this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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How do you realistically build your own OS with Arch Linux? (lemm.ee)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/40063668

As a Linux newbie, all I know about Arch Linux is that it is a DIY distro where you assemble the entirely of the OS by scratch. Somehow it feels like it is too easy than it needs to be, even if it is primarily meant for experienced users. I imagine it to be less like building your PC from parts bought from the market and more like building each and every component of the PC by scratch along with building the PC, which I assume to be much harder for the average consumer. It seems absurd how it is possible for a single person to incorporate the innumerable components required for functionality in a personal system that does not crash 100% of the time due to countless incompatibility errors that come with doing something like this.

I would like someone to elaborate on how it feels to 'build' a system software by yourself with Arch and how it is reasonable to actually do so in a simple language. I do have some experience in programming, mainly in webdev, so it's not like I need a baby-like explanation in how this works but it would be nice to get to know about this from someone who could understand where this confusion/curiosity is coming from.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You don't really build it from scratch. It's just very customizable. And it's usually installed by typing in the command line instructions yourself to do every step of the installation. That also gives you customizability. Other distributiins have a nice installer, you get some default options and click on "continue" and it does the same thing behind the scene. Like partition the harddrive, choose the default software, write it to disk, configure things and install a bootloader. With arch you do that yourself on the command line. They wrote some good documentation to help you. And you'll learn quite a bit in the process.