4.5 KiB
Just another guided/automated Arch Linux installer with a twist. The installer also doubles as a python library to access each individual installation step for customized installs.
Pre-built ISO's can be found here which autostarts archinstall (in a safe guided mode): https://hvornum.se/archiso/
- archinstall discord server
archinstall documentation(TBA)archinstall guided install ISO's: https://hvornum.se/archiso/(Being re-built to v2.0)- archinstall on #archinstall@freenode (IRC)
Usage
Run on Live-CD (Binary)
Currently this method is not supported until v2.1.0, this due to the rework of the contextualized approach.
# wget https://gzip.app/archinstall
# chmod +x archinstall; ./archinstall
This downloads and runs a "compiled" (using nuitka) version of the project.
It defaults to starting a guided install with some safety checks in place.
Run on Live-CD with Python:
# wget https://github.com/Torxed/archinstall/archive/v2.0.1.tar.gz
# tar xvzf v2.0.1.tar.gz
# cd archinstall-2.0.1
# pacman -S --noconfirm python; python examples/main_example.py
This will ask for a disk and a password before wiping the entire disk.
Run using PIP and Python module:
# pip install archinstall
# python -m archinstall examples/main_example.py
This assumes tho that python >= 3.8 and pip is present (not always the case on the default Arch Linux ISO), see above for pre-built ISO's containing Python+pip or follow the docs to see how to build an ISO yourself.
only pip install archinstall is currently supported, running as a module is planned for v2.0.5 or v2.1.0.
Scripting an installation
Assuming you're building your own ISO and want to create an automated install process.
This is probably what you'll need, a minimal example of how to install using archinstall as a Python library.
import archinstall, getpass
# Unmount and close previous runs
archinstall.sys_command(f'umount -R /mnt', surpress_errors=True)
archinstall.sys_command(f'cryptsetup close /dev/mapper/luksloop', surpress_errors=True)
# Select a harddrive and a disk password
harddrive = archinstall.select_disk(archinstall.all_disks())
disk_password = getpass.getpass(prompt='Disk password (won\'t echo): ')
with archinstall.Filesystem(harddrive, archinstall.GPT) as fs:
# Use the entire disk instead of setting up partitions on your own
fs.use_entire_disk('luks2')
if harddrive.partition[1].size == '512M':
raise OSError('Trying to encrypt the boot partition for petes sake..')
harddrive.partition[0].format('fat32')
with archinstall.luks2(harddrive.partition[1], 'luksloop', disk_password) as unlocked_device:
unlocked_device.format('btrfs')
with archinstall.Installer(unlocked_device, hostname='testmachine') as installation:
if installation.minimal_installation():
installation.add_bootloader(harddrive.partition[0])
installation.add_additional_packages(['nano', 'wget', 'git'])
installation.install_profile('workstation')
installation.user_create('anton', 'test')
installation.user_set_pw('root', 'toor')
installation.add_AUR_support()
This installer will perform the following:
- Prompt the user to select a disk and disk-password
- Proceed to wipe said disk
- Sets up a default 100% used disk with encryption
- Installs a basic instance of Arch Linux (base base-devel linux linux-firmware btrfs-progs efibootmgr)
- Installs and configures a bootloader
- Install additional packages (nano, wget, git)
- Installs a network-profile called
workstation(more on network profiles in the docs) - Adds AUR support by compiling and installing yay
Creating your own ISO: Follow ArchISO's guide on how to create your own ISO or use a pre-built guided ISO to skip the python installation step, or to create auto-installing ISO templates. Further down are examples and cheat sheets on how to create different live ISO's.

