And now you’re lost
I’ve installed Arch manually exactly once. (Just for the bragging rights, lol)
My go to way is just installing EndeavourOS. It’s basically Arch, but with a nicer installer and reasonable defaults.
Once is all you need to be fair. After that you’re the exact person who should be using archinstall.
Installing arch without archinstall is way too much fucking work. I’d much rather spend time fixing the 10% greater likelihood of encountering issues post install than doing all that fucking bullshit manually. The command line is better for a lot of things but configuring partitions and mount points is not one of them. I demand a fuckin gui for that stuff.
I’ve done it both by the book and arch install. Arch install is just nice.
The rationale in the OP is that with archinstall, an inexperienced user will have no idea where to even begin diagnosing any issues post install. Whereas installing manually is sort of a barrier to entry that ensures you know what you’re doing.
That’s a stupid reason to make an installation as painful as possible. I can follow the installation wiki but I just don’t have time for this. And an inexperienced user can follow the wiki or another how-to and finish the installation but still be lost if something breaks later on.
It’s not being made “as painful as possible”, it’s just manual. Arch isn’t a distro that’ll preconfigure things for you so everything’s plug’n’play, it’s a distro that’ll give you access to everything and the power to use it however you like, but with that comes the expectation and responsibility to manage those things.
Installing arch manually is simply a good lesson in how your system is set up, what parts it’s made up of, in part because you’re free to remove and switch out those parts.
And sure, there’s no magic bullet to make sure a new user understands everything they did, but I think in the end, if you’re not willing to read, learn and troubleshoot, you might just want a different distro.
This is why arches based distos are taking off. They help with picking packages etc to save time.
Installing Arch manually is not hard, and there are plenty of step-by-step guides.
Figuring out what you need next and then managing this mess is more complicated.
Source: I installed Arch manually btw
Years ago I installed it manually, too. For learning, yes. But regularly, no. The archinstall package is easy but a newbie would struggle there, too. It’s just a faster way for skilled Linux Users.
Newbie Linux users shouldn’t go with Arch to begin with, even Endeavour or Garuda, unless they’re seeing it as a learning experience and have an IT background behind their back.
It’s not worth it for the average user, and honestly - even for most veteran users for that matter.
The great power of Arch comes with great responsibility to manage your system properly.
