archinstall/README.md

4.5 KiB

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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/

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.

End note

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