Offline archlinux installer ISO creator

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koffe

Introduction

koffe is a great tool for making intuitive, offline archlinux installers. Since some steps for mastering an arch iso require arch-linux, everything runs inside a container you have to create yourself. Every package installed to the new computer via the installer are from the repo, including base and linux, so no copying packages from the ISO filesystem like other offline installers that could cause issues later, everything is done as is reccommended in the official wiki, !!also remember to regenerate your koffee isos every few weeks to keep on-board packages fresh.

Documentation

koffe is a tool for making simple and intuitive offline archlinux installer iso's

koffe [options] <out folder>

Flags:

	koffe --pacs=Prog1,Prog2  --> starts koffe and creates
                                an iso with the programs Prog1 and Prog2
                                IMPORTANT: Separate the progs with commas
                                and do not use spaces

	koffe --clean             --> cleans building dirs after unexpected
                                exit or unsuccesful iso generation. Will
                                nullify any other args parsed with it and will
                                not create an iso

	koffe --scripts=/foo/bar  --> copies the scripts in the specified path
                                and uses them instead of the default koffe
                                scripts in /usr/share/koffe/. Avoid paths with spaces

	koffe --opt               --> Also downloads optional dependencies for packages
                                Use for a more complete installation.

Installation

Installation is pretty easy, just boot from the iso and type bash install, the installer will do everything for you.

Who is this meant for?

For anyone in need of offline installers, may be people with wifi driver problems, sys admins with poor internet connections needing to install arch on many systems, etc. The interchangeable scripts and easy to edit nature of koffe make it very easy to turn into a specialized tool that can install arch without any user intervention. In general, it's for the people, use and publish it as you like as long as you respect the license

Making a koffe disk

If you're using another distrbution create a chroot system (using the bootstrap image on the arch page), configure the repos, then simply install koffe from the aur either manually or with an aur helper. If you're on windows see if you can find arch in WSL or switch to a better OS.

Docker Installation

(for windows, macOS, non-arch linux, BSD)

docker pull archlinux

git clone https://github.com/konickss/koffe

cd koffe

sudo docker build -t koffe .

(if prompted to import or update pgp keys, that means your docker archlinux img is heavily out of date, run docker pull archlinux to fix it.)

Then to run it:

docker run -v $PWD:/finalimage --privileged --rm koffe --pacs=base,linux

Note: On Windows, replace $PWD with an absolute path on your host, something like c:\\Foo\\bar\\

Converting a standard Arch USB to koffe without any other OS (internet required):

In the grub boot menu, press tab on the menu entry you want to boot and add copytoram at the end of the kernel parameters, boot from that. Next, clone the koffe repo from the aur and install it (git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/koffe ; chown -hR nobody koffe ; cd koffe ; sudo -u nobody makepkg -si). Generate your iso using koffe (documentation @ koffe --help), then lsblk and identify your arch USB, wipe the file system wipefs --all /dev/sdX (make sure you're wiping the entire drive, not just a partition) then burn the koffe iso (cat /root/*.iso > /dev/sdX) once again, make sure you're doing it to the whole drive, not just a partition.

A bit about the source code

Basically koffe is the actual program, install is the live env installation script (includes package installation and partitioning) while pi.is is copied and ran in chroot and handles stuff like timezones and user acounts, you can replace the two installation scripts with any of your choice using the --scripts flag

Making 'ready to go' installers with your exact configurations

Koffe is not really made for installing vanilla arch quickly as much as it is for installing the EXACT arch you want in minutes, with basic shell scripting skills you can do this yourself, make some custom scripts, include your dotfiles and configurations in the iso (put them in /usr/share/archiso/configs/releng/airootfs/root for easy acces), clone some gits, move some files and have the installation scripts handle compilation and installation, the goal is that when you reboot you will have your workflow there, waiting for you, arch as you picture it

PREMADE configs (in order of ammount of apps)

VM command line disk --pacs=base,linux,grub

Basic command line server --pacs=base,linux,linux-firmware,grub,efibootmgr

Fully fleshed out ubuntu-like gnome install --opt --pacs=base,linux,linux-firmware,base-devel,grub,efibootmgr,xorg,gnome,gdm,firefox,code,spotify,discord,minecraft-launcher,yay (add and remove apps as needed)

FAQ

Why tf did you write the args parsing yourself?

Because I wrote this a while back and I was an idiot and I'm too lazy to edit it in now

Why is it written in bash ffs?