How to install Arch Linux

Arch isn't scary or that hard. I'll walk you through the install from start to finish using the Cinnamon Desktop as an example.
Patreon support : / doriandotslash
BigDaddyLinux : / @bigdaddylinux
And BigDaddyLinux website : bigdaddylinux.com/
Get Arch Linux : www.archlinux.org/
Music by MrGamer (@AndreasRohdin): / gamermachine
Is this a review or a how to? I don't know, but I'm reviewing the install process, so, ?
My 2 mistakes that I forgot about are completely free of charge and can be used entirely for your entertainment.
I realize you can do way more steps to accomplish more things, and that things get much more complex if using encryption etc... But I'm just keeping it simple here :)

[@Doriandotslash]

IMPORTANT! There have been recent changes to how Arch is installed. The pacstrap command in this video no longer installs things like the kernel or nano using the base group. The base group has now been changed to a metapackage, so refer to the Arch Installation Guide wiki since it has been updated to include the new method of using pacstrap (pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware). There has also been mention of other things missing that need to be installed, like mkinitcpio... I'll be working on a update to this so I can post a new video so don't forget to subscribe!

[@Iknowrealtv]

Did you ever update this video.

[@bobbypaycheque]

Great to see you uploading again man, it's been a while. Great tutorial on basic Arch install, I may have to conquer my fears and try it!

[@Doriandotslash]

Hey Bobby! Yeah long time not see :) I hope you give it a shot, and share your experience on how it went! Cheers man!

[@AtomToast]

Hey, glad to see a new upload from you :D Your tutorials really gave me a great start into linux a few months ago and still prove very useful to me

[@Doriandotslash]

That's really awesome to hear and I'm glad you're sticking with the Linux world :) Thanks a lot for the comment!

[@artistic_prash]

Thank you, Dorian! My first Arch install was successful because of your video. I must mention that I watched a few videos before yours and couldn't make sense of what is happening. The purpose of my install was to learn and I learned a lot from you (the way you have explained Things) Thanks Once again. Cheers!🙌✌️

[@Doriandotslash]

That's awesome to hear! Congrats on getting it installed and I'm glad the video helped!

[@PizzaLovingNerd]

The legend is back! He's alive!

[@Doriandotslash]

Thanks Pizza :) I never really left, just got busy for a while :)

[@igorthelight]

He lives... again!

[@hotroof]

Great tutorial, Dorian! I've installed Arch a dozen or so times and never once thought to install all of my other software with pacstrap. Nice tip. Thank you, sir. Hope the wife, kids and yourself are doing well. Dash on!

[@Doriandotslash]

Thanks Karl! I figured, if it's installing the base, why not everything else? Works well :) And yes we're all doing great, thanks, and I hope you're doing well also! Cheers brother.

[@comp7on940]

Welcome back. Missed ya vids :)

[@Doriandotslash]

Thanks! Good to be back ;)

[@andril]

so good to see you got new content

[@Doriandotslash]

Thank you Chuck! Hope to keep regular ;)

[@kuldeepsharma7499]

I already installed but still I like to watch it's installation.

[@Vanadain]

for partitioning GPT UEFI please use gdisk. Parted is not setting up efi partition correctly now (at least for me and many other people of internet).

[@Keram1987]

I recently found your channel, good stuff, I am maybe no bloody linux beginner anymore but I still encounter new stuff everyday and I certainly would not be able to explain and guide through everything as you do. Very enjoyable to watch. :) I used Archbang before and afterwards I switched to Manjaro i3wm, so definitely not afraid of Arch anymore, I would be more afraid of Gentoo ;) especially stage 1.

[@Doriandotslash]

Thanks and I hope you enjoy the content! I've been using Manjaro for quite a while and I really enjoy it. Cheers!

[@thebeezkneez2557]

I have used Manjaro way longer than I have used any distro. Almost 8 months consistently. I should definitely install arch on my secondary desktop computer. I would install it on my Panasonic toughbook CF-29 but they ended 32bit support😠. Oh well, I guess I will have to find another moderately hard distro to install on it.

[@ronnierush9379]

Nicely talked through, great thanks :-)

[@Doriandotslash]

Thanks!

