Twitch beat Dark Souls, now it wants to install Arch Linux

It all started a couple of years ago when an anonymous Twitch users decided to conduct a social experiment where Twitch users tried to collaboratively finish a game of Pokémon Red by entering commands through the Twitch chat. After about sixteen days of gameplay, the Twitch community was able to beat the game together, and since then, the experiment has expanded to infinitely more difficult games, such as Dark Souls. Against all odds, the Twitch community even managed to beat that nightmare of a game, but this latest experiment may prove to be insurmountable, as Twitch is trying to install the most complex and difficult Linux distro out there: Arch Linux. 

Gaming-focused streaming service Twitch got its community to play Pokémon collaboratively as a single entity last February, and subsequently Dark Souls in August. This Saturday, it’s offering viewers a tougher challenge: installing Arch Linux on a virtual machine. At 4PM Eastern on October 31, the social experiment will see users enter commands in Twitch chat alongside the livestream. Every 10 seconds, the most popular keystroke will be entered into an Arch Linux virtual machine in a bid to successfully install the OS. Of course, that goal might be hard to reach, because trolls. Since it’s Linux we’re talking about here, viewers can botch the whole process by entering and voting on counterproductive commands the OS allows, including one that can wipe the system’s hard drive. However, if people play nice, they’ll stand to win prizes that Twitch will give away each time a goal is met, like booting Arch Linux, writing a ‘Hello World’ script in Python and installing a Gameboy emulator and firing up Twitch Installs Arch to Play Pokemon. If you’re interested, head to the stream that’s set to go live in about 14 hours from the time of writing (4PM Eastern, 1PM Pacific, 8PM GMT, 1:30AM IST).