How to install Antergos 2016 in your PC

Antergos is one of the great looking free Linux distros meant for everyone. The first version of antergos was launched in 2012, and since then it has gained substantial popularity and community. It went into top 25 Linux distros in a record time and now stands in 12th place in the distrowatch.

Antergos is based of Arch Linux. The icons used in the OS is so beautiful that one may want lick it! Antergos installer is called Cnchi, which initially closely resembled Ubuntu’s Ubuquity, but has evolved into a unique original installer. Coming to the desktop environment, it supports GNOME, Cinnamon, Openbox, Xfce, and the new KDE 5. So pretty much all GTK bases there. By default install, Antergos ships with GNOME.

What’s special about Antergos

Antergos is a fork of Arch Linux, so basically you are running Arch Linux at system level. It’s a known fact that Arch Linux is not for everybody. It’s suited for a user who already has some Linux knowledge. Antergos capitalizes on what looks like a drawback of Arch Linux and gives a desktop that’s meant for everyone.

Rolling Distribution

Like Arch Linux, Antergos is also a rolling distribution release, which means install it once and it will update forever. There is no need to track the end-of-life and reinstall a new version later.

Install Antergos 2016

Prerequisites

Before you head to install, you need to keep two things ready:

1. Antergos Live USB drive or CD
2. Prepare your PC for Linux installation and make two partitions including ext4 and SWAP.

Begin Installation

STEP 1: Insert or plugin the Antergos Live CD/USB drive to your computer and boot into it. You may have to enable UEFI mode to boot into USB flash drives.

STEP 2: Once you boot into the Live image, you should see the Antergos boot options as shown below. Select ‘Start Antergos Live’.

STEP 3: You should now see the Live desktop environment. You need to have internet connection enabled via Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection. Without that you can’t proceed further. Antergos’s installer Cnchi updates real-time and then you will see ‘Welcome to Antergos!’ pop-up window. Click ‘Install it’.

STEP 4:  Choose your language and then click >

STEP 5: You should see a checklist of things to do for best antergos experience. Click >.

STEP 6: Select your location from the list. You can get more locations by enabling the checkbox ‘Show all locations’. Click >.

STEP 7: Confirm your Timezone and click >. Optionally you can enable/disable the ‘Network Time Protocol (NTP) for clock synchronization’ option. This option when turned ON will synchronize the clock time automatically. Click >.

Antergos Installer – Select Your Timezone

STEP 8: Select keyboard layout style and click >.

STEP 9: Select your Desktop version. You have 6 options to choose from. GNOME is selected by default. If you are newbie to Linux and confused which one to choose, I would suggest Cinnamon. It is a powerful and user-friendly desktop developed by Linux Mint community and suits users migrating from Microsoft Windows platform. In my test PC, I will go with GNOME, which is also a elegant and user-friendly desktop environment. Click >.

STEP 10: This is the best part of installation, you can turn ON the third-party software, plugins, and even Google Fonts right here and the installer will download and include it during OS installation. If you have a very slow internet connection, I recommend to leave with default selections and proceed.

STEP 11: In the next critical step, you have two options to choose from regarding installation type.

Option 1: Erase disk and install Antergos.

I would suggest Option 1 only when your PC has nothing on the hard disk or you want a clean swipe of hard disk and install Antergos and that’s it – no other OS.  Antergos will automatically create ext4 partition and SWAP partition. Entire hard disk including all partitions will be formatted in this option!

Option 2: Choose exactly where Antergos should be installed.

This is what most of people do. You have complete control of where to install Antergos and so only the partition which you will indicate will be formatted.

I will choose option 2 i.e.  ‘Choose exactly where Antergos should be installed’.

Click >.

STEP 12: In the next step, you will be presented with the current situation of the entire hard disk. If you have followed my Prerequisites #2 above, you should have your ext4 and SWAP configured already.

For example I have partitioned my 54 GB hard disk to 48 GB ext4 file system and 5 GB to the linux-swap file system. You can see the ‘Mount Checklist’ status, initially both Root and Swap will be not good. We will have to configure and make them good.

STEP 13: Select the ext4 partition and click ‘Edit’. In the pop-up window, select ‘Mount Point’ as ‘/’ from the drop-down list. Tick the box ‘Format’. Click ‘Apply’.

STEP 14: Similarly, select the swap partition and click ‘Edit’. Make it ‘swap’ partition. Click ‘Apply’.

STEP 15: You should now see the ‘Mount Checklist’ status updates with green good sign.

Bootloader: This is one more critical thing. Bootloader is the screen that loads first when you start your computer. Linux’s bootloader is GRUB. It can automatically identify OS installed on your computer and include them in list when you start the PC. For example if you have Windows installed on other partition, GRUB will add Windows boot line along with the antergos. You can select the OS to boot into. Bootloader should not be installed on a partition. It should be on the hard disk itself. Typically this is selected by default. Click >.

STEP 16: The installer will finally show summary of what’s going to happen. This is the last chance before the selected hard disk partitions will be formatted. So proceed cautiously! Click > and confirm.

STEP 17: Next you will have to create your User Account. Click ‘Save’.

STEP 18: Sit back and relax while antergos is downloaded and installed!

STEP 19: After installation is complete, remove the Live CD/USB and restart the PC. Enjoy Antergos!