Guided installation¶

This is the default scripted installation you’ll encounter on the official Arch Linux Archinstall package as well as the unofficial ISO found on https://archlinux.life. It will guide your through a very basic installation of Arch Linux.

The installer has two pre-requisites:

A Physical or Virtual machine to install on

An active internet connection prior to running archinstall

Warning

A basic understanding of how machines, ISO-files and command lines are needed. Please read the official Arch Linux Wiki (`https://wiki.archlinux.org/ <https://wiki.archlinux.org/>`_ to learn more)

Note

There are some limitations with the installer, such as that it will not configure WiFi during the installation procedure. And it will not perform a post-installation network configuration either. So you need to read up on Arch Linux networking to get that to work.

Running the guided installation¶

Note

Due to the package being quite new, it might be required to update the local package list before installing or continuing. Partial upgrades can cause issues, but the lack of dependencies should make this perfectly safe:

To install archinstall and subsequently the guided installer, simply do the following:

pacman -S python-archinstall

And to run it, execute archinstall as a Python module:

python -m archinstall --script guided

The --script guided argument is optional as it’s the default behavior.

But this will start the process of guiding you through a installation of a quite minimal Arch Linux experience.

Installing directly from a configuration file¶

Note

Edit the following json according to your needs, save this as a json file, and provide the local or remote path (URL)

{
    "audio": "pipewire",
    "bootloader": "systemd-bootctl",
    "custom-commands": [
        "cd /home/devel; git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/paru.git",
        "chown -R devel:devel /home/devel/paru",
        "usermod -aG docker devel"
    ],
    "!encryption-password": "supersecret",
    "filesystem": "btrfs",
    "gfx_driver": "VMware / VirtualBox (open-source)",
    "harddrive": {
        "path": "/dev/nvme0n1"
    },
    "hostname": "development-box",
    "kernels": [
        "linux"
    ],
    "keyboard-language": "us",
    "mirror-region": "Worldwide",
    "nic": {
        "NetworkManager": true
    },
    "ntp": true,
    "packages": ["docker", "git", "wget", "zsh"],
    "profile": "gnome",
    "services": ["docker"],
    "superusers": {
        "devel": {
            "!password": "devel"
        }
    },
    "sys-encoding": "utf-8",
    "sys-language": "en_US",
    "timezone": "US/Eastern",
    "users": {}
}

To run it, execute archinstall as a Python module:

python -m archinstall --config <local path or remote URL>

Key	Values/Description	Description	Required
audio	pipewire/pulseaudio	Audioserver to be installed	No
bootloader	systemd-bootctl/grub-install	Bootloader to be installed	Yes
custom-commands	[ <command1>, <command2>, …]	Custom commands to be run post install	No
!encryption-password	any	Password to encrypt disk, not encrypted if password not provided	No
filesystem	ext4 / btrfs / fat32 etc.	Filesystem for root and home partitions	Yes
gfx_driver	“VMware / VirtualBox (open-source)” or “Nvidia” or “Intel (open-source)” or “AMD / ATI (open-source)” or “All open-source (default)”	Graphics Drivers to install	No
harddrive	{ “path”: <path of device> }	Path of device to be used	Yes
hostname	any	Hostname of machine after installation	Yes
kernels	[ “kernel1”, “kernel2”]	List of kernels to install eg: linux, linux-lts, linux-zen etc	Atleast 1
keyboard-language	2 letter code for your keyboard language	eg: us, de etc	Yes
mirror-region	{“<Region Name>”: { “Mirror Name”: True/False}, ..}	List of regions and mirrors to use	Yes
nic	{ NetworkManager: <boolean>, nic: <nic name> }		Yes
ntp	<boolean>	Set to true to set-up ntp post install	No
packages	[ “package1”, “package2”, ..]	List of packages to install post-installation	No
profile	Name of the profile to install	Profiles are present in profiles/, use the name of a profile to install it	No
!root-password	any	The root account password	No
services	[ “service1”, “service2”, ..]	Services to enable post-installation	No
sys-encoding	“utf-8”	Set to change system encoding post-install, ignored if –advanced flag is not passed	No
sys-language	“en_US”	Set to change system language post-install, ignored if –advanced flag is not passed	No
superusers	{ “<username>”: { “!password”: “<password>”}, ..}	List of superuser credentials, see configuration for reference	Yes, if root account password is not provided
timezone	Timezone to configure in installation	Timezone eg: UTC, Asia/Kolkata etc.	Yes
users	{ “<username>”: { “!password”: “<password>”}, ..}	List of regular user credentials, see configuration for reference	Yes, can be {}

Description individual steps¶

Below is a description of each individual steps in order.

keyboard languages¶

Default is us.

