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---
title: 'Arch Troubles'
description: 'Taking on arch was not the easiest thing to do, but it taught me a lot of things'
date: 2026-03-17
image: './arch.png'
authors: ['madhav']
draft: false
---
Arch is a Linux distribution that is usually portrayed as a difficult operating system to download and use but provides a lot of freedom in styling or maintaining your OS. So like any sane person would do, I downloaded Arch and tried the installation by myself (which went horribly), and here's the story of how I started and how it's going.
My first experience with a PC was an old desktop running Wind\*ws 95, which ran as fast as you would expect. It was later replaced by another PC running Wind\*ws 10, which I had later dual-booted with Ubuntu.
Ubuntu was the first piece of FOSS software I had ever used, and it was ugly. Felt good back then since it behaved almost the same as Wind\*ws, and I could run Visual Studio Code on it pretty smoothly, so I was happy. Mind you, I still didn\'t know what a Linux distribution was; I just thought Linux ended at Ubuntu.
Arch was a whole new experience. Raw, unfiltered power of the hardware, but still difficult to use. I used my friend's USB drive to create the bootable device with an Arch ISO file which took 15 mins to download v/s Wind\*ws which takes 3 hours. (Yes, my internet is that bad. And no, I will not be using an ethernet cable.)
I was scared that I would need to create partitions by myself and started promptmaxxing Perplexity, which in hindsight was a bad idea, since it doesn\'t know anything about setting up Arch. Then I discovered that after 2021, there was a built-in "archinstall" command, which gave you a sort of GUI for installing Arch.
I wanted to use archinstall by myself and go in blind, which resulted in me messing up the install 11 times, forgetting to set up network manager in 5 of them. I also wanted to dual boot, but in the first try I had already wiped the Wind\*ws OS partition, so that\'s that. :P
After finally setting up Arch Linux (without existential crisis-level partition problems), I wanted to SSH into it from my laptop, which needed Wi-Fi. This was a huge problem, since I had an outdated device-driver combo, or so I thought.
I had a Tenda USB, which I thought was the Wi-Fi device, so I installed a whole lot of drivers from different parts of the internet, of which none worked. I used aic8800, aic8800d80, and so many more word soup variants, all of which didn\'t recognize the device. Actually, the device was just a Realtek Wi-Fi adapter, which just needed it\'s USB settings changed.
I wasted 3 days on the Tenda USB problem, eventually realizing that the problem was just a simple settings change. This taught me a lot of things, but patience is the most important to me, since I almost yanked my hair out from the frustration.
I also installed the xfce-desktop package for no reason, and I\'m writing this blog on the new Arch system.
If you relate, or just want to gnu-shame me, you can find me on campus—or in Zulip. I will be updating any other problems I have as well.
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