Calam-Arch - Arch Linux for the Terminal(ly) Lazy

This is an easy Arch installer that uses Calamares, and promises to install 'pure' Arch rather than a modified or customised version.
As I needed to reinstall one of my Thinkpads I thought I'd take it for a spin as I was feeling particularly lazy.
I have to say I'm impressed as it did what it said on the tin.
This will now be part of my arsenal of Arch Linux installers. Take it for a spin and see what you think.
I hope you enjoy the video :-)
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Ramble On!

[@1976kanthi]

You’re such an underrated Linux KZbinr. Defo deserve lot more subs!

[@OldTechBloke]

Thank you mate

[@krazykat64]

Indeed. He's only one of two channels in my subscriptions that I have notifications enabled for.

[@Purjo92]

He will grow big eventually. It's certain, don't worry.

[@theshowman8478]

Another brilliant and useful video, Thanks OTB. 👍

[@anantgupta7916]

Now I will leave my manjaro because I always wanted to use pure arch (in a lazy way)

[@FrBrossard]

Same. i'm new to Linux, ive been using Manjaro for the moment. And as I'm getting familiar with using the AUR (yay or paru in the Terminal) I now want to install Arch

[@commentarysheep]

@@FrBrossard Sidenote: Why would you use yay? It reached its end of life and its devs moved on to maintaining paru. It works exactly the same as yay did, but it was written in Rust. And because it's a new project that will definitely be maintained for decades to come, it WILL receive security patches and new features as time goes on. Yay is now the past, paru is the way to go. It's just as reliable as yay was.

[@RobinJusteEmery]

I too have issues downloading from Sourceforge. I always have to click the "problems downloading?" button and select another mirror site which is anywhere nearer to the UK. Most cases I select Belguim or New York and I get faster downloads. Still not as fast as downloading from Git directly. Calam-Arch is a great WYSIWYG tool to install Arch Linux. Great video run through, as always, Steve!

[@taidee]

I'm impressed by this installer, thanks for reviewing it OTB, I'll check this out when I feel lazy.

[@derekr54]

Another cracking video Steve,thanks for the videos and the rambles they are much appreciated.

[@OldTechBloke]

Glad you like them!

[@gezobel1563]

Completely understand the point about getting Vanilla Arch installed easily but the whole fun of Arch for me is the satisfaction of installing it via the terminal ... and the more you do it the more you learn and the quicker it becomes. It took me two days of struggle to first install a full graphical Arch a couple of years ago from the official Arch Guide but now it takes me about 20/25 mins which appears to be about the same as it took OTB to install via Calamares. The secret is to make your own installation guide from trial and error as you go along, imo. However, Calam-Arch sounds great for those who simply wish to discover that Vanilla Arch makes the user the boss of the OS and not the other way around!

[@DCM777.]

Calam-Arch installs in 5 minutes on my side, it depends on the internet speed!

[@DCM777.]

And Hardware of course.

[@peterdauwe7895]

Tx. Arcolinux, has it covered aswell with Carli. Arch with the calamares with all the software extra's. Erik has video's about it.

[@DCM777.]

To bloated

[@peterdauwe7895]

@@linuxninja really? Carli is arch and calamares, look it up.

[@DCM777.]

@@linuxninja Haha lol sure is, only highly themed and some added repos etc and for sure way to bloated! lol

[@DCM777.]

@@linuxninja You should join the Manjaro fans who say Manjaro isn't Arch! lol

[@DCM777.]

@@linuxninja Lol do your homework and then come back!

[@dougtilaran3496]

Calamarchi ! I like labs myself...wee bit more complicated but not much.I have 8 good fingers ! Back to my welding shop.

[@toby3084]

I appreciate the videos otb, keep up the great content!

[@OldTechBloke]

Thanks, will do!

[@novaflame4812]

I'm actually in the process of installing arch via calam installer as I watch this.

