SILA

Deprecation notice

The script is no longer maintained. You should use archinstall instead.

What is SILA?

SILA is a script that configures and installs a fully-featured Arch Linux system.

Why is it named SILA?

Arch Linux Install Script (ALIS) spelled backwards.

Features

• BTRFS filesystem.
• GRUB bootloader (works with both UEFI and BIOS systems).
• Optional: Full disk LUKS encryption.
• Pipewire and Wireplumber.
• GNOME or KDE desktops (nothing is an option as well).
• Optional: User configuration installation. See the section below.
• Many different applications to choose from, both generic and gaming related.
• Virtualization with QEMU/KVM.
• Podman or Docker.

Limitations

• Dual Boot
• No secure boot.
• Only a limited number of locales are generated at install time.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Boot the Arch Linux iso. You can use Ventoy for that.
2. Run the script using the command below.
3. Follow the instructions given by the installer.
4. Reboot your computer.
   • You will have to log in as root after the reboot.
5. The script will launch automatically.
   • You can always launch it manually with bash /root/sila/scripts/postinstall.sh.
6. Follow the installer instructions. Read each page carefully and select what you want to install.
7. Reboot your computer again.
8. ?
9. Profit

How to run the script?

# with a helper script:
# IMPORTANT: it is strongly advised to check the source code of the script before running it
curl -L sila.sgf.lt | bash

# or manually:
pacman -Sy git
git clone https://github.com/richard96292/sila /tmp/sila
bash /tmp/sila/scripts/1-archinstall.sh

In case something fails

You can always cancel the script with Ctrl-C when it is running. Then you can either run exit and log in as root again or start the postinstall script manually. If you run the script a second time just select the same options. It should work fine.

Most likely, some package names have changed. I can't do anything about that. In the case of the postinstall the repo is cloned to /root/sila. You need to find the package and remove it from a script. After that, be sure to submit a pull request with your fixes.

Advanced features

Dual boot

Having two systems on the same drive is not supported at all. And Windows on the second drive will not be detected automatically. Follow this tutorial if you want Windows to show up in the systemd-boot menu.

User configuration installation

SILA optionally supports running the dotfile installation script given by the user. As the last step in the installation process, the user can install the dotfiles from a personal git repository. You will need to enter your dotfile repo URL link. The git repository has to be public for the script to access it. The default value is https://github.com/richard96292/dotfiles. The script will search for a sila-install-script.sh in the root directory of the cloned repo and execute it. You can find an example of such a script in my dotfiles repo.

Screenshots