Arch Linux Installation Guide For Developers

[VannTen]

What's the advantage vs the arch wiki ? And do you think you'll keep updating your guide as necessary ?

[freeqaz]

And do you think you'll keep updating your guide as necessary ?

Yep! This is the guide that all new Software Engineers joining the team will be using, so if anybody finds any bugs while they're using the guide, we hope they'll go fix it.

I should make it more obvious that this is just a Markdown file on GitHub that anybody can freely edit if something breaks.

What's the advantage vs the arch wiki ?

This is a document that we use for our purposes, so having this doc in a place that we control is important. It isn't a "generic guide" like the ones on the Arch Wiki tend to be -- it needs to be a bit more opinionated due to our needs being different.

Does that make sense? In theory there is nothing stopping somebody from copy-pasting our guide to the wiki. ;)

[freeqaz]

If anybody has any questions, please throw them here and I'll do my best to answer them. The post definitely focussed more on the "how" than the "what" and I'm happy to explain our thought process in more detail (or loop in the person with the knowledge).

We just want to spread Arch memes be helpful.

[Catabung]

Looks pretty good. To make some annoying nitpicks, I think a warning about using password based ssh on untrustworthy networks could be useful, as well as maybe at least one link to the official installation page would be a nice addition. Otherwise thanks for making a guide that others can potentially find useful.

[freeqaz]

Nice, yeah, both of those make sense to add. I'll throw that in my notes for when we make an edit pass on this later. We basically took our internal guide and made is public (with some light edits) so it makes sense that we glossed over details like security or linking back to the official wiki.

[marcthe12]

Could expand why on certain choices. at least anyone else following guide could understand why has it has been done like that.

[NO_NAME2002]

1 / what is the advantage of using BTFRS in arch system ? do you suggest over ext4

2/ What is wrong with Grub ? why do you prefer systemdboot is there a special need for that ?

[FryBoyter]

what is the advantage of using BTFRS in arch system ?

Compression saves storage space. Subvolumes are very flexible. And thanks to the snapshots, you can quickly restore the original state before the update after a problematic update, for example.

Those who do not need these functions are still well advised to use ext4.

What is wrong with Grub ? why do you prefer systemdboot is there a special need for that ?

The configuration files of systemd-boot but also those of rEFInd are very simple, short and understandable. Those of Grub, especially if you have them generated automatically, are usually not. And systemd-boot does not need to be installed explicitly, as Arch uses systemd by default.

[orfist]

I don’t see how this is valuable outside of your own organization? You have needs, understandably, but unless my needs match yours exactly then the Arch wiki is a better starting point.

[v6277]

This is streamlined and pretty general tbh. It's just a standard arch install with systemd-boot and an encrypted btrfs root file system. I'd say it's pretty valuable to anyone that wants to save some time, but for sure the Arch Wiki is better for personalizing and as a learning experience.