The Arch Linux project has released Archinstall 4.5, the latest version of its guided text-based installer, bringing expanded AArch64 support, new real-time Linux kernel options, additional translations, security improvements, and numerous fixes for installation workflows.

Archinstall 4.5 was released on September 29, 2026, roughly three months after Archinstall 4.4. The new version arrives just ahead of Arch Linux's October installation media refresh and has already been packaged as archinstall 4.5-1 for Arch Linux repositories.

While Archinstall remains optional, it provides users with a guided way to configure an Arch Linux installation without manually performing every step described in the Arch installation guide. Version 4.5 concentrates primarily on hardware support, installer reliability, security, and expanding the range of systems that can use the guided installation process.

AArch64 Support Gets a Major Upgrade

One of the biggest changes in Archinstall 4.5 is improved support for AArch64, the 64-bit ARM architecture.

The installer can now handle GRUB and Limine EFI installations on AArch64 systems. It also gains support for the proper AArch64 root partition type GUID.

Previously, parts of Archinstall's bootloader configuration were more heavily oriented toward x86_64 installations. The latest changes make its guided installation workflow more useful on ARM64 hardware.

AArch64 has become increasingly important throughout the Linux ecosystem. The architecture can now be found in cloud servers, development boards, laptops, workstations, and specialized computing platforms.

Supporting both GRUB and Limine EFI installations gives Archinstall more flexibility when preparing these systems.

GRUB Can Now Be Installed on AArch64

GRUB remains one of the most widely used Linux bootloaders, and Archinstall 4.5 extends its installation logic to AArch64 EFI systems.

This allows ARM64 installations to use a bootloader workflow much closer to what Archinstall already provides on conventional x86_64 UEFI computers.

The change doesn't mean every ARM device will automatically become compatible with Arch Linux. ARM hardware can still have highly platform-specific firmware and boot requirements.

It does, however, remove an important Archinstall limitation for AArch64 machines that provide conventional UEFI environments.

Limine EFI Support Expands to ARM64

The same architectural expansion applies to Limine.

Limine is a modern multiprotocol bootloader supported as one of Archinstall's bootloader choices. Archinstall 4.5 extends its EFI installation support to AArch64 as well.

Users installing Arch on compatible ARM64 systems therefore aren't restricted to GRUB simply because of the processor architecture.

This is particularly useful as the Linux ecosystem continues expanding beyond traditional x86 PCs.

AArch64 Root Partition GUID Support

Bootloader support isn't the only ARM-related improvement.

Archinstall 4.5 adds support for the AArch64 root partition type GUID.

GPT partition tables use partition type GUIDs to identify the intended purpose of individual partitions. Linux systems can use architecture-specific GUIDs for root filesystems, allowing system software to more accurately understand a disk's layout.

Adding the correct AArch64 root partition identifier complements the new bootloader functionality and makes Archinstall's partition handling more appropriate for ARM64 systems.

Real-Time Linux Kernels Become Installer Options

Another notable addition is support for real-time kernel variants.

Archinstall 4.5 adds:

linux-rt

and

linux-rt-lts

to its available kernel choices.

These options allow users to deploy an Arch Linux system using a real-time kernel directly during installation instead of installing the standard kernel first and changing kernels afterward.

The regular linux-rt package follows a real-time-enabled Linux kernel, while linux-rt-lts provides an option based around a longer-supported kernel branch.

Why Real-Time Kernels Matter

A real-time kernel is designed to provide more predictable response latency.

For a conventional desktop or gaming computer, maximum real-time predictability usually isn't necessary. Many users are better served by Arch's standard kernel or another general-purpose variant.

Real-time kernels become more interesting for workloads such as:

• Professional audio production

• Industrial control

• Robotics

• Measurement systems

• Low-latency processing

• Hardware control

• Specialized embedded systems

These environments may care more about how consistently the kernel responds within a particular time window than about maximizing average throughput.

Adding the RT variants directly to Archinstall makes setting up these specialized Arch Linux systems considerably more convenient.

linux-firmware Optional Dependencies Are Now Supported

Archinstall 4.5 also adds support for the optional dependencies associated with linux-firmware.

Linux firmware has become increasingly modular, with different hardware families depending on different firmware packages.

Properly handling these optional dependencies can help Archinstall prepare systems with the firmware required by their hardware without unnecessarily treating every firmware component as universally mandatory.

This is particularly relevant on modern laptops and desktops containing GPUs, Wi-Fi adapters, Bluetooth controllers, and other devices that depend on loadable firmware.

Intel Graphics and Media Support Gets Fixed

Intel users receive another useful correction.

Archinstall 4.5 adds the previously missing vpl-gpu-rt and libvpl packages for open-source Intel graphics on post-Gen12 hardware.

Intel's oneVPL infrastructure provides video-processing functionality used by applications and multimedia frameworks.

Without the appropriate packages, users could encounter problems with software such as FFmpeg and OBS Studio when trying to use Intel's hardware-accelerated media capabilities.

The corrected package selection should provide a better out-of-the-box experience for newer Intel graphics hardware installed through Archinstall.

