Build your own Arch Linux ISO with ZFS support

Can be used as a live/rescue disk, or as an Arch Linux installation disk.

Prerequisites

Build Prerequisites

• Working Arch Linux installation
• archiso installed
• Sufficient free disk space and RAM: 16GB of both is fine.

Notable changes from upstream

• ZFS support
• Added "live CD" type XFCE4 graphical user environment with useful (to me) desktop software and basic "rescue CD" functionality
• Current proprietary nvidia driver, since nouveau is pretty useless on modern hardware (don't buy nvidia for Linux!)
• Defaults to user livecd
• sudo and polkit rules for livecd user
• Boot option to use 25% of RAM for root partition
• Boot option to prevent loading the nvidia* modules: should be useful for older nvidia cards unsupported by the latest drivers.
• NetworkManager applet for GUI network config in XFCE
• codecs and thumbnailers
• en_GB locale

Comparing with upstream

Install meld (or your favourite diff tool), compare with e.g:

→ meld /usr/share/archiso/configs/releng releng

Important notes

If using the livecd user, become root with e.g. sudo -i before starting the installation.

One should not generally install software when booting as a live disk. The "use 25% of RAM as root fs space" option is for those who know what they're doing.

Build notes

Use disk label ARCHZFS for the ISO, e.g:

sudo mkarchiso -w /tmp/archiso-tmp -o /some/path/for/iso/ -L ARCHZFS -v $(pwd)/releng

Known issues

Some of the XFCE icons are missing: this is due to the DE's default icon theme.