I first found the distro when I was in high school , I already using Debian-based distros as my host OS at that time.Arch's icon attracting me to try it(blue is my favorite color). However, when I started the installation, a CLI appeared instead of GUI, and since I had only been using GNU+Linux for a short time, I gave up.
One day, while scrolling the Chinese forum "2047" (hosted outside China)there 's a post https://2047.one/t/17974#Post-183536 recommending https://archlinuxstudio.github.io/ArchLinuxTutorial/#/ (It has English translation), an online book written by free software enthusiastic user who uses Arch, book was in detailed, covered not only install,daily usage,gaming and circumvent the GFW .The book first emphasize the importance of software freedom and encourage using Arch as it upgrade-cycle immediately brings new features , the book I was excited and start installation following the guide.
However,I couldn't understand the partition step and use Archinstall to done the installation,inside Virt-manager.A day I did pacman -Syyu,Anki runs into problem,and after next pacman -Syyu,the whole system runs into problem,as a noob I can't fix it,mainly I just need restart That deck of Anki as I didn't back up.I stop using Arch,decide try it in future.
This year(I'm a college student now),I have seen safety concerns about Ventoy,so I decided reinstall Debian without Ventoy.The ArchLinuxTutorial write UEFI method but no BIOS,boot Arch iso into virt-manager it will be BIOS,I thought I can first try to install Arch again as Host OS.
On 18th Sep,I did GPG verify and DD command to flash USB drive as my first exprience,also encouraged me may successful install Arch this time,Arch was just like nightmare difficult just little easier compared with Gentoo to me.
19th,I tried near three times and figured out the step stops years ago:
mount /dev/sdax /mnt
mkdir /mnt/efi #Create efi directory
mount /dev/sdax /mnt/efi
mkdir /mnt/home #Create home directory
mount /dev/sdax /mnt/home
I used think Efi and Home folder is in /mnt,so I typed the same partition above,I mentioned the author created 3 partitions before,which match this chart.I passed it and read offcial Arch wiki create Swap by myself.These and after steps are all succeed,I look at the mention word tells me no error I feels so content.Just uncarefully missed 1 of the last steps,I went to sleep and complete restart installing on 20th,all the install finished.
I'm proud that I finally did this I thought uneasy in the past, gave confidence for me to try BIOS Arch install in VM and FreeBSD when I have time one day.Though I still don't understand many parts of the tutor. I was Just follow it and typing,sometimes struggling.
I still prefer stable release rather than rolling ,but I like the KISS principle.
Happy hacking!Recommend this book for you :)