Wayland Desktop Profiles Move from polkit to systemd-logind

Several popular Wayland environments receive an important configuration change.

Archinstall 4.5 switches from polkit to systemd-logind for:

• Hyprland

• Labwc

• Niri

• Sway

 

Systemd-logind manages user logins, sessions, seats, and access to certain hardware resources.

For Wayland compositors, correctly integrating with session and seat management is important because the compositor needs appropriate access to input devices, graphics hardware, and other resources associated with the user's session.

The new configuration aligns these Archinstall desktop profiles with the current approach expected by these environments.

Wi-Fi Networks with Spaces Are Fixed

One particularly practical bug fix addresses Wi-Fi networks whose names contain spaces.

Archinstall's Wi-Fi scanner could previously omit SSIDs containing spaces from the network selection list.

Version 4.5 corrects the problem.

This could be surprisingly disruptive during installation because many home, office, hotel, and public Wi-Fi networks use spaces in their names.

Since Archinstall is commonly run directly from Arch installation media, reliable networking can be essential. The installer normally needs internet access to retrieve packages required for the new system.

TLS Verification Is Now Enabled

Archinstall 4.5 includes an important networking security improvement by enabling TLS verification.

TLS certificate verification allows software to confirm that an HTTPS server presents a certificate trusted for the requested destination.

Skipping that verification can expose network operations to man-in-the-middle attacks in which an attacker impersonates the expected server.

For an operating-system installer that may download configuration information or other network resources during setup, verifying TLS connections is an important security property.

The change makes Archinstall's network behavior safer by default.

EFI Partition Permissions Become More Restrictive

EFI System Partition handling also receives a security-oriented correction.

Archinstall 4.5 uses:

fmask=0177

for EFI partition mount options.

The mask restricts permissions on files exposed through the mounted EFI partition.

The EFI System Partition contains boot-related files that play a fundamental role in starting the operating system, so unnecessarily broad access isn't desirable.

Archinstall 4.4 had already included related work around tightening EFI partition permissions, and version 4.5 continues refining this behavior.

Credentials Encryption Prompt Becomes Smarter

Archinstall can save installation configuration, including credentials under some circumstances.

Version 4.5 changes the workflow so users are prompted about credential encryption only when credentials will actually be saved.

Previously, asking about encryption when no credentials were going to be written could create unnecessary confusion.

The new behavior makes the configuration process more context-aware and keeps security-related prompts focused on situations where they are relevant.

Locale Handling Is Corrected

Archinstall 4.5 fixes locale configuration by setting LANG to a fully qualified locale name.

Locales control language and regional behavior throughout a Linux system, including character encoding, date formatting, number formatting, and translated application interfaces.

An incomplete or incorrectly formatted locale value can create subtle problems after installation.

Correctly generating the LANG environment value makes Archinstall's language configuration more reliable.

Three New Languages Join Archinstall

Archinstall's interface becomes accessible to more users with three new translations:

• Norwegian Bokmål

• Serbian

• Vietnamese

 

The project also improves translation handling for TUI keyboard-binding descriptions.

Localization can be particularly challenging for text-based installers because strings need to fit correctly within terminal layouts while remaining understandable in many languages.

The continued expansion of Archinstall's translations makes the guided installer more approachable for users who don't want to perform an operating-system installation entirely in English.

Summary Screens Become More Consistent

Archinstall 4.5 moves all sub-configurations toward a declarative summary method.

The installer presents summaries so users can review their choices before committing to an installation.

Standardizing how those summaries are generated should make the interface easier to maintain and produce more consistent output across configuration areas.

The release also corrects inconsistent capitalization in summary labels by moving them toward sentence case.

These changes don't fundamentally alter the installation process, but they improve the polish and consistency of the text-based interface.

Printing Setup Now Includes Ghostscript

Users choosing Archinstall's print service configuration will now receive Ghostscript as part of the appropriate package selection.

Ghostscript is widely used for processing PostScript and PDF data and remains an important component of Linux printing workflows.

Including it directly through the installer avoids situations where a newly installed system appears to have printing support configured but lacks an expected piece of the document-processing stack.

Cockpit Storage Configuration Is Updated

Archinstall 4.5 also updates its Cockpit package configuration.

The installer now uses cockpit-storaged rather than directly selecting udisks2 for the relevant configuration.

Cockpit provides a web-based administration interface commonly used on Linux servers.

Its storage component allows administrators to inspect and manage disks, filesystems, RAID configurations, and related storage resources through the browser-based interface.

The updated package choice better reflects how Cockpit's storage functionality is packaged and deployed.

Reflector Installation No Longer Waits on reflector.service

Archinstall also changes its interaction with Reflector, the utility commonly used on Arch Linux to generate optimized mirror lists.

Version 4.5 removes a wait involving reflector.service.

Mirror selection can influence installation speed because Archinstall needs to download packages from Arch repositories.

Removing unnecessary waiting from this process can help simplify and potentially accelerate the installation workflow.

Disk Menu Problems Are Fixed

Storage configuration remains one of the most sensitive parts of any Linux installer, and Archinstall 4.5 contains another fix affecting its disk menu.

