(21 March 2024) Developers of Arch Linux believe that excessive user friendliness results in bloated buggy code and an unstable operating system. Accordingly, simple bug-free code results in a stable OS, but such an OS is not for mass consumption and requires skilled users who have the patience to read detailed technical manuals. I successfully installed Arch Linux version 2023.12.01 on two powerful modern desktop computers: Intel i9 Core, NVidia RTX 4070 Ti or NVidia RTX 3050, 32 GB of DDR5 RAM or 48 GB of DDR4 RAM, different motherboards (Gigabyte and ASUS), and on two older computers: a notebook manufactured in 2017 and a desktop manufactured in 2018. I successfully installed/reinstalled Arch approximately a dozen times at this point with various settings. Here is the procedure: [If you have updated BIOS (lately called UEFI) in your computer, then you need to roll it back to the factory-installed version because any Linux may not work well with the latest version of BIOS.] I am assuming that you booted from your installation medium (such as a USB drive) containing an Arch Linux ISO image, and your computer is connected to the Internet. First, execute this command: archinstall You will be presented with various options. I am listing the options with which I successfully installed Arch on my computers. Try the exact same configuration first; you can change it later when you install Arch at least once successfully. For options not mentioned below, select defaults or the first option in a list or whatever you like. Work through the list from the top down. - Mirrors: you must select a mirror region that is your country or at least the same time zone. The time zone of your IP address, the time zone of the mirror region that you selected, and the time zone that you will choose below should ALL match. Otherwise, you may end up with unsynchronized downloaded packages and failed authentication. Optional: if you want 100% problem-free downloads of software that is always validated successfully by the installer, see the footnote*. - Disk configuration: select "Use a best-effort default partition layout" and choose an empty disk that contains no partitions; if there are existing partitions, then archinstall may return error messages and abort the installation. If you are using an empty disk, but archinstall still has problems creating partitions, then convert the partition table of your disk from GPT to MBR (also known as msdos) before the installation. - file system: ext4 - separate home partition: no - disk encryption (optional); see the footnote** if you want encryption - bootloader: choose Grub - Swap: no - host name: keep the default - root password: create it - add a user with a password, give it sudo privileges - Profile => Type => Desktop: choose Cinnamon, XFCE, Awesome, and Qtile (these are the stablest desktop environments for Arch Linux, you can test them in this order if the installation is successful; when you use XFCE, you many need to install the xfce4-goodies package) Graphics driver: do not select the default; choose an appropriate driver for your GPU. See the footnote*** about NVidia video cards. Greeter: choose lightdm-gtk-greeter - audio: select pulse audio - kernels: select all four kernels; you will try each of them to see which one works with your computer - additional packages (list them without punctuation; only headers are necessary in my opinion): git nano vim firefox terminus-font timeshift linux-headers linux-lts-headers linux-zen-headers linux-hardened-headers - network configuration: choose Network Manager - time zone: you must choose a correct one as mentioned above - Automatic time sync (NTP): True - additional repositories: multilib - Unified kernel images: No When you are ready, choose "install." If you get an error such as problems with a mirror or "unknown trust", then run these commands: pacman -Syy pacman -S archlinux-keyring archinstall and try again. - after the installation finishes, do not chroot - simply execute "reboot" and remove the installation medium. If you have several operating systems installed on your computer, then go to UEFI (BIOS) and select (as the first boot option) an "UEFI OS" (this is Arch) or "arch" installed on the known hard drive (see the size in the name, if it has a long name). You will see the Grub menu of Arch Linux, quickly select "Advanced options for Arch Linux" or something like that. There, you can choose any one of the four kernels that you just installed plus four fall-back options (older kernels). I recommend starting with linux-lts; if it doesn't work with your computer, then try "linux" (also known as "Stable") and then the others, including fall-back options for each kernel. In total, you can test 8 kernels, and if you have an NVidia video card, then you can also test three types of installation of graphics drivers*** (8 x 3 = 24 combinations). If none of them let's you get to a log-in screen, then you may try an alternative installation approach: use the same options as