Archinstall 2.6 has been published, which has been included as an option in the ARCH Linux installation ISO images since April 2021. Archinstall is a console-based installer that can be used as an alternative to the manual mode of installation in the distribution. Meanwhile, a separate project is being developed for a graphical installation interface, but it has not been included in the Arch Linux installation images and hasn’t been updated for over three years.
Archinstall offers both dialogue (guided) and automated operating modes. In dialogue mode, users are presented with a series of questions that cover the basic settings and actions from the installation manual. In automated mode, users can deploy typical configurations using scripts. The installer also supports installation profiles such as “Desktop” for choosing a desktop environment (KDE, GNOME, or Awesome) and installing necessary packages, or the “WebServer” and “Database” profiles for selecting and installing web server and DBMS components.
The new version of Archinstall includes several changes:
- A transition to using separate sections /Boot and /Boot/ESP, implemented through XBOOTLDR (Extended Boot Loader) with Systemd-boot.
- Updated Pyparted interface and code for working with disk partitions.
- Added support for the limine bootloader.
- Simplified configuration file preservation, now allowing for automatic search of suitable directories and a menu to choose from.
- Added an option to install the hyprland composite server using Wayland.
- Enabled the use of custom mirrors.
- Cleaned up the menu.
- Added new auxiliary functions Info(), Warn(), and error() to simplify log message output.
- The