arch-install

A highly configurable script installing Arch Linux.

Feature Highlights

• Fully automated installation of a ready-to-use Arch Linux system
• Installation to any device, including USB sticks or into a VirtualBox VM
• Auto-detecting SSDs to configure TRIM
• Supports both BIOS (legacy) and EFI/UEFI boot methods
  • for BIOS: grub boot loader
  • for EFI/UEFI: choose between grub or the gummiboot boot loader
• "One-switch" installation of a fully LVM-on-LUKS encrypted system (also to USB sticks!)
• yaourt installation to install AUR packages right away
• Xorg installation
• Optionally install Ubuntu's font rendering (much smoother!)
• Xfce installation, including the Numix theme and icons
• Graphical user login using LightDM
• Installation of individually configurable software package sets, already including
  • Chrome, Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, Pidgin, TeamViewer
  • GIMP, gThumb, Shutter, Kazam
  • Dropbox, FileZilla, gSTM, Tor
  • OpenJDK 8, LibreOffice
  • VLC, Spotify, Banshee, Audacity, MuseScore
  • VirtualBox
  • Ant, Maven, GCC, Code::Blocks, GCC for AVR, Arduino, Fritzing
  • Apache, MariaDB, PHP, Composer, Node.js, npm, Google Protocol Buffers
  • ...
• Optimization settings like noatime, swappiness and a better IO scheduler for SSDs

You should look into the configuration file arch-install.conf -- almost everything is configurable...

Quick Start

(For a more detailed usage guide scroll down.)

Boot the Arch Linux ISO image and type in:

curl -L https://github.com/wrzlbrmft/arch-install/archive/master.tar.gz | tar zxvf -
arch-install-master/arch-install.sh

CAUTION: The installation will delete all existing data on the installation device including all other partitions and operating systems on it.

After a while, reboot and enjoy!

Usage Guide

Start by downloading(, burning) and booting the latest Arch Linux ISO image.

After the auto-login as root, you can load an alternative keyboard layout, e.g. German:

loadkeys de-latin1

(on German keyboards: for y press z, for - press ß)

Make sure you have a working internet connection:

ping -c 3 8.8.8.8

To connect to a wireless network use:

wifi-menu

Next, download and unpack the arch-install repository:

curl -L https://github.com/wrzlbrmft/arch-install/archive/master.tar.gz | tar zxvf -
arch-install-master/arch-install.sh

You may want to change the default configuration:

nano -w arch-install-master/arch-install.conf

NOTE: If you are installing into a VirtualBox VM, make sure to set both INSTALL_VIRTUALBOX_GUEST and ENABLE_MODULES_VIRTUALBOX_GUEST to yes and maybe ENABLE_MODULES_VIRTUALBOX_HOST to no.

see also: Configuration/Most Important Settings

Finally, start the installation process:

arch-install-master/arch-install.sh

CAUTION: The installation will delete all existing data on the installation device including all other partitions and operating systems on it.

NOTE: For both the root and main user, and also if you enabled the LVM-on-LUKS encryption, you will have to type in some passwords during the installation process.

Depending on your computer and internet connection speed, installing the defaults takes about 60 minutes (downloading 1.8 GB) and uses 11.1 GB of the installation device.

The installation is done, once you see

[arch-install] Wake up, Neo... The installation is done!

Finally, reboot your machine:

reboot

That's it!

Configuration

Eventually, I will add more comments to arch-install.conf soon... :-)

Most Important Settings

INSTALL_DEVICE

Default: /dev/sda

Definitely the most important setting: where to install Arch Linux.

CAUTION: The installation will delete all existing data on the installation device including all other partitions and operating systems on it.

BOOT_METHOD

Value: legacy (default) or efi

Boot method to be used: legacy for BIOS boot, efi for EFI/UEFI boot. This affects the boot loader configuration.

LVM_ON_LUKS

Value: yes or no (default)

Whether to install an LVM-on-LUKS encrypted system. For more information, start reading on Wikipedia about LUKS and dm-crypt.

ADD_MAIN_USER

Value: yes (default) or no

Whether to add a main user. If set to yes, have a look at the MAIN_USER_USERNAME and MAIN_USER_REALNAME settings.

CAUTION: The installation process highly depends on the creation of a main user (for basically everything being installed by yaourt). Disable at your own risk!

MAIN_USER_USERNAME, MAIN_USER_REALNAME

If ADD_MAIN_USER is set to yes, a main user will be created. Use these two settings to configure its username and the user's realname.

Using an Alternative Configuration File

You can use an alternative configuration file by passing it to the installation script:

arch-install-master/arch-install.sh -c my.conf

License

This software is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v3.