[@misterbee0123]

Brilliant ... best way to entice new users

[@kbhasi]

Wow. I had never heard of that! I, however, am reminded of when I tried Manjaro in a VM and liked how Manjaro Architect could let me install stock versions of desktop environments without Manjaro branding and customisations, though that was before I discovered that distro was more like the Ubuntu of Arch Linux derivatives. Since then, and for a short while after, I tried finding alternative Arch Linux installers before giving up. If there's one thing I like about Arch Linux over other distros I've tried, it's that they ship completely stock versions of desktop environments without any distro branding and customisations! The only other distros I know of that do that are Gentoo and Slackware Linux. To be fair, my current primary distro is Debian, and I do like how their desktop environments are so close to stock that the only thing they seem to change, besides adding distro branding only when needed, is the desktop background. I feel as though desktop Linux distros customising their desktop environments can give me an idea of what their target audience is.

[@1976kanthi]

Oh. This is interesting. I usually go for ArcoLinux if I was lazy and want an kinda-arch system.

[@peterdauwe7895]

Arcolinux, has it covered with Carli. Arch with the calamares with all the software extra's. Erik has video's about it.

[@marioschroers7318]

... For the terminally lazy. Gotta love that pun! 😃

[@wv1swlamatswl523]

Liked your title! Gave me a laugh.

[@maxarendorff6521]

My favourite lazy way of installing Arch is via SSH. Just boot the ISO, enable SSH and connect from a different machine. Then you can just copy&paste commands from the wiki or a guide without having to type stuff yourself. I'm not a fan of GUI installers like EndavourOS. Between the lack of a proper installation guide and the confusing menus, I actually find it harder than doing it in the terminal, if you're trying to do anything more complicated at least. I tried to install EndavourOS on LVM and couldn't figure it out. It was much easier in a terminal tbqh. A terminal install also gives you a lot more fine-grained control, which I like.

[@kbhasi]

I didn't think about that back when I tried to install Arch Linux in VirtualBox!

[@AlexisDelatolas]

Also take a look at the ALCI (Arch Linux Calamares Installer), very similar concept, made by Erik Dubois from ArcoLinux ;)

[@amitezuthachan5779]

Hello uncle I have subbed your channel looking forward for more videos :)

[@OldTechBloke]

Thanks and welcome

[@RHTORAS]

another arch installer is ZEN installer... we can install arch via archbang iso. When booting on iso do not select the archbang option but the oher one. Then zen installer comes and we can install arch. But all in all artix is the better arch.

[@jacanchaplais8083]

I installed Arch on a MacBook a week ago, and because of the Broadcom chip I had to make my own package repo on a USB drive from a Virtual Machine, so I could install the whole thing offline. Getting that right was so difficult, so it's a shame I didn't know about this haha.

[@everyhandletaken]

I used Anarchy last time & it was really good, but this looks super easy also, nice.

[@OldTechBloke]

It really is!

[@a9nh]

I installed EndeavourOS the other day, really like it.

[@Cons-Cat]

Ive been using it several months. Big fan!

[@shanek54]

Steve, are you still using your Logitech 930 webcam for the "talking heads" part of your vids? Cheers, and thanks for the run throughs of these Distros - it means I don't have to! :-)

[@OldTechBloke]

No Shane, I've moved my sony a5100 down to the cabin now

[@AutumnWind92]

I use Anarchy for easy arch install

[@eonshade6297]

Here is how to work around Calamares requiring a strong password. Navigate to /src/modules/users/users.conf then change these values allowWeakPasswordsDefault: false allowWeakPasswords: false to be true instead of false allowWeakPasswordsDefault: true allowWeakPasswords: true

[@shanek54]

And that should have been 920 Doh!

[@antoniostorcke]

Does anyone know of Fedora spin that uses the Calamares installer and focuses on Gnome ?

[@sharjeel_mazhar]

First❤😍😅 BTW you're the old dude who knows linux😅😎

[@billharding7048]

I need that hat!

