Arch Linux Installation Week on Twitch

A week ago , the Twitch Installs Arch Linux channel was launched on Twitch. As the name suggests, it showed an attempt to install the Arch Linux operating system. Installing this OS can frighten a newbie the lack of a graphical installer and the need to read the documentation to install many of the simplest functions. But the peculiarity of the channel is that what is happening on the screen is completely interactive and depends solely on the will of the audience. Anyone who wants to vote, and every ten seconds, select the most popular keystroke. Then the action is performed on the experimental virtual machine.

For participants set many goals. It took about three hours to partition the disk and install the files of the Arch itself. Executed went far from simple installation of an OS. For technical reasons, the stream was interrupted several times: these were issues of bot breeding, and DDoS, and even breaks in fiber-optic communication lines. For a week, viewers of the channel managed to achieve much.

The channel was created under the impression of Twitch Plays Pokemon, an experiment in which viewers of the same channel played the games of the Pokemon series by voting for the next team. As a result, the gameplay proceeded to laugh slowly. The very first attempt to install Arch Linux ended successfully : the system got up within hours. But someone created a lot of bots, with their help began to put nmap and study the network environment of the virtual machine on which the installation took place. This was probably helped by the fact that it was possible to enter the comment stream of any Twitch channel via IRC. Therefore, the original broadcast operators abandoned their undertaking and transferred it to a group of other users.

The revived broadcast continued on the same channel. Probably, the new owners somehow managed to control the stream. Here are some screenshots that recreate the events of the last week.
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The channel was visited by the author of Twitch Plays Pokemon, a channel that served as a source of inspiration for the whole idea.


The first night the root password was set to kappa, the name of one of the popular emoji Twitch.


To give anyone access to the personal machine on the campus network of their university is a bad idea. Installing nmap and the oddities that followed have forced the two original operators to broadcast. According to current operators, the system is now set up so that some of the spectators are eliminated. Installation continued on the server hosting provider OVH.


When you install an operating system, it is very important to check the RAM. The whole hour of launching memtest. Typo memetest (meme test) was remembered.


Twitch installs Gentoo.


Twitch watches Star Wars in ASCII Art.


Channel logic: emacs is a number.


On Monday, November 2, at about five o'clock in the evening Moscow time, a strong DDoS-attack with a capacity of 200 Gbit / s peaked arrived at the server. The source remained unknown, although there were suggestions that it was 4chan. The attack lasted 36 hours. The project site is generally attacked all the time, although the problem was managed to be brought under control. A little later, OVH, on the server of which the project was located, had problems with the communication channel: the optical fiber touched the tractor bucket. OVH restored the channel in just six hours. The IRC server changed twice: first it was Freenode, then ColdFront. Finally, an IRC chat for discussion of the project was sheltered by the near-eddit Snoonet.



But nothing prevented the continuation of the broadcast, although the destructive actions did not end. For example, the policy of Twitch prohibits the broadcast of "adult" material. There have been attempts to open a Pornhub virtual machine. Among the spectators were not only bullies. There were also people ready to help the project. The show goes on.


November 2. Stream in the stream.


Stream in the stream in the stream.


November 2. Twitch installs Arch Linux to log in to IRC and troll.


Typo memetest is not just a typo. Someone created a parody memetest86 + , which the audience on November 3 installed on a virtual machine.


the 3rd of November. Twitch plays Pokemon Red.


November 4th. Twitch plays in Dwarf Fortress.


Twitch unsuccessfully plays the Dunnet text quest.


After the Pornhub trick, the porn sites were blocked, so you have to be content with what you have.


Twitch wrote Hello World in Python.


November 5. Twitch downloaded the installation disk to / dev / sda using curl, installed Windows XP and changed the inscription on the Start menu to kappa.


But the system quickly broke down.


Nyan-cat in the bootloader ( nyanmbr ).


Twitch downloaded and installed FreeDOS and launched the Oregon Trail game.


It all ended quite predictably.


Twitch is engaged in cybersex on IRC.


Twitch went to Twitch subdid and wrote a message .


November 6th. Twitch tweets.


Twitch ricollit himself.

Twitch installed TempleOS.

Twitch installed Windows 95.

The audience still faces many challenges: installing Tor and accessing the anonymous network, installing the North Korean Red Star OS, and more. Tasks are facilitated (or complicated) by the recently introduced monarchy regime, when you can give one of the participants a far greater voice than all the others. Not everyone likes to follow the goals set by someone else: to draw the Sierpinski triangles and install bitcoin miners. Often participants are limited in many ways only by the power of their imagination.

Twitch Installs Arch Linux Channel
Project website