zxsc/archlinux

An Arch Linux Based Custom ISO Made With Archiso, Specially for newbies and DIY enthusiasts.

Quick Links

Features

Offline Installer - Installable ISO, Guide Here
Enabled Encryption Settings By Default
Grub - With Themes - Configured/Customized
Plymouth - Arch Themes - Configured/Customized
Xorg Server / GUI - Intel Video Drivers
LXDM Display Manager - Configured/Customized
Openbox WM (Default), i3WM & LXDE Sessions - Configured/Customized
Network Manager - Mobile Broadband, USB/Bluetooth Tethering, nm-applet,nm_dmenu
Full File Manager Functionality - Partition Mounting, Network Access, Thumbnails Etc
Virtualbox Support - Screenshots
Compton Tryone - With Blur
Dunst - Notifications - Configured For Each Session
Polybar - With All My Themes
Rofi - Custom Menus, Themes
Yay - AUR helper
Shell, Vim, Ranger, etc - Configured
eDEX-UI - Optional
Pulseaudio - Audio Support
Mpd, Mpc, Ncmpcpp - Album Art Support
Mplayer - Video Player
Terminals - termite, urxvt(compiled with pixbuf), xfce4-terminal, lxterminal
GUI - Thunar, Pcmanfm, Geany, Leafpad, Atril, Viewnior, Feh, Etc
CLI - vim, ranger, mc/mcedit, htop, bmon, nmon, neofetch, Etc
And a lot, don't remember everything, check the source

How To Get ISO

1. Download - You can either download already generated ISO file, or...

2. Build ISO - If you're already using archlinux & want to build the iso, maybe with your config then...

Check list

Open the terminal & clone this repo

git clone --single-branch --branch master --depth=1 https://github.com/adi1090x/archlinux.git archlinux

After cloning, run 'setup.sh', it'll install the dependencies, AUR packages, Fix Permissions, Etc. Be Patient!

cd archlinux
chmod +x setup.sh
./setup.sh

Now, Change to 'customiso' directory & get ROOT & Run 'build.sh'

cd customiso
sudo su
./build.sh -v

If everything goes well, you'll have the ISO in 'customiso/out' directory.

If you want to Rebuild the ISO, remove work & out dirs inside customiso directory first. then run ./build.sh -v as root. You don't need to run 'setup.sh' again, it's a one time process only.

Boot The ISO

1. Using GRUB - If you're already using a linux distro, with grub, then you can add following entry in your 'grub.cfg' file, Replace "X" with your partition number, and 'path_to_your_iso' with ISO path, which can be (/home/USERNAME/archlinux/customiso/out/archlinux-xxxx.xx.xx-x86_64.iso)

menuentry 'Arch Linux Live' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class linux {
    set root='(hd0,X)'
    set isofile="path_to_your_iso"
    set dri="free"
    search --no-floppy -f --set=root $isofile
    probe -u $root --set=abc
    set pqr="/dev/disk/by-uuid/$abc"
    loopback loop $isofile
    linux  (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz img_dev=$pqr img_loop=$isofile driver=$dri quiet loglevel=3 systemd.show_status=false udev.log-priority=3 vt.global_cursor_default=0 splash cow_spacesize=1G
    initrd  (loop)/arch/boot/intel_ucode.img (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/archiso.img
}

2. Using dd - Alternatively, you can use dd command to make a bootable USB_Drive/SDcard, Just open the terminal and...

sudo su
dd bs=4M if=path_to_iso of=/dev/sdX status=progress oflag=sync

3. Using Etcher - If you use Windows, or maybe linux but afraid of dd, then you can use Etcher to make a bootable USB/SDcard. More Options Here

Overview

Openbox

Theme - Arc Theme
Icons - Arc Icon Theme
Fonts - Terminus
Screenshots - More Here

i3wm

Theme - Arc Theme
Icons - Arc Icon Theme
Fonts - Terminus & Noto Sans
Screenshots - More Here

Lxde

Theme - Adapta Theme
Icons - Papirus Icon Theme
Fonts - Noto Sans
Screenshots - More Here

Extra

I've installed three Sessions in the ISO, Openbox is the default Session, i3wm specially for terminals and Lxde, if you're too lazy to use keyboard.
Personally, i love eDEX-UI, So i've added it in setup.sh, it's optional for you.
Default grub is ugly and on arch linux, well it sucks, so i've configured it to sush it completely & added custom entries & a beautiful theme.
Also, I tricked the AUR plymouth pkg to have this heart-beat kinda theme, so i can have it on ISO's initrd.
I've made this adapta style lxdm theme, which looks... good, i guess, At first i configred lightdm with webkit2-greeter, but it was very slow and buggy, so i replaced it with lxdm. well, it's on you, you want lightdm... Source is yours.

Grub	Plymouth

Lxdm	eDEX-UI

Installation

This ISO can be installed, Offline, thanks to ABIF. I've tested & installed it on a USB Drive, SDcard, HDD & Virtualbox, works as expected. Just Don't forget to install virtualbox guest additions after installing it on vbox.

The installer is very simple and easy to use, but what if you're still a windows guy or a softcore linux user (Coz arch is for Hardcore linux users, Did you get it? NEVERMIND :P). So i've created a step by step guide on how to install it - Here, How To Install It.

Support This Project

Few Words

I'm really bad at Naming Things, So i've kept it simple - just Archlinux.
Default username and password is liveuser (Live ISO Only).
After installing this ISO, run sudo pacman -Syy to fix pacman. it'll just download packages database.
In this ISO, I've enabled encryption settings (luks/dm-crypt) by default. If you're installing it without encryption, there will be no issue, but these settings are useless for you in this case. So after normal installation, comment out GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y in /etc/default/grub and remove plymouth-encrypt hook in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and rebuilt initrd.
Important - I've tested it on two laptops, with intel pantium & i3 CPUs. Obviously ISO have intel-video drivers, if you have nvidia or something, edit packages.x86_64 and replace the drivers section with your GPU drivers packages, or WM/DE might freeze on startup.
My display resolution is 1366x768, if you have a 1920x1080 Display, then you have to edit customiso/airootfs/etc/skel/.config/rofi/themes/shared/settings.rasi or $HOME/.config/rofi/themes/shared/settings.rasi & replace it with your display resolution for rofi-menus to work.
You may have to modify some config files according to your system, (i mean that's the goal, right). Ex- customiso/airootfs/etc/skel/.config/i3status/config, customiso/airootfs/etc/skel/.config/polybar/modules.ini for Battery & Network Modules.
By default, touchpad is disabled. To enable it... Open Settings manager & goto 'Mouse & Touchpad>Touchpad>Tap to click'.
While installing it on the USB, installer seems like it freezed when grub was installing. Problem it - os-prober was taking a long time to detect other OS installed on system. it took 10-12 mins to complete. on other media (SDcard & HDD), there was no such issue. Maybe it's a bug related to os-prober, thought i should mention it here. if you face it, pls wait!
It's a 64-bit only ISO/OS.
Updates: Well, the best things is, you'll always get the latest Linux kernel, Archlinux System & Packages, only if you build it. if you can't, well i'll try to update the ISO Every 3rd Month. And TBH, updating arch is very simple, you can install the ISO, and sudo pacman -Syu, That's it... DONE!
Arch is not beginner's friendly OS, so if it's your first time with arch linux... your welcome, i've made it easy for you. JUST KIDDING... But sure, you're gonna learn a lot with this ISO, & specially by it's Source, it'll give you a picture of how a linux system works.
Share this repo with your friends/classmates/colleagues who're new to linux/Archlinux.

zxsc / archlinux