[@MePipe82]

I would like to see a video how to migrate an existing Arch system into a different laptop with new ssd. I was looking for archwiki for it and have realized the top to bottom method with rsync would do it but i have some question what i could not sort it out. For example if the old system is Intel and the new one is AMD.(this is what is exactly going on in my case) That would make the process a bit tricky...At least for me. :) So a video tutorial about this would be appreciated. Thanks.

[@symbianflo]

You suppose to be a "tiler" and you install mate.... after all reviews about their highness WMs you went for mate ,... no way, what's next win10? :D :D PS: nice review thumb up here, BTW nice hat... :D

[@OldTechBloke]

My bad :-) I like to be unpredictable

[@PyroNexus22]

Can't even say "I use Arch btw" anymore. Not as much of a flex now.

[@gamerneversleep4200]

@Christopher Wiggins compiling most of the time take time

[@drishalballaney6590]

better build Linux from scratch and say "BTW I made my own distro"

[@gamerneversleep4200]

@@drishalballaney6590 NAH its only Arch thing

[@daveshouldaine2520]

i want to ask you a question, my apologies if it will be unrespectful. so, where are you from? your english is so cool, you speak like a british i'm not a native speaker

[@OldTechBloke]

I'm from the North West of England. However I've lived all over England so my accent is a bit of a mix

[@daveshouldaine2520]

@@OldTechBloke thank you for reply! now i know, that i am at least can recognize british accent 😅

[@grenvillephillips6998]

It worked fine for me and so I declare it idiot-proof!

[@alidh1393]

Best way to install arch? (what you think)

[@themroc8231]

Does any one of those installers propose a simple way to implement full disk encryption?

[@OldTechBloke]

Not as far as I’m aware

[@themroc8231]

Oh hi @@OldTechBloke. Thank you for answering. Well that's one area of improvement for all those, I guess. I like the idea of installers as frankly installing Arch is a tedious process, but as long as they don't implement that I can't switch to them.

[@stargazer3212]

Hey OTB great videos of late. Do not think it is just you who does not like Sourceforge. That has become a website to sending Malware to people who use windows computers. I know this due to my Windows XP usage many many years ago. I miss that system, but currently using Win10 pro ounce again due to compatibility reasons. I am thinking of an Arch system instead of PoP_OS which was my go to distro, on a new computer.

[@densyo1502]

I don't know if it's my internet but my installation is taking too long. It's been 3 hours and I'm still stuck at 60%. And I'm not sure if this still going to continue.

[@OldTechBloke]

Something is wrong with the latest iso by the sound of it. Did you do a checksum? If all else fails download and install endeavour

[@densyo1502]

@@OldTechBloke Thanks for your reply. I tried reinstalling it and it worked fine. Thank you so much!

[@drishalballaney6590]

15:01 fun fact: you don't need to be root to change the password for your user , just login to the user who you want to change the password of and type: passwd in the terminal also why not use paru instead of yay?

[@OldTechBloke]

yep force of habit I'm afraid, as you said that I knew it :-) As for paru, no need to change at the moment but I will try it

