Installing Arch Linux: a companion to the Arch Wiki

level:Intermediate verified:Jun 2026

ℹ️ How to read this guide — keep it open next to the Arch Wiki installation guide. It's hands-on from part 1, and each part marks whether you're in the live ISO, the chroot, or the booted system.

This is a four-part, hands-on guide to installing Arch Linux on a real machine: deciding whether Arch is for you, booting the install medium, partitioning a disk, installing and configuring the base system, and finishing on a usable desktop with drivers and software. It is the doing half of a pair — the Getting started with Linux series is the understanding half. If you have never used Linux, start there first; this guide assumes you already know what a kernel, a distribution, and a desktop environment are.

Read it alongside the wiki, not instead of it

One thing up front, because it shapes how you should use this guide. The Arch Wiki Installation guide is the canonical, authoritative source, and it is kept current against Arch's rolling release. This companion does not replace it and should never be trusted over it. What it adds is the part the wiki deliberately leaves out: the why behind each step, the "what is this thing" explanations a newcomer needs, and an opinionated set of defaults so you are not paralysed by every fork in the road.

So keep the official guide open in a second tab. Treat this series as a knowledgeable friend reading the wiki over your shoulder and explaining as you go.

ℹ️ Note — When the two ever disagree, the wiki is right — it is newer than this page by definition.

ℹ️ Note — Last verified against the Arch Wiki: June 2026. Install steps are version-sensitive — package names, recommended bootloaders, and default tooling change. If a command here differs from the current wiki, follow the wiki.

Who this is for

You should be comfortable with the idea of typing commands and editing text files, and willing to read documentation rather than expecting a wizard. You do not need prior Arch experience. You do need a machine (or a virtual machine) you can afford to wipe, and a backup of anything on it you cannot lose.

⚠️ Warning — Installing wipes the target disk. Back up anything you cannot lose first, and do your first run-through inside a virtual machine — it is genuinely the safest way to learn the flow before you commit real hardware.

The reading order

Before the parts, here is the whole install as one flow, so you can see where each part sits and what it accomplishes. Every box is a thing you will actually do; the parts below just expand each one with the why and the exact commands.

flowchart TD
    A["Make a bootable USB"] --> B["Boot the Arch ISO"]
    B --> C["Get online + partition the disk"]
    C --> D["Format and mount partitions"]
    D --> E["pacstrap the base system"]
    E --> F["Configure + install bootloader"]
    F --> G["Reboot into the new system"]
    G --> H["Drivers + desktop environment"]

From a blank disk to a working machine — part 1 covers the first boxes, part 2 the base system and reboot, part 3 the desktop.

The very first box — making a bootable USB — is the one step you perform on your current machine before anything Arch-specific begins, so it differs by what you are running today. os:windows Rufus or Ventoy. os:macos balenaEtcher or dd from the terminal. os:linux dd or balenaEtcher. Part 1 walks through this in detail and verifies the download first; everything after it happens inside the Arch live environment and is the same regardless of where you started.

Read these in order; each builds on the last, and the navigation at the bottom of every page offers previous and next.

1. Why Arch Linux — the philosophy, the rolling release, pacman, the AUR, and an honest "who it's not for" before you commit an evening.
2. Installing Arch Linux, part 1: boot and disks — making a bootable medium, booting it, getting online, and partitioning and formatting the drive.
3. Installing Arch Linux, part 2: base system and first boot — pacstrap, the chroot, system configuration, users, and a bootloader, ending on a first reboot.
4. Installing Arch Linux, part 3: desktop, drivers, and the AUR — graphics drivers, a desktop environment, audio, an AUR helper, and ongoing maintenance.

A short close

By the end you will have a machine you assembled yourself, where nothing is a mystery because you put every piece there by hand — which is the whole reason to install Arch this way rather than click through a friendlier distribution. Start with why Arch Linux, keep the wiki open beside you, and take it one part at a time. New to Linux entirely? Back up to Getting started with Linux first.