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.

morancj/archiso