[@catmandenny]

I tried an Arch install the other day but it would not allow my partitioning because those areas were populated by my old operating system. After viewing this video I realize I needed to delete the original partitions first. I think I'll give it another go. I am so glad this video showed up in my list of suggestions.

[@robertcrawford4009]

Great video. I use Arcolinuxd with xfce desktop. Runs great

[@Doriandotslash]

Thanks Robert! I am also an Xfce fan 😁

[@emjaycee]

I have to say that this was probably the most logical install of Arch that I've looked at so far. That's not to say that I am currently (or may ever be lol) up to doing a pure Arch install. The scarier part for me, as a relative newbie, is that people do leave bits out and tend to do their own thing. Good if you know how (or have the know-how lol) but not so simple if you are relatively new. I have seen someone install Arch using the Zen installer (?) and this seemed a lot easier way of doing things. That would probably be my limit currently. That or just install Manjaro or Salient, both of which I can highly recommend if 'Arch based' is good enough for you. Thanks for that, Dorian, a very enlightening video.

[@Doriandotslash]

Thanks very much for the great comment! The guide is a lot to take in, so I want to show that you can really just skim through and do the important parts, and block out all the optional stuff that just causes stress lol After doing it once or twice it really makes it feel so much easier, trust me :)

[@hope-ag]

@@Doriandotslash Yh, true. After using linux for 6 months, I decided to take the plunge into Arch. Did 3 or 4 installs within one week to finally get it working. First two installs were basically to figure things out, but afterwards, I could do the install more proficiently, fully tuning the system to my liking. It truly gets easier with time. :D

[@TheLotw]

Good video, finally installed Arch. I use Arch BTW....

[@johanb.7869]

You're a brave man Dorian;) And wellcome back. I've missed your voice. Did not do Arch. To difficult. Peppermint is so much easier and quicker to install.

[@Doriandotslash]

Hey Johan! Thanks so much :) Once you've done Arch a couple times you realize how easy it is. It's just more manual work. Good to be back and nice to see a familiar name :)

[@pctlc]

Great video Dorian, Thanks!!

[@Doriandotslash]

Thanks Colin! Cheers :)

[@leviticus8930]

I thought I was seeing things. Welcome back.

[@Doriandotslash]

Thanks very much!

[@mariabutler3356]

Nice video! Thanks for that. I'm currently enjoying Arch with Gnome, but I would really like to add KDE so I have 2 desktop environments to choose from before logging in (in the form of a drop down). Could you tell me how to do that?

[@TJWolf]

Nice Thanks for the video, Dorian. Have you ever used openbox, tiling window managers. there lightweight

[@Doriandotslash]

Hey TJ! Yes I have used openbox quite a bit. But other tiling managers like i3 just aren't for me. I always forget my key bindings ;)

[@AnzanHoshinRoshi]

Thank you, Dorian.

[@cjaydip]

Thanks!!! It's a great video. Is it possible to install Arch first setting up the wifi and then installing it using wifi? I don't have ethernet cable. I can tether my mobile phone to download the wifi driver, but not during the whole installation.

[@Doriandotslash]

Yes, the install ISO will connect to WiFi. Just make sure after you pacstrap and before you finish, you install everything you need for your WiFi to work. Refer to the Wiki to be sure.

[@kindwaterflow]

I tried to follow your instructions but add xfce instead of cinnamon but got way in over my head and decided to copy your method line by line and it worked great! I noticed one thing that was different from the Wiki in the hostname file and was wondering if it would have an effect on the line: 127.0.1.1 myhostname.localdomain myhostname instead of "localdomain" you put "localhost", would that effect you when you try to run servers?

[@Doriandotslash]

Glad it worked out in the end! Just keep playing with it and try things out. Virtual machines are great for this since you can do snapshots, experiment, and rollback if you messed things up too bad. As for the localdomain, yes you're right! I didn't catch that, but yes there MIGHT be some server services that rely on localdomain, but most will use localhost.... Thanks for the comment!

[@hassantofaili8772]

Welcome back!

