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#1 2026-03-11 18:46:36

live4thamuzik
Member
Registered: 2024-02-27
Posts: 72

Hybrid Arch installer with system tools

Been tinkering with this for quite a while... curious if anyone has a test bench they might be willing to run this on and provide feedback. I have been testing in VMs and a 2017 Origin EON17-SLX laptop with successful installs using various configs. System tools need extensive testing.

The idea was to create a guided installer that keeps user choice as the primary focus. There are so many possible configurations I can't test them all and I am limited in test hardware. Please do not run this on a production system with data you care about! This is just a fun learning experience for myself.

GitHub Link

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#2 2026-03-24 17:37:50

live4thamuzik
Member
Registered: 2024-02-27
Posts: 72

Re: Hybrid Arch installer with system tools

UPDATES:

Repo now includes screenshots of the TUI taken from my machine. I will add screenshots of how it looks in the in the ISO for contrast soon (screenshots only show how additional AUR packages looks/works but the additional pacman packages looks/works exactly the same)

No more pre-built binary in repo when doing a git clone. CI builds releases from source and can be verified with sha265sum.

git clone https://github.com/live4thamuzik/ArchTUI.git
cd ArchTUI
curl -fsSL -o archtui https://github.com/live4thamuzik/ArchTUI/releases/latest/download/archtui
curl -fsSL -o archtui.sha256 https://github.com/live4thamuzik/ArchTUI/releases/latest/download/archtui.sha256
sha256sum -c archtui.sha256
chmod +x archtui
./archtui

...Considering GPG keys...

Guided Installations all seem to be going well on hardware in all Disk Layout options including RAID (software RAID using mdadm).

I also verified working secure boot when using Guided installer to install Arch on a seperate disk than Windows. Disk selection allows you to see lsblk before selecting the disk so you can be sure you aren't about to wipe your windows install. This was a side effort for folks like me who use Windows to play games that require TPM and secure boot enabled for kernel level anti-cheat.

Still testing system tools at length.

Any feedback on issues, likes/dislikes, adds/removals, etc. is appreciated.

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#3 Yesterday 02:28:17

live4thamuzik
Member
Registered: 2024-02-27
Posts: 72

Re: Hybrid Arch installer with system tools

UPDATE:

- Default pacstrap trimmed to a wiki-aligned set; Network Manager and Editor are now explicit user choices replacing force nano, neovim, and networkmanager.

- Three opt-in package groups (Network Tools, System Utilities, Dev Tools) replace previously-forced extras.

- Bluetooth/mDNS plumbing is gated on desktop selection; avahi installs now wire up /etc/nsswitch.conf so .local resolution actually works.

- Meta-group desktops (GNOME/KDE/XFCE/MATE/LXQt) gain a Full vs Minimal variant. [ Ex. GNOME Full will install gnome-extras v. GNOME Minimal will not ]

- Early dual-boot OS detection with TUI-integrated warnings, plus a multi-boot chainload helper for Linux-to-Linux setups.

- "About" panel under selection lists shows a one-line description of the highlighted choice (kernels, DEs, greeters, bootloaders, partition layouts, GPU drivers, opt-in packages, etc.).

- MSRV bumped to Rust 1.95.

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