above except leave the "Profile" field blank, and you will need to specify all the additional packages listed above (in particular git and vim); after the installation is finished, reboot, log in, and install several packages using the command line: sudo pacman -S cinnamon xfce4 awesome qtile lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter then enable lightdm using these commands: sudo systemctl enable lightdm sudo reboot If you have an NVidia video card released in the last 4 years (3rd or 4th generation), then you may need to install this package: https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/nvidia-open/ if you have problems with your display and/or video. The above approach was successful for me at first try. I have also installed Arch Linux manually many times. It is possible that you will have to install Arch Linux several times with archinstall at various settings. You can ask experienced Arch users a question here: bbs.archlinux.org (don't forget to mention that you are using archinstall) or use Arch Wiki or Google to find an answer. One of disadvantages of this simplified automated installation is that a whole hard drive will be occupied by Arch Linux (even if you specify smaller partitions, all pre-existing stuff will be deleted from the disk by archinstall). If you want to install Arch into some portion of a hard drive and to keep your pre-existing partitions there, then you need manual installation (without archinstall, see my easy tutorial here: http://formatting-kindle.info/arch_manual_installation.html ). Another potential disadvantage of archinstall is installation of an unsuitable driver when you have several kernels. Again, only manual installation will help in this case. Finally, keep in mind that Arch Linux involves rolling updates (things change often, in contrast to Debian), and it is possible that some package updates in a distant future will break something on your system, for example, a wireless modem may start acting up. For this reason, I recommended installing timeshift above, which you can use to revert to a functional state of your operating system (kind of like System Restore in Windows). After that, wait 1-2 months before updating again. Alternatively, instead of using timeshift, try a different Arch kernel (you have four) or a fallback version; it may still be problem-free. *In the Mirrors menu of archinstall, select "Add custom mirror," enter any name you like, and then enter the full web address of a good mirror. To find it, go to page https://archlinux.org/mirrors/status/#successful then sort the mirrors by country and choose 2-3 mirrors from your country (at least your time zone), preferably with a low mirror score and must be 100% synchronized. You need the full address, which is not shown in this table and can be found here: https://archlinux.org/mirrorlist/all/ Enter into archinstall the part that starts with http or https Next, select signature check option: required => TrustedOnly Add 2 or 3 mirrors. **First, try installing without encryption, and if you succeed, then you can delete everything from the disk (so that there are no partitions) and reinstall with encryption. Regarding other details: In the "encryption" option, set the password, choose file system ext4, and encryption method "Luks" (default). Next, you must select the "partition" option (while you are in the "encryption" menu) and select the partition (that will be created by archinstall) for encryption. If you do not select the default partition for encryption, then your disk won't be encrypted. If you try to mess with default partitions, then the encrypted installation is likely to fail. If you have a large disk (2 or 3 TB), archinstall will show you that it will create a 1 TB encrypted partition; this is a bug; in actuality, it will encrypt the whole drive, don't worry. Archinstall won't be erasing the whole drive, and therefore the creation of the encrypted disk will be quick (but you will lose everything you had on this disk). You can ignore the option "Use HSM to unlock encrypted drive." After you successfully install Arch Linux this way, do not unlock this partition from another OS on your computer because it may damage your Arch installation (you will experience temporary glitches). ***For the latest NVidia video cards, select "Nvidia open kernel module for newer GPUs, Turing+" this means that GeForce GTX 1660, GeForce RTX 2060, and newer models of NVidia video adapters can use this option. See the code names of NVidia video cards here: https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/CodeNames.html if installation with this option does not work well, then you can try reinstalling with the option "open-source nouveau," and if this fails, then you can try reinstalling with NVidia proprietary drivers. Of course you can try NVidia proprietary drivers first because it's the most reliable approach, but I don't see the point of getting involved with Linux if you continue using closed-source software anyway.