Archinstall 2022: Declarative Arch Linux Install Configuration!

UPDATE: Archinstall guided install mode seems broken as shipped in the ArchISO 2022 July release. Hopefully the fix(es) already in the pipeline lead to a new release soon!

UPDATE 2022.08.06: Much of the guided installer discussed in this video is currently in a broken state, and will hopefully be fixed soon!

In this video the latest archinstall helper library package is pulled from GitHub, JSON configuration files are generated and customized, with the result of a nicely configured base install of Arch Linux XFCE desktop!

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[dylantaylor]

I'm actually one of the developers (I can't take credit for the whole thing, of course but I have a few hundred commits on it.). It's really cool to see people making videos on ArchInstall and I appreciate the positive feedback and love that you are taking advantage of the JSON configuration feature. Declarative configurations are one of my favorite features of the installer, and it's actually how I've been personally installing Arch on my systems since we introduced that capability. There are also a few other keys like 'custom-commands' that archinstall honors that aren't in the generated JSON. These are documented in the documentation. It'll iterate over those and run them post-install in a chroot environment. We also have additional options available hidden under the '--advanced' flag. You can do crazy, but not recommended things like setting the root filesystem type to NTFS (I tested this and it'll actually boot, but it's very unstable). More practically, it exposes some newer but less tested features like FIDO2 encryption in the git releases. This is really neat if you want to have encrypted storage that you can unlock with a Yubikey or similar.

[abobader]

Very nice video as always, well done Stephen!

[musefirefox]

Thanks! I was waiting for your video on the new archinstall

[reptilicusrex]

Thanks for the detailed and high-quality info. Recently you made a video about installing Fedora-36 and the few modifications which were necessary during the installation process to make the disk-partitioning/subvolume scheme compatible with time-machine-btrfs-snapshots. The snapshots were then made available through GRUB and could be used to roll back, which could be really handy. Is the Arch installation, as demoed in this video, already configured to support time-machine-btrfs-snapshots to the same extent as you did for Fedora? If not, please consider doing a video explaining the process.

[chrisvan]

I spent over 2 hours following along with one of your Arch install videos last night, but the installation failed and I couldn't boot the system, kept dropping me in to some shell and I couldn't find any solution. This was after following someone else's step-by-step arch install video that also resulted in failure.

I had completely given up on Arch, but decided to give it one more shot today, using this install script... I followed along, step by but: "Could not find the new PARTUUID after adding the partition."

I honestly just cannot understand how any tolerates Arch Linux. I've installed Linux systems for over 20 years, but have never been able to do it, even with this scripts.

Part of the problem is the nature of Arch, your videos and/or anyone else's instructions are obsolete within days of them being uploaded.

Don't get me wrong, I completely appreciate what you do, I just can't understand how anyone tolerates Arch.... I had easier times installing Red Hat 5 back in the late nineties. I've installed slackware, gentoo, etc... never have I run into a distro as bad as Arch.

Anyways, thanks for these videos, I just need to stop watching the Arch ones.

[vishalsg]

Literally no video dare to explain 'select disk layout' manual partitioning I'm so done.

[fourU]

What's the advantage of this declarative process over the standard archinstall script? I'm thinking automation when dealing with multiple installs?

[vram]

Highly technical quiry: The bottom of the Arch logo...Is it a supposed to be a silhouette of someone staring at a screen?

[BobCollins]

Thank you for your helpful content.

I realize this is an unpopular opinion, but it is backed up with science. Please pass on the "dark mode" fashion statement, at least for videos.

It is MUCH harder to read with a black background on YouTube.