Note: This assumes that you have written the archlinux ISO to USB/Optical media and have booted into the live environment.
root@archiso ~ #
archinstall
Note: This will bring you to a TUI (Terminal User Interface) menu that will help configure your installation.
"English (100%)" (default, change if needed)
"us" (default, change if needed)
Using your arrow keys navigate the menu and press
Tab
to select "United States".
Note: This is assuming that you are installing Arch onto its own drive. If you are attempting to install Arch onto a shared drive with a Windows or other Linux install this guide does not cover required steps to make that work.
Triple check your drive and select it with
tab
Select the following option:
Wipe all selected drives and use a best-effort default partition layout
Select the filesystem:
btrfs
Use BTRFS subvolumes with default structure?
yes (default)
Use BTRFS compression?
yes (default)
Note: For this guide we'll use the default option of "systemd-bootctl" if you require GRUB for dual-boot or other reasons. You'll need to reference the Arch Wiki for more help.
systemd-bootctl
Use whatever name you'd like your computer to be known as.
Use None (default) here unless you find the need to have one.
Add a user
Create your desired username and password
Should "user" be superuser (sudo)?
yes
Note: You can add more users at this point if needed.
Choose a pre-programmed profile
desktop: Provides a selection of desktop environments and tiling window managers, e.g. gnome, kde, sway
Select your desired desktop environment
Note: In this example I selected xfce4. You will want to choose the DE that you want. Be aware that there might be some additional prompts for other environments.
xfce4
Select a graphics driver
Note: Make sure you select the appropriate driver for your GPU. If you have a Nvidia card, I would highly suggest using the proprietary drivers for now. The open-source drivers are good if you're not planning on playing Video Games.
Nvidia (proprietary)
Choose an audio server
pipewire (default)
Use this if you have specific packages that need to be installed immediately. Else everything can just be installed once you finish installation.
Copy ISO network configuration to installation
Use NetworkManager (necessary to configure internet graphically in GNOME and KDE)
Using your arrow keys navigate the menu and press
Tab
to select a city that is in your time zone. For example for Mountain Time Zone you can chooseAmerica/Denver
True (default)
Start the Install
Select "Install" at the bottom of the menu and press
Enter
to start the installation.
Chroot into the newly installed environment
Select "yes (default)" if you have any specific steps you need to compelte before restarting. Note this will be just a CLI terminal interface still. Select No to move on.
If you selected yes, complete your actions and then use "exit" to go back to the live environment.
Reboot your system
Type in "reboot now" to reboot your computer.
Your computer should now boot into the systemd-bootctl bootloader. By default it will select the first option (Start Arch Linux) after 3 - 5 seconds.
Congrats! 🎉 you have installed Arch the easy way. You should be greeted by a login screen dependant on your selected Desktop Environment.