archinstall_gui

Graphical Arch Linux installer.
All errors should be reported here, and no where else.
See trouble-shooting a bit further down.

Note: If you're not familiar with Arch Linux or the installation process, please have a look at the comprehensive Installation Guide. Arch Linux does not come default with a graphical desktop environment.

Demo / Screenshot

A demo can be viewed on

Pre-built Live ISO:

A pre-built ISO from the steps below, can be found here. Which also come with pre-built graphical support for:

• VirtualBox
• kvm / qemu
• VMWare
• And most hardware that supports basic drivers such as:
  • mesa
  • xf86-video-fbdev
  • xf86-video-vesa
  • xf86-video-vmware

Build into a Arch ISO medium

Follow the basics steps for releng on Archiso wiki. Then, before you build, do the following steps:

# cd ~/archiso_build_folder
# cat <<EOF >> ./packages.x86_64
python
python-systemd
python-psutil
git
xorg-server
xorg-xinit
xorg-twm
chromium
which
EOF
# cat <<EOF >> ./airootfs/root/customize_airootfs.sh
cd /root
git clone --recursive https://github.com/Torxed/archinstall_gui.git
cp archinstall_gui/INSTALL/archinstall_gui.service /etc/systemd/system/
cp archinstall_gui/INSTALL/xinitrc /etc/X11/xinit/
cp -r archinstall_gui /srv/
chmod +x /srv/archinstall_gui/webgui.py
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable archinstall_gui.service
EOF
# mkdir -p ./airootfs/etc/skel
# echo '[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]] && sh -c "startx"' >> ./airootfs/etc/skel/.zprofile

This will auto-run the backend webservice that does all the actual work.
Then, on boot it will launch X with chromium in full-screen mode (thanks to the xinitrc from the INSTALL folder of this repo).

Important note: You'll also need to include a graphics driver (not included in the steps above) in packages.x86_64. Since this is a graphical installer, a working xorg environment is needed. As an example, for VirtualBox, this means xf86-video-vmware needs to be added into packages.x86_64.

Now, do sudo ./build.sh -v and a finished ISO should pop out under ./out.

Troubleshooting

In case of installation errors, check the "Install log",
And post the copy of /root/archinstall.log here on github as an issue (Found on the live medium).

Also doing journalctl -a -n 500 -u archinstall_gui | less -S might give useful indiciations on what went wrong, stack traces might end up in the journal output.

note: The archinstall.log might be elsewhere if you're running this as a standalone application to install from a already existing Arch Linux installation.

Finally, just asking here for help is fine too. I'll support in any way I can.