But this picture of an empty desktop was far too long in the making. it took me a week to succesfully install Arch. I could do the process start to finish, blindfolded, at this point.
Finally, after endless hours of repeating the same steps over and over again, trying to word google searches in just the right way to get just that one specific answer to that one absurd issue, re-reading guides and links over and over again trying to find the single missed Sentence that ties everything together and finally. Finally.
It may seem kinda stupid to consider that an accomplishment, but I feel quite genuinely proud of myself for actually succeeding at this instead of just throwing in the towel and giving up like I usually do when I try and take on new hobbies, and don't immediately succeed.
ETA: Image fix!
Following any number of walkthroughs, like on YouTube for instance. Try to find a relatively recent one if you're taking that path. Or you could just use an Arch-based OS with an installer. I like Endeavor, it's pretty close to a basic Arch install with a DE pre setup for you.
Either way just don't ask for help on the Arch user forums if something doesn't work, unless you want to be swiftly RTFMed.