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> Then I tried installing Arch in a VM… and it took me several days and several attempts, but when I finally got it working I felt, for the first time ever, lik

> Then I tried installing Arch in a VM… and it took me several days and several attempts, but when I finally got it working I felt, for the first time ever, like I actually understood the system I was using. Honest question: why days? I have installed arch multiple times in the past decade and I don’t remember anything exceptionally out of the ordinary. You just follow the step-by-step instruction and you are good to go. It’s all fairly standard: boot on a live cd, get internet, format the disk, mount, arch provides a script to install the base and another to change the root and it’s vanilla Linux config from there. Edit: Hmm, I guess how to configure a vanilla Linux might be quite complex for someone who has no idea of how to do that. I might have answered my own question actually.

sancho_panza 4y ago
I often have to boot back into the live media because I forgot to install a tool like iwd while chrooted. This information is not included in the single page installation guide. Maybe it’s those scripts i’m unfamiliar with that would shorten the feedback loop.
kaba0 4y ago
Yeah, configuring a kernel is one part plus the install wasn’t always like it is now — in the old times there weren’t as many helper scripts (chrooting manually comes to mind)
bradrn 4y ago
> Honest question: why days? Because I was a total novice. I barely even knew what a partition was, let alone anything else. Now, of course, I find it much simpler.
bombcar 4y ago
Even if you follow a guide exactly as stated, you will often find when done that you now know more about the steps you took and want to immediately start over so it's closer to what you want. The same thing happened to me the first few times I installed Gentoo. Could I have migrated the first install to what I wanted at and had at the end? Sure, if I had the knowledge I didn't have at the time.
luxcem 4y ago
I've installed arch a number of times, and every times I want full disk encryption I struggle a bit on dm-crypt config and bootloader. Other than that it's pretty straightforward.
jonfw 4y ago
If you know most Linux file systems well, you would probably choose one in a few seconds. If nobody has ever asked you to pick a file system before, you could probably spend a couple of days researching. I think there’s a lot of decisions like that to make in Arch

sancho_panza 4y ago

I often have to boot back into the live media because I forgot to install a tool like iwd while chrooted. This information is not included in the single page installation guide. Maybe it’s those scripts i’m unfamiliar with that would shorten the feedback loop.

kaba0 4y ago

Yeah, configuring a kernel is one part plus the install wasn’t always like it is now — in the old times there weren’t as many helper scripts (chrooting manually comes to mind)

bradrn 4y ago

> Honest question: why days? Because I was a total novice. I barely even knew what a partition was, let alone anything else. Now, of course, I find it much simpler.

bombcar 4y ago

Even if you follow a guide exactly as stated, you will often find when done that you now know more about the steps you took and want to immediately start over so it's closer to what you want. The same thing happened to me the first few times I installed Gentoo. Could I have migrated the first install to what I wanted at and had at the end? Sure, if I had the knowledge I didn't have at the time.

luxcem 4y ago

I've installed arch a number of times, and every times I want full disk encryption I struggle a bit on dm-crypt config and bootloader. Other than that it's pretty straightforward.

jonfw 4y ago

If you know most Linux file systems well, you would probably choose one in a few seconds. If nobody has ever asked you to pick a file system before, you could probably spend a couple of days researching. I think there’s a lot of decisions like that to make in Arch