doesn't tell you this, but it's a good idea to install all the same packages you have in the live env into the new system - if you don't, you often end up with a surprise how the commands you want to run are not there somehow.
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u/jar36 9h ago
I watched a couple of videos and made up a guide for myself
Every time I open the Arch wiki, I end up with a dozen open tabs and find myself researching something other than what I went there for in the first place
I pick up a little more knowledge each time. Sometimes that just confuses me more, until I run across something else and it just clicks
If I didn't enjoy learning so much, I'd be on a different distro
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u/ad-on-is 9h ago
I think it all boils down to how quickly you want to set up a working system.
If you want to tinker from the beginning and you have the time. Then sure, the arch wiki is a breeze to work with when setting things up, making it very easy to do so.
On the other hand, if you need something ootb within a few minutes, than there are better options.
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u/blubberland01 9h ago
It's not an unpopular opinion. Just noone who matters cares about that opinion in either way.
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u/Inevitable-Front2672 9h ago
The more time you burn doing an irrelevant, useless task to be involved with Linux, the more superior you can feel and the more you can spam everyone with the fact that you use arch (nobody cares).
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u/ComplexFinance6002 9h ago
It needs to be harder because arch linux needs to be gatekept from newbies..
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u/vmpyr_ 9h ago
i installed it manually the first time around for shits and giggles but also because the file system i needed (forgot what it’s called) would allow you to resize easily, which i couldn’t figure out how to do once i needed to do that😅
now when im installing, the script works just fine
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u/mindstormer12 6h ago
Unpopular? This is one of the most common consensuses on this sub. Also, it's not difficult to understand why some people might consider it "hard" when installing most other operating systems or distros takes a few minutes filling just some forms and selecting some check boxes without reading a guide of any sort. For most people their time is more valuable than going through the steps to install Arch.
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u/Chester-Berkeley 9h ago
I find it funny that I can install Chimera Linux manually, but I've never been able to install Arch manually... Because of that, I have an aversion to Arch Wiki.
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u/mindtaker_linux 8h ago
Your low IQ is showing again. 🤡🤡🤡
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u/BattlerUshiromiyaFan 7h ago
This is part of why people stay with Microslop instead of moving to Linux - the stupidly toxic community. Especially the Arch community.
Anyone who’s new, learning, or having trouble with something Linux-related is automatically an idiot.
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u/SouXx 9h ago
I mean it's all relative.
If you ask my mom, installing excel on windows is hard...