Reinstalling Arch Linux

I have been using Linux systems for some time, and you can see why in one of my previous posts - it generally feels better to use. At least this is the case when I don't need to use my NVIDIA graphics card, and I don't really bother using it most of the time.

But Arch Linux is also an operating system. As long as it is an operating system, you will have the chance to make it work poorly. In my previous set up, I somehow fulfilled my obsession to fill it with whatever that I need and feel like having - until the point that it is a little too packed. A service here, a service there, something else here, something else there, in no time the entire thing is already a Christmas tree. How to make it worse? Use a laptop with only 4GB RAM and no SSD. When it runs out of RAM, things are horrible. You won't like it. If you need an image in your mind, go and imagine the moments when Task Manager is not responding.

Source: Know your meme

Of course, I can fix it by manually uninstalling things that I can uninstall, but that just takes a long time and I will probably have to deal with a bunch of dependency issues. If you don't know what is a dependency issue, imagine something like this: you want tuna on pizza, but the restaurant only gives tuna AND pineapple on pizza, and you cannot remove either one of them. In short, it's something you won't want to deal with.

So I'll just go on with the simplest method - reinstalling it. It also gives me another chance to set a smaller partition Arch, and take out some space to be used as a shared storage partition. Sometimes it is dangerous to directly modify Windows' files on Linux - and it is impossible to do it the other way round - because it's 2018 and Windows still refuses to read EXT4 file systems.

Alright, done setting up the partitions on Windows (one EXT4 partition for Arch, another 250GB exFAT partition as the shared storage). I've prepared a bootable USB containing the Arch installer with Rufus and is ready to go.

You ask why I decided to set up the partitions here instead of on Linux? Because it is less tricky to set up partitions using a GUI. Plus, there are some nice little tools like MiniTool Partition Manager to make life easier. I am a Linux person but like really, I don't want to risk anything. This hard disk is a little too important to be accidentally formatted (don't get me wrong, it's just 10GB of osu! beatmaps, nothing special), and I am that kind of guy that does stuff like these. Not to mention it is super late when I finally decided to sit down and do the installation :P

Alright, let's go.

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Arch is one of the rare Linux distributions that does not give a graphical user interface out of the box in this year. So, the entire installation is like booting up into a text-based interface, entering commands according to the guide, and make sure that nothing goes wrong. It looks a little daunting at first (memories of installing Arch for the very first time somewhere last year), but if you know what the commands are it is quite simple. It is worth noting that the entire thing will be significantly easier if you have two devices (one as the computer installing Arch, another one will be something for you to read the guide). Although reading the guide on a phone is not that good but I'll just live with it for the moment.

Because, yea, it's just reading the guide and following it. It is pretty painless, and post-installation is slightly more painful than the installation, I'm not even kidding. One of the examples is that I have to apply a tweak to Windows after the installation to un-bork Windows' time due to different time systems.

Yep, I don't really want to set up a new partition with this...formatting the already-there EXT4 partition is easier. Why waste brain power on things that are not really required?

Installing Arch is a little interesting because you are guaranteed to have the latest packages no matter what - the installation ISO grabs everything off the web the moment you run the installation command.

If there's one thing I can rant about Linux, it is that we don't have an uninstaller (like really, who writes an uninstaller for Linux anyway?). Many years before, you will need a Windows installation CD to reinstall the MBR after formatting the Linux partition. If you don't do that, your computer just won't boot. Right now it is easier because newer computers come with an EFI partition that contains all necessary code to boot your computer, so you can just point your BIOS to run the correct program in order to boot Windows after formatting a Linux partition. But obviously, you won't remove the old Linux stuff by formatting the old Linux partition.

I wasn't expecting that so the installer actually refused to go on, complaining that it found some file conflicts in the boot folder (aka EFI partition). Of course, it is not hard to solve it - removing the old stuff will solve it without an issue. It's just important to not remove what is important there. If you accidentally removed the Windows' bootloader, it's going to be hella fun. Feel free to try, don't seek help.

The installation stage ends pretty quickly with a bootloader installation - I chose rEFInd. It is just brain-dead, tell me another bootloader that can be installed by just installing one package and running one single command known as refind-install. The latest version seems to have a quick little issue of having a splash screen on boot that shows for only 0.1 seconds. Not a very big deal anyway, just don't tell me to spam the ESC key to summon BIOS every time I want to boot Linux.

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Alright, that ends for now...still have to do the post-installation. That would be slightly more painful. See you later.

--Lilacse