[@Doriandotslash]

Thank you very much :)

[@jimmyrancourt8062]

always the same error when I install grub : SQUASHFS error: unable to read fragment and read page, block +boot/efi does not look like an EFI partition. idea? thanks

[@Kakihara73]

Thanks Dorian 👍

[@SWRadioConcepts]

At 16:15 I think you mean, "you're going to want netctl" not "wifi-menu, which also requires dialog." There is no such package as "wifi-menu." "dialog" is the app that is invoked with the command "wifi-menu" which itself configures/operates the netctl network manager. I found wpa-supplicant to be kind of dodgy (I think that's the problem), and prefer iwd.service and dhcpcd, and optionally, apparently, networkmanager-iwd (AUR). Personally, I now add iwd and dhcpcd to my pacstrap install.

[@garcez9472]

I tried to install a few days ago, but I doesn't know how to include it on my BIOS (The option to boot it, because I normally use Linux with Windows). Can you help me pls? ;-;

[@michaelmcshane6395]

Great tutorial. Long time Linux and Debian user but true enough, arch is different. I always try to do it on a new device in a vm first and arch is kicking my butt. I’ve tried refind is my boot mgr and it hangs. I try grub and it dumps me to the grub> prompt. Is there a good resource for vmware 15 folks that works with efi? Again, great video and I actually liked when things didn’t work so I could see your processes.to fix. Thanks!

[@Doriandotslash]

Not sure, I haven’t used VMware very much. But I’m glad you enjoyed the video!

[@timeecho1]

So Ive long since installed Arch. But your window showing the installation web page is deceiving how could you possibly do this while installing????And how do you view the Installation page without another machine???How would we watch this video during an install????

[@Doriandotslash]

Well I have a video capture device to record the screen of another computer and I can overlay the webpage from the computer that is doing the recording. As for how to view the documentation while installing, you can use your phone or print it.

[@TheMack]

Nice video! Not much harder than doing a cold-start in an F-16 fighter jet! =)

[@Doriandotslash]

Too easy! 😉

[@dorei943]

Personally I just want to install fast, whether it's pretty or not. I just set locale and use systemd boot ending up with an install that takes less than 8 minutes XD... Then I just get an aur manager like yay and install a desktop environment. After a reboot I spend an hour setting things up in a DE instead of doing it all in a tty. Feels a lot better. uwu edit: I make a user before rebooting.

[@Doriandotslash]

Yes there’s many ways to do it, which makes it awesome

[@prasunkumar341]

The legend is back..

[@Doriandotslash]

Thanks so much! :)

[@meetgajjar5494]

Can I delete windows and install arch Linux permanently using this video ?

[@pangklee1]

I always see photoshop on your lower panel, would you mind doing a tutorial on getting photoshop/Lightroom running on Linux?

[@Doriandotslash]

Yes it’s in my plans, I’ve just been pretty busy lately.

[@rem9890]

do you have a link for your wallpaper?

[@Doriandotslash]

Here : www.deviantart.com/joeljohnston/art/Low-Poly-Mountains-Cinema-4D-456552954

[@mycal51]

after i rebooted it went into the grub menu any help gnu grub ver 2.04

[@Doriandotslash]

A step must have been missed. You can check my recovery video on how to fix it kzbin.info/www/bejne/j3e9qqxqrcqZl6s

[@lemler3337]

19:23 just a note for auto daylight saving in DE's like Xfce you want to do "timedatectl set-ntp true" this will/should correct your time if it is wrong for whatever reason

[@Doriandotslash]

I did do it at the beginning. Are you supposed to do it again from within the install afterwards?

[@lemler3337]

​@@Doriandotslash my apologies, I missed that part of your install guide. I just saw 19:23 and it brought back memories having that problem with time with Xfce.

[@Doriandotslash]

@@lemler3337 Ah yeah no problem! I always welcome any errors from the ones that may know better lol Cheers!

[@timeecho1]

The long and short of it is Arch is a more advanced Distro. For those who are intimidated by the command line and dont want to use it Arch really isnt for you. In order to install Vanilla Arch you need to read the installation instructions by some other means than the the machine youre installing on., Cell Phone, another machine or printed out paper. You'd need to watch this video on another machine as well. One thing that should be stressed is you need to be precise with the command line.

