Getting and installing Arch

Installation methods

The table below offers an overview of the common ways to boot the installation media. As the installation process retrieves packages from a remote repository, these methods require an internet connection; see Offline installation of packages and Installation without internet access when none is available.

Note:

• Pointing the current boot device to a drive containing the Arch installation media is typically achieved by pressing a key during the POST phase, as indicated on the splash screen. Refer to your motherboard's manual for details.
• When the Arch menu appears, select Boot Arch Linux and press Enter to enter the installation environment.
• See README.bootparams for a list of boot parameters, and packages.x86_64 for a list of included packages.

Method	Articles	Conditions
Write the image on flash media or optical disc, then boot from it.	USB flash installation media Optical disc drive#Burning	Installation on one, or a few machines at most Obtain a directly bootable system
Mount the image on a server machine and have clients boot it over the network.	PXE Diskless system	Client-server model Wired (1Gbit+) network connection
Mount the image in a running Linux system and install Arch from a chroot environment.	Install from existing Linux Install from SSH	Replace an existing system with reduced downtime Install on the local machine, or a remote one via VNC or SSH
Set up a virtual machine and install Arch as a guest system.	Category:Hypervisors Moving an existing install into (or out of) a virtual machine	Operating system compatible with virtualization software Obtain an isolated system for learning, testing or debugging
Install Arch next to a Windows installation.	Dual boot with Windows	Machine shared with Windows users Allow to easily factory-reset a Windows-preinstalled device

See also

• README.transfer
• README.altbootmethods