an alternative to using cd or usb images for installation is to use the static version of the package manager pacman, from within another linux-based operating system. the user can mount their newly formatted drive partition, and use pacstrap (or pacman with the appropriate command-line switch) to install base and additional packages with the mountpoint of the destination device as the root for its operations. this method is useful when installing arch linux onto usb flash drives, or onto a temporarily mounted device which belongs to another system.