ArchX

Intro

THIS PROJECT IS NOT SUPPORTED BY ARCHLINUX OR ANY OTHER COMMUNITY THAN THE ONE USING THIS SOFTWARE.

Continue reading if:

• you want a robust, full-featured, portable desktop
• you want to test "out of the box" setup of most popular Desktop environments
• you are a beginner who wants to test an ArchLinux based system without complications
• you like to play with LFS, Gentoo, Arch, Slackware, and need a nice, customizable, Live system

Here is a brief description:

• Archlinux (almost unmodified) + some user contributed packages
• only 4GB storage required (including persistent data)
• EFI and BIOS support
• 12GB of software
  • photo touching
  • sound processing
  • 3D/2D design tools
  • desktop applications
  • standard network & developpment tools
  • MATE by default (awesome also included)

Features

• Easy to maintain "live" image builder for ArchLinux
• Easy installer for ArchLinux including with non-destructive option
• Pre-configuration for most elementary parts
• Multi-lingual with minimal effort to add a country support
• Unmodifed you have all the manpages, translations & co
• Installable on pen drives or standard hard drives
• Storage & installation of apps possible even in "live" mode
• Can be run from windows withe Qemu, vmware or Virtualbox
• Unmodified system can be restored if things get broke
• Failsafe install with "rollback" option [WIP]
• Fast - maybe the fastest Linux installer on earth
• Small - the live system usually takes less than 30% of the original size

Here is a list of Open issues

Minimal configuration

• intel i3 CPU / probably any 64 bits CPU
• 1GB RAM
• 2GB disk space (for noobs distribution, 4GB for bigger distributions, take more if you plan to store documents)

Notes

• there is a huge performance boost on USB3 when running from pen drive
• size may vary from one build to another, the space reserved for software is 3.5GB

Why ?

Because I wanted like to make custom distributions using ArchLinux, mainly for two purposes:

• Portable desktop: ArchLinux "on the go" with a fullfeatured desktop environment & set of apps
• Sharing: Shows nice applications & makes ArchLinux easier to get into for noobs
• Experimenting: Having a sandbox to test configurations or applications
• Desktop environments testing: Be able to easily switch from DE to DE quickly to compare them, without bloating my own system

Also, I might target in the future:

• Super simplified desktop environment for elder people or kids
• Graphical installer (currently using curses only)
• Better desktop and apps selection by default

Status

Currently WIP, but starts to be usable.

Target installation modes include:

Full disk

Takes over an entire disk with a modified Linux system.

Mainly useful to duplicate ArchX on a removable device.

Advantages: The system can be restored almost instantly without sacrificing your disk space

Embed into existing partition

Copies files to your disk and allow you to run Linux without an emulator

Mainly useful to people not able to apply changes to the disk configuration, with no root/admin access on a machine

Advantages: Have the advantages of Full disk installation + don't erase any data from your (possibly Windows) disk

Vanilla Archlinux

Takes over an entire disk with an unmodified but pre-installed ArchLinux system.

For people having a spare disk to install Archlinux on and want to take all advantages of a pre-configured Linux system and without complex installation process.

Advantages: Just installs an ArchLinux on your drive, so go to http://archlinux.org and enter a wonderful world !

Available Desktop environments

From the most RAM consuming to the lightest:

• cinnamon - very heavy
• gnome3 - very heavy
• gnome3-classique - quite heavy
• plasma - medium
• xfce - light
• mate - lighter

Note that kodi requires as little as mate

Quickstart for users (TODO)

Installation

Linux

dd if=[downloaded image] of=/dev/usbstick bs=100M

Windows

Install https://rufus.akeo.ie/ and run it

TODO: steps

Secure Boot

If you have SecureBoot enabled, a popup will show on first boot. Just select

Enroll Hash then loader.efi, yes, exit

It's only needed once.

Quickstart for developers

• install arch-install-scripts

Get some basic help:

make help

Root folder setup:

make init

Generate a bootable disk image:

make

To install packages or make Add some software (eg. vim) and regenerate disk image:

sudo arch-chroot ROOT 
<do some modifications, install packages, etc...>
^D
touch hooks.flag
make

Install it to USB stick/drive:

dd if=ARCHX.img of=/dev/sd??

Configuration example

Build a console distribution in german language with gzip compression:

Write a my_conf.sh file with this content:

DISTRIB=console
COMPRESSION_TYPE=gzip
COUNTRY=DE

Then, build from scratch:

% rm -fr ROOT
% make

Custom ArchLinux partitionning

• Prepare your partitions using cfdisk, parted, fdisk or gparted if you are running a graphical session

• Mount your partitions according to desired layout somewhere (ie. /mnt), then type:

  sudo installer-archlinux.sh /mnt

TODO

• Share disk images for each distrib (stacked rootfs)
• More flexible partition schemes

Maybe

• expert install mode allowing custom disk setup

How it works ?

Look at the targets in the Makefile, the scripts are called cos-*.sh in the root of the repository.

Sequences are defined by profiles in the hooks directory, make your own profile to experiment, by executing makeprofile.sh

External resources are loaded from the resources folder

Notice

This is alpha software: NEVER INTERRUPT THE SCRIPT WHILE RUNNING !!

I am open to contributions of course (translations, fixes, etc...)

Known bugs

• gnome keyboard set to US at first boot even if locale available