[@Doriandotslash]

This was not only a how to, but also a demo of how little work is actually involved it installing it.

[@lostinthefogofwar5774]

I tried to install cozy-audiobook on Manjaro, it says I require missing dependencies, I have no idea how to install them. Anyone want to help out a noob?

[@Doriandotslash]

Installed fine in my Manjaro install. I used pamac with the AUR enabled. No problems here. Screen : pasteboard.co/Io6Jo6P.png

[@lostinthefogofwar5774]

@@Doriandotslash Thank you, I didn't have AUR enabled and was trying to do in the terminal... all good now :)

[@MarioPerez-yi2tw]

How do you install Manjaro with manual patitioning? Please.

[@hope-ag]

The installer has the option for manual partitioning during the disk selection step. Or you could install GParted in the live graphical environment for the partitioning and mount them during installation.

[@marcinkw.858]

"Arch isn't scary or that hard" except you want to install it with 2 graphic cards ;)

[@vsadygv5131]

I seem to face a recurring issue, once i get into arch-chroot system I loose my nano and other base packages that should be there am i messing up a step?? do i skip something? it continues to occur no matter how many tires i go at it could someone help

[@Doriandotslash]

Well, once you chroot into the system, you’re now USING your installation. So if you want nano, you can install it with ‘sudo pacman -S nano’

[@vsadygv5131]

@@Doriandotslash The issue is tho its not only nano that im loosing, im loosing basically all the features that should be with it from looking around including but not limited too nano, mkinitcpio, and dhcpcd in which i have to pacman all of these but from everywhere i look no one seems to face this issue,

[@Doriandotslash]

@@vsadygv5131 So there were some changes last week to how Arch packages things. The group 'base' is now a metapackage and includes less packages than before. It is missing things like nano, vi, usbutils etc... I'm looking into it, but if you install nano, grub, mkinitcpio, you SHOULD be ok... I'll be looking into posting an update on changes, and I'll be posting a pinned comment on this video on new changes. For example, now when you use pacstrap, you must use 'pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware' because base doesn't even include the kernel anymore...

[@vsadygv5131]

@@Doriandotslash thats a lot of updates for a short time span, thanks for the information! I will attempt this updates

[@gluester55]

A bit ago, I put Fedora KDE on a laptop.. Should I try Arch?

[@Doriandotslash]

Why not? You could always try it in a virtual machine first.

[@gluester55]

@@Doriandotslash Thanks.

[@namorcaz]

Hallelujah!

[@shorthornstudios]

Welcome back. Nice video

[@Doriandotslash]

Hey thanks man! Nice to see familiar names :)

[@gluester55]

Holly crap! You... You mad man. You aren't even scared! Ha!

[@Doriandotslash]

:D

[@m3oferm3ofer36]

the problem is not the installation the problem is in the after installation how can you fix manually things what if wifi dont work you have nvidia drivers etc

[@Doriandotslash]

Yes, if you have troublesome hardware that isn't well supported, them you can run into issues. Both machines I installed on (A desktop and a laptop) has no issues with drivers, and my WiFi and Nvidia Optimus GPU worked easily.

[@timeecho1]

I've been using Arch for many years and I've solved the most complex problems with a simple Google search. But most things are very well covered in the Arch forums and especially the wiki wiki.archlinux.org/

[@billfawcett3691]

You go away for seven months and then expect us to carry on as if nothing happened? O.K. then ;-) Hope you and your family are all well and I look forward to more of your content.

[@Doriandotslash]

Haha all is well, thanks Bill! Babies to take a lot of your time away 😉 cheers!

[@andrewgadd3161]

Did he do "locale-gen"?

[@Doriandotslash]

No you're correct, I did skip it! After doing the install several times I'm surprised I passed over it lol Hopefully there's more people like you that actually paid attention ;) Cheers!

[@plazmax]

hello dorian we miss u

[@Doriandotslash]

Thank you :)

[@brandonphilander661]

How is gaming on Arch?

[@Doriandotslash]

Probably as good as on Manjaro which is awesome. I never gamed on that install in the video because it's a 10-year old PC lol

[@d1sc1ple]

Oh yeah. You install that Arch.