Developers corrected an import cycle involving the disk menu.

Archinstall has received numerous disk and partitioning fixes across recent releases because it needs to support a large range of configurations, including UEFI, encryption, Btrfs, manually defined partitions, multiple drives, and different bootloaders.

Reliability here is particularly important because storage mistakes during operating-system installation can result in data loss.

Example Configuration Gets Tested

Archinstall isn't limited to interactive installation.

The project can also be used as a Python library and supports configuration files for more automated installation workflows. Its upstream project describes Archinstall as both a guided installer and a library for managing packages, services, and other elements inside an Arch system.

Version 4.5 fixes the project's sample JSON configuration and adds automated test coverage for example configurations.

That should reduce the possibility of documentation examples becoming outdated as Archinstall's internal configuration format evolves.

Archinstall Remains Optional

Archinstall sometimes gets described simply as "the Arch Linux installer," but that can give the wrong impression.

Arch Linux still supports and documents its traditional manual installation procedure.

Archinstall is an optional guided installer included with Arch installation media. The project itself emphasizes that using the guided installer remains a choice and that its options aren't intended to remove the flexibility traditionally associated with Arch Linux.

Users can still manually partition their disks, install packages with pacstrap, configure the system, generate fstab, install a bootloader, and perform the rest of the standard Arch installation process themselves.

Archinstall simply automates much of that work for users who want it.

Archinstall Can Also Be Used for Automated Deployments

Underneath the interactive TUI, Archinstall is a Python project designed to function as a reusable installation library.

That means its value extends beyond people installing Arch from the ISO manually.

Advanced users can use Archinstall's underlying functionality when creating scripted or repeatable installation workflows.

This also explains why changes involving configuration serialization, summaries, test coverage, hardware detection, partition GUIDs, and package profiles matter even when they aren't immediately visible as major TUI features.

Archinstall 4.5 Is Already Reaching Arch Linux Repositories

Archinstall 4.5 isn't merely an upstream GitHub release waiting to be packaged.

The archinstall-4.5-1-any.pkg.tar.zst package appeared in Arch Linux repository mirrors on September 30, replacing the previous 4.4 package.

PyPI also lists Archinstall 4.5 as released September 29 and provides the project's Python wheel.

This means the new installer is already moving into the normal Arch Linux software infrastructure.

The October Arch ISO Should Bring the New Installer

The timing of Archinstall 4.5 is notable because it arrived immediately before Arch Linux's normal monthly installation media refresh.

The September 29 release was specifically timed ahead of the October Arch Linux ISO refresh, according to reporting on the new version.

Users installing Arch from newer media should therefore begin encountering Archinstall 4.5 directly from the live environment.

Arch's installation ISO is primarily a bootable environment for deploying a current Arch system, so updating Archinstall allows new installations to benefit from the latest installer improvements without waiting for a major distribution release.

Existing ISO Users Can Update Archinstall

Users booting older Arch installation media aren't necessarily restricted to the Archinstall version included when that ISO was built.

The Archinstall project documents updating the installer from the live environment through Arch's package-management system.

Because Arch is a rolling-release distribution, however, partial upgrades are discouraged. Users should follow the project's documented procedure rather than attempting to replace individual packages in ways that leave the live environment with incompatible dependencies.

For most users, simply using the newest Arch ISO remains the easiest approach.

Archinstall 4.5 Is Mostly About Expanding and Refining

Archinstall 4.5 isn't a dramatic redesign of the installer.

Instead, it addresses several practical limitations.

AArch64 installations receive much stronger bootloader and partition support. Specialized users can select real-time kernels immediately. New Intel hardware gets corrected media packages. Wi-Fi scanning becomes more reliable. Wayland profiles use systemd-logind, and TLS verification improves network security.

That collection of changes reflects the project's increasing maturity.

Archinstall has moved beyond simply providing a menu around the basic Arch installation process. It now needs to accommodate numerous architectures, bootloaders, filesystems, kernels, desktop environments, graphics configurations, networking setups, and automated installation scenarios.

Conclusion

Archinstall 4.5 is an important refinement of Arch Linux's optional guided installation experience. Released September 29, 2026, the update expands AArch64 support with GRUB and Limine EFI installation capabilities and the correct ARM64 root partition GUID, making the installer significantly more useful beyond conventional x86_64 computers.

The addition of linux-rt and linux-rt-lts gives users an easier route to real-time Arch Linux installations, while support for linux-firmware optional dependencies and corrected Intel VPL packages improve hardware configuration.

Archinstall 4.5 also fixes Wi-Fi SSIDs containing spaces, enables TLS verification, improves EFI partition permissions, updates Wayland desktop profiles to use systemd-logind, adds Norwegian Bokmål, Serbian, and Vietnamese translations, and delivers numerous smaller reliability improvements.

With the 4.5-1 package already appearing in Arch Linux repositories, these improvements are moving quickly into the normal Arch installation experience.

Arch Linux remains fully installable through its traditional manual procedure, but for users who prefer a guided setup without giving up control over kernels, bootloaders, desktop environments, storage, and other system choices, Archinstall 4.5 makes that route broader, safer, and more polished.