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

Nice installer... HaHaHa love the part "Eznix said..." Nice! :-) WAIT.!! Let me guess... Wait for it, Wait for it... Mate right? LMAO I hate the password thing too! I know it is a easy fix but why in the hell do that... :-( Looks Interesting for sure! But as installers go it is ok. That is why I use Ezarcher to install just plain Arch/Cinnamon and it works for me. I do like to try others from time to time... Lol Hay... I bought this Wifi card for my Dell's E6400 Laptops " Dual Band WiFi Card Wireless-AC 1200Mbps 7265AC mini PCI-E PC Card Bluetooth 4.2" and it is a Intel chip and Linux like them, they work great and I got bluetooth too. The bluetooth lights up the Modem light and not the Bluetooth light but hay it works great! I looked on the UK eBay site (mine off of the US eBay) and not listed but if you copy from "1200Mbps 7265AC mini PCI-E PC Card Bluetooth 4.2" search there are 2 listed in china... :( If your laptop uses a PCI-E slot it will work as it is a universal card.. look at the pics and if it is like your old one it will work... :-) It is the short one it is 26.53x29.69mm... There $12 US and abou 14 pounds for you. Not sure how long for you to get it from China. Maybe I could send one from the US faster... LOL Let me know and I will just send ya one. I bought several, if you think it will work... Well call it donating to the channel if you will... :-D BTW the Spectrwm/Peppermint box that the drive went south, is now a Spectrwm/EndeavourOS box. It sat for 4 day before I could get to it as I been working on 2 neighbors computers and my media box USB 3.0 quit so I had to put in a mobo. :-( (I keep a extra used one on hand just for this.) But I can watch my Star Trek TOS again in the bedroom ...Lol Thanks for the video OTB! LLAP

[@OldTechBloke]

Hey Bruce, thanks for the wifi card offer but I also have several of them for my thinkpads already. They were a bit of a pain to fit because Lenovo whitelists their bios so I had to find bios mods before I could install but they work great. Actually I ordered them from the US so spent more on postage than I paid for the cards :-)

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

@@OldTechBloke Ok glad to know. I had to update the Dell E6400 bios to so I know the pain... Lol Well thought I would offer. Mine were 2 states from me.. :-D Yep postage is bitch overseas no matter which way you go across. :-) Take care! LLAP

[@densyo1502]

4 hours now. Still at 60%. Help. :(

[@OldTechBloke]

If it isn’t working I’d suggest you contact the developer

[@thatguynar]

So this seems to be better than archfi script?

[@OldTechBloke]

Just another choice, both are good

[@tireseas]

It's a nice expedient for those who want to get up and running fast but no unoffical installer will ever be "pure" Arch as far as the Arch community is concerned. Prospective users need to fully understand that. That's not gatekeeping so much as attempting to keep everyone sane and on the same page when attempting to provide support. A by the wiki install means the user's gone through known steps and should be able to provide certain information upon request. With third party installers you can quite often end up in cases where the user is incapable of telling the people trying to help what they need to know or perhaps not realizing something else during the process is relevant. And it's unreasonable to expect volunteers to keep tabs on the install processes of projects they're not even using.

[@DgonixOrenburg]

Do you have Arch Linux?

[@OldTechBloke]

Yes

[@DgonixOrenburg]

@@OldTechBloke kzbin.info/www/bejne/hoLKqopnZd13btU

[@urbanduck9934]

Early?

[@OldTechBloke]

Yes started earlier today

[@zedrobot5864]

The whole point of arch is the installation process now arch is like Ubuntu 😏😔

[@OldTechBloke]

The whole point? Really?

[@mustafababdullah2485]

Actually i really think you're attitude sucks you have no idea why people use things, and you're a bit late discovering this. Like myself i have no way of using other than wifi and arch's newer install iso has some real issues staying connected because of our fcc laws about lower wifi signals.

[@trueriver1950]

The fact that your hardware and/or local legislation makes it hard to get Wi-Fi going sounds very frustrating. Although, I can empathise with your situation I still don't think it's fair to say that Steve's attitude sucks. He is documenting his own experience here: and that will be useful to many other people. He clearly warns early on about the issue: leaving you free to stop watching. The other thing he could have done is to not make the video at all, but to just do the install privately. That would be to deprive everyone who can make use of this info of a useful resource but would not have helped you one bit. In fact it would be worse for you than what he did, because he has saved you the bother of the download before you would have found the issue. Leaving and saying "this channel does not meet my needs" is no problem; but saying that a channel sucks because it happens to be directed at another set of needs is just dumping your frustrations on someone else.

[@OldTechBloke]

Thanks mate