koffe

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 copy-pasting from the iso that could cause issues later.

Documentation

Installation

First of all, open a terminal and run this command:

curl https://koffe.netlify.app/install-host | sudo bash

This creates some configs and adds some file we will need for the installation. After the script finishes, go to a mirror near you on the arch website and download the .tar.gz bootstrap image and unzip it in /usr/share/koffe/archbox so that /usr/share/koffe/archbox/bin is a valid folder. After you're done unziping the image, edit /usr/share/koffe/archbox/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist and uncomment a mirror. Then you should be able to run koffe-shell to enter the container, after that run

curl https://koffe.netlify.app/install-box | bash

and pacman -Syu to add the necessary files. After that just exit and re-enter the container and you should be able to use it.

Usage

After you do koffe-shell to enter the container, you can do helpme to list commands, I'm gonna list the steps of making a basic iso.

1.Registering the packages (you only have to do this once)

To do that, use the command register package-name

!!IMPORTANT!! : you need these following packages for even the most basic of installs: base, linux, linux-firmware, libnewt (for the script) and grub, register them before any other packages.

If the package is actually a group (like gnome, xorg, plasma) do register-g instead of register. TIP: To make package groups, simply make a folder in /arch/pkgs and move all packages you want to put in said group in that folder, after that when you select the folder it'll fetch everything in it.

2. Making the iso

Run iso-make, you will be prompted with a screen where you can choose what packages (from the registered ones) to download for the installation, once again you need the packages listed in step 1 for even the most basic installs, so add them for a healthy install. After you're done choosing the packages and downloading them, choose the "done" option at the very bottom and let the iso generate.

3. Collecting and using the iso

The iso will be copied from the container to the home folder after you run exit, pick it up from there and use it, you can flash it to a usb, burn it to a disk or mount it to a virtual machine. If for some reason it doesn't appear in your home, it's in /usr/share/koffe/archbox/out most likely.

4. Installing

Boot from the iso and run bash install in the live env, this should start the installer right away, just follow the steps keeping these things in mind: In cfdisk you need at least one partition with the type set as "linux", you can also add one with a "swap" label as long as it is about 1.5 times as big as your ram storage (but this is optional), if you're on uefi create a 500 MB fat32 partition and if you're on mbr/legacy tick the 'bootable' option for the linux partition. Make sure to memorise or write down what partiton (/dev/name) is used for what as you will need to fill that in later.

Tips for advanced users:

You can edit /arch/scripts/ to better suit your installation, koffe.is is what runs in the live env and pi.is is the post-install setup that runs in chroot.

Upgrading

To update the scripts and components in the arch container, simply enter it and run curl https://koffe.netlify.app/install-box | bash. Basically redownload everything fresh off the webapp, same for the host, just replace install-box with install-host and add a sudo before bash if necessary.

Removal

To remove koffe from your system, simply delete /usr/bin/koffe-shell and everything in /usr/share/koffe/

End of documentation

As an ending thought, I really hope this tool will help speed up your arch installs or make it more aproachable if you're just starting out. Also, make sure to re-build your isos regularly to get the latest software, though running pacman -Syu after installation should do the same, it's less clunky this way.