[@Doriandotslash]

Haha yeah little late for the challenge but I gotta catch up

[@daveprice9128]

no mirror found

[@netherlabgames7511]

Only BIOS... works for me! I also want to install it on an old ass laptop

[@pooounderscoreman]

This video was scarier than the Japanese 'The Grudge' haha

[@Doriandotslash]

Even scarier than the feeling you're getting right now that someone is behind you as you're reading this? Go ahead, turn around and see....

[@pooounderscoreman]

@@Doriandotslash AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! IT'S THE UEFI BOOGIEMAN COMING TO GET MY INSTALLATION

[@adamofbremen-krubally4951]

Hi Dorian i've really been enjoying your videos and learning a lot, too. I was attracted to the minimal installation based on Ubuntu and Openbox and worked through your example. On a 32-bit Ubuntu 16. The resulting RAM requirement was about 120MB at idle. I thought that was pretty good, until I found this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/faDNg4F_oc6NpMU This is a minimal Arch Lxde 32-bit install with much lower RAM requirements. Your comments would be appreciated on the difference between the two minimal installs (Ubuntu Openbox and Arch Linux Lxde) and what the advantages / drawbacks might be of the two approaches. In particular, I also need to get a Thinkpad 240x up and going in under 192mb, like the video in the link. Once again, great work and deserves to be much higher views (and surely will one day).

[@Doriandotslash]

Thanks for the comment! To be honest, any DE really comes down to personal preference on which one feels right for you. Your best bet it to run both in virtual machines for a while and then see which one you use most often. Then you’ll have your answer 😉

[@shifureisaikyou2055]

Its not hard linux newb like me could do it, but as helpfull as arch wiki is, the community especially the irc ones are d-bags. they could populate it with bots that link arch wiki pages and you would have a better time. Unfortunatly the arch wiki is not dynamic if you want something not common... gud luck buddy be prepared to dig for hours to piece the informtion together. I'm sure a person with technical understanding could have answered my questions in minutes but no such luck for me

[@Doriandotslash]

Yes sometimes communities can be harsh. And the wikis can be massive and confusing. That’s why I made this video 😁

[@daveprice9128]

i failed at reflector

[@Doriandotslash]

Strange. Are you certain you have an internet connection?

[@daveprice9128]

@@Doriandotslash yes , I have fiber internet and it's reliable. I was really guessing what went wrong. I tried installing Arch 3 times in a VM and all three times i would end up in the minimal grub terminal.

[@daveprice9128]

I'm just taking a break.

[@Doriandotslash]

@@daveprice9128 Hmm, well then that's a clue that the boot loader part isn't working properly. Make sure you don't install as UEFI in a VM.

[@daveprice9128]

@@Doriandotslash I figured it out...basically the wiki got changed and i did not know. All Is good now i got basic arch installed. It was easy once you knew that the kernel does not come with the base install. or a text editor..nothing pacman -S can't fix i always do mbr cause im used to it

[@SWRadioConcepts]

cf disk, what? I have been doing it by command line all this time. and wifi-menu is for noobs. I scan for APs by command-line like God intended.

[@Doriandotslash]

It’s an intro video for first time installers man

[@SWRadioConcepts]

@@Doriandotslash I'm kidding of course. In all seriousness though Arch probably isn't for someone new linux, unless they really want to get immersed right from the start.

[@SWRadioConcepts]

@@Doriandotslash Just tried CF disk on a new arch install. I wonder why the official Arch installation guide doesn't mention this wonderful application? (maybe I missed it?) By the way, I learned if you are installing on system with an existing Windows installation you want to keep, you definitely want to use Windows/Administrative Tools/Disk management to resize (shrink) that partition first!

[@fliptoynk]

"no efi" Challenge level down... Just kidding. Anyways, I hope you make a video about installing wine on arch cus pacman's pretty clueless with it. And how to improve surf browser cus that's the only web browser I'm lucky installing it smh EDIT: "no wifi" another challenge level down hahaha! Arch was harder to install becoz them providers didn't included wpa supplicant(though it was included in networkmanager), dialog, especially actiond along pacstrap so I had a bunch of headache installing my arch with just a wifi.

