Quick Install

The quickest way to install a vanilla Magento 2 is to use Magerun.

magerun install

Magerun will ask for different configuration options in prompts, notably the version of Magento you wish to install. If the version you want to install is not listed, be sure to update Magerun.

magerun self-update

You will need to enter the database credentials and base url, Magerun will not ask for default store config (base currency, etc). At the end of the process, you have the option of installing the sample data.

If you run in to problems with the Magento repository, you will have to create the auth.json file in the root of the installation with the keys, see the auth.json.sample file for the structure required.

Afterwards, re-run composer install.

Applications

This method of installation makes it very easy to get a development copy of Magento running quickly, it is also the recommended way to set up multiple versions of Magento for the purpose of tracking down core bugs within Magento 2 and in comparison to a client project.

This means a bug in a project can be isolated to either being a Magento 2 core bug or a project/module issue.

Re install

When reinstalling Magento 2 you can run into errors with caches and generated files.

To avoid this remove all caches, generated files and vendor.