Twitch Will Install Arch Linux Later Today

Despite being a video streaming service, Twitch has gained fame through a series of “Twitch Plays” events. While those have all revolved around games like Metal Gear and Pokémon, a more ambitious project will start in about 12 hours. Using the same chat-based collaboration, Twitch will attempt to install Arch Linux on a virtual machine. Anyone who connects to the stream will be able to command and control the installation process.

While installing a Linux installation is pretty straightforward these days, we can expect a lot of trolls in the first while. After all, that’s what happened with Pokémon and Dark Souls when they first started out. With the large range of options available to trolls, expect the start to be really bloody. It would not be surprising to see commands to wipe the disk or put the VM into a perpetual reboot cycle to occur.

There a few milestones set so far for the installation which are to

• Boot Arch Linux from the hard disk
• Write a python ‘Hello World!’ script
• Configure a fully working X server
• Pull up the Twitch screen in the virtual machine

If the install goes relatively well, it will be interesting to control via Twitch the machine that itself is logged into Twitch and ends up controlling itself. That is, of course if the VM doesn’t get recruited into a botnet or becomes a spambot.