Installation
By default the installer partitions and wipes the entire target disk. It can also install into existing free space instead, for dual-boot alongside another OS.
There are two ways to reach the installer, and both end up in the same TUI:
- The sobarch ISO, the primary route. It boots straight into the installer, and is the only route that works on T2 Macs. See Prebuilt ISO for downloading, verifying, and writing it to a USB drive.
- A stock Arch ISO plus one command, described below. It always fetches the newest installer from the repository.
From the sobarch ISO
Write the latest release to a USB drive and boot it. The first console (tty1) launches the installer on its own, so there is nothing to type. If the machine is offline, the installer adds a Network step; see Network Step.
From the official Arch ISO
If you would rather start from a stock image, boot the official Arch Linux ISO, connect to the network (iwctl for Wi-Fi; wired works out of the box), then run:
curl -fsSL http://installsobarch.antoinepoulin.com | bashbootstrap.sh fetches a checkout of the repository into a temp directory and launches installer/tui/__main__.py, nothing else: no separate hosting and nothing installed on top of the stock ISO. Any arguments after bash -s -- are passed through to the installer, which is how an unattended install is started.
Either way the install needs a network connection: the base system's packages are downloaded and its vendored AUR packages are built during the install.
If you would rather not type Wi-Fi commands, start the installer anyway: when the machine has no connectivity, a Network step is added to the installer itself. See Network Step.
The installer
Both UEFI and BIOS machines are supported; the title bar shows which mode the installer detected (and dry-run when that flag is set). The TUI is a single screen: a list of steps on the left (Disk, Account, Locale, Options, Software, Install, plus Network first when the machine is offline) and the selected step's form on the right. Fill in each step in any order, then use the Install step to review a summary and start the install. Starting it asks you to type the target disk's name to confirm, since it is destructive. See Disk & Account Setup for every step. On an Intel Mac with a T2 chip, see T2 Macs first.
The install itself hands off to archinstall and then runs sobarch's own post-install steps; see What the Install Does. On success you get Reboot now and Quit choices; the machine does not reboot on its own. On failure the installer points at the full install log rather than hiding it behind a branded screen. The log appears in the same pane as the steps. Look for install.log in /root/sobarch-install/ (the same directory the generated archinstall config is saved to).
After the reboot, see First Boot for what finishes setting up in the background.