The topic Archinstall 4.0 finally makes installing Arch Linux bearable for normal people is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
Have you ever had to pull up a YouTube tutorial on your phone on how to install your OS? If not, then I’d recommend giving installing Arch Linux without tools a try. The process is mostly manual, meaning you have to build your user accounts, time settings, and system partitions by hand. It teaches you a lot about how operating systems work, but it definitely makes you work for your OS.
Fortunately, for people who’d rather skip that, there’s Archinstall. It comes with Arch Linux and makes setting up the distro a lot easier than going through the command line. If you’re interested, you’ll be pleased to know that Archinstall just released version 4.0, and it aims to make the process even less painful than it normally is.
As reported by Linuxiac, Archinstall 4.0 is here to make installing the OS a lot easier. It was arguably already one of the easier ways to install vanilla Arch on your PC, but the developers are seemingly always aiming to make it easier if possible:
We (thanks to major work by @svartkanin) have swapped from curses to textual. This enables us to (hopefully) meet modern expectations in the terminal and look better in the process, as well as make it easier to maintain a lot of the menu stuff. Please be patient as we’re transitioning to this new look and feel, as always with change — feedback is welcome, especially related to accessibility features.
Despite this already being a pretty big deal, Archinstall 4.0 comes with a ton of additional tweaks and fixes. For instance, Archinstall includes instructions for booting the Arch Linux ISO in a VM if you want to test it before installing. A problem with mounting Btrfs partitions without mountpoints has been fixed, and firewalld is now available as a firewall option. Plus, the team has been hard at work translating the tool to various languages to make installation even easier.
This is a good place to start if you’re new to the platform.