[@Doriandotslash]

Haha yeah maybe one day I'll be able to upgrade my test rig to have UEFI. I installed wine the easy way: By installing PlayOnLinux. I prefer POL because it sets everything up for you. I haven't manually configure Wine in a while... WiFi can be a pain if your card isn't supported OOTB... Luckily for me, when I installed it on my laptop (Intel WiFi) it worked straight away just using wifi-menu so it was pretty easy. I might try to find out of one of my laptops needs extra things and then show how to do it in the future. Cheers!

[@jphanson]

Surf is pretty barebones, so you’ll have to apply some patches to make it usable. Why is surf the only browser you can install?

[@fliptoynk]

@@jphanson I dunno! I tried firefox chrome opera nada. They all stop halfway during downloads. Turns out some of their dependencies are nowhere to be found. Arch linux repo men are notorious for deleting old versions when the new ones come out! I've read their reason when they deleted qt4. And my soundwire server needs it! So many headaches...

[@fliptoynk]

@Mubashir Haroon did that since day 1, i put all the mirrors that're near philippines like hk, taiwan, and china before i did pacstrap. I even added -Syy but tough luck.... Well... Maybe it's just my network it's kinda stormy in'ere for days and I only have this old phone for a hotspot haha

[@fliptoynk]

@Mubashir Haroon did what you taught me, I'm pretty sure there's more available for me now eventhough they're just 5 mirrors. My last problem now would be the wine... I'm gonna download that playonlinux next time after my prepaid surf combo expires :D Wine's down even after I enabled multilib which just upgraded my linux fw. My os is getting bloated like my pre-installed ubuntu. And my atomic pi's emmc is just 16gb! smh

[@NoEgg4u]

This distribution is not for beginners. Anyone that is not familiar with Linux / UNIX will be turned off by this. This is why Windows is so popular, as it is basically turn-key. Admittedly, Arch Linux is fantastic, but only if you are both tech savoy and are familiar with the many commands (and their options), in order to get it all to work. Sure, the folks that tune in to this channel (and similar channels) eat this up. But for the general population? If this would be their first experience with Linux, they would never consider Linux, any distribution, again. Again, it is a great OS. But its appeal to the overall public is extremely limited.

[@Doriandotslash]

I agree that it shouldn't be the first distro you try, unless you really want to head straight into the deep end of learning linux! For novice Linux users it is a great learning experience which can be frustrating if you get lost. The Wiki has a LOT of options, so my goal here was to keep it as simple as possible to get to a working desktop.

[@utsavpoudyal4421]

N00Bz shudnt use Arch, goto Manjaro

[@Doriandotslash]

That is indeed an option, for everyone. I've been using Manjaro for a long time and I recommended it.

[@timeecho1]

@@Doriandotslash You can also install ArchBang all desktops are a command line away. People need only be willing to read the wiki.

[@gluester55]

@@timeecho1 *quietly mumbles, ARCHBANG ARCHBANG! I need this.*

[@PinkAmadeus]

If it takes over 30 minutes, it ain't easy. Manjaro is much easier, and with the deepin desktop, it's almost lovely.

[@Doriandotslash]

I’ve used Manjaro for a long time, but installing Arch was fun and rewarding to finish.

[@PinkAmadeus]

@@Doriandotslash I believe you, but I refuse to even try. The choice is too great to waste time, for me, at least.

[@lostinthefogofwar5774]

That was scary as hell, not something I'm ready for

[@Doriandotslash]

It seems like a lot, but it's really not. Once you've done it once or twice you'll feel much better about!

[@hope-ag]

Give it a try. Once you've had Arch, you'll never go back :)

[@eddieoconnor4466]

Yeah?....well Arch scares me more than that clown from "IT"!......all those commands and packages.....LoL! No desktop...no icons.....like WTH!!??.....CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TURN ON ALL THE LIGHTS!?.....LOL!!!

[@Doriandotslash]

Lol nice 😎

[@alsolo1]

...its easy, 40 min video! lol

[@Doriandotslash]

Only because I’m explaining everything. Just running through can take only 10 minutes.