A short list of the most common layouts are presented.

Entering ? and pressing enter enables a search mode where additional keyboard layouts can be found.

In search mode, you’ll find things like:

sv-latin1 for swedish layouts

Mirror region selection¶

Default is auto detect best mirror

Leaving this blank should enable the most appropriate mirror for you.

But if you want to override and use only one selected region, you can enter one in this step.

As an example:

Sweden (with a capital :code:`S`) will only use mirrors from Sweden.

Selection of drive¶

There is no default for this step and it’s a required step.

Warning

The selected device will be wiped completely!

Make sure you select a drive that will be used only by Arch Linux.
(Future versions of archinstall will support multiboot on the same drive and more complex partition setups)

Select the appropriate drive by selecting it by number or full path.

Disk encryption¶

Selecting a disk encryption password enables disk encryption for the OS partition.

Note

This step is highly recommended for most users, skipping this step comes with some risk and you are obligated to read up on why you would want to skip encryption before deciding to opt-out.

Warning

This step does require at least 1GB of free RAM during boot in order to boot at all. Keep this in mind when creating virtual machines. It also only encrypts the OS partition - not the boot partition (it’s not full disk encryption).

Hostname¶

Default is Archinstall

The hostname in which the machine will identify itself on the local network. This step is optional, but a default hostname of Archinstall will be set if none is selected.

Root password¶

Warning

Setting a root password disables sudo permissions for additional users.

It’s there for recommended to skip this step!

This gives you the option to re-enable the root account on the machine. By default, the root account on Arch Linux is disabled and does not contain a password.

You are instead recommended to skip to the next step without any input.

Super User (sudo)¶

Warning

This step only applies if you correctly skipped the previous step which also makes this step mandatory.

If the previous step was skipped, and only if it is skipped. This step enables you to create a sudo enabled user with a password.

Note

The sudo permission grants root-like privileges to the account but is less prone to for instance guessing admin account attacks. You are also less likely to mess up system critical things by operating in normal user-mode and calling sudo to gain temporary administrative privileges.

Pre-programmed profiles¶

You can optionally choose to install a pre-programmed profile. These profiles might make it easier for new users or beginners to achieve a traditional desktop environment as an example.

There is a list of profiles to choose from. If you are unsure of what any of these are, research the names that show up to understand what they are before you choose one.

Note

Some profiles might have sub-dependencies that will ask you to select additional profiles.
For instance the desktop profile will create a secondary menu to select a graphical driver. That graphical driver might have additional dependencies if there are multiple driver vendors.

Simply follow the instructions on the screen to navigate through them.

Additional packages¶

Some additional packages can be installed if need be. This step allows you to list (space separated) officially supported packages from the package database at https://archlinux.org/packages/.

Network configuration¶

In this step is optional and allows for some basic configuration of your network.

There are two main options and two sub-options, the two main ones are:

Copy existing network configuration from the ISO you’re working on

Select one network interface to configure

If copying existing configuration is chosen, no further configuration is needed.

The installer will copy any wireless (based on :code:`iwd`) configurations and systemd-networkd configuration set up by the user or the default system configuration.

If a interface was selected instead, a secondary option will be presented, allowing you to choose between two options:

Automatic DHCP configuration of IP, DNS and Gateway

Static IP configuration that further will ask some mandatory questions

Configuration verification¶

Before the installer continues, and this is only valid for the guided installation.

The chosen configuration will be printed on the screen and you have the option to verify it.

After which you can press Enter can be pressed in order to start the formatting and installation process.

Warning

After a 5 second countdown, the selected drive will be permanently erased and all data will be lost.

Post installation¶

Once the installation is complete, green text should appear saying that it’s safe to reboot, which is also the command you use to reboot.