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<h1><big>larch</big> – a do-it-yourself live <em>Arch Linux</em> CD</h1>
<img style="border: 0px solid ; width: 320px; height: 320px;" alt="" src="larch1.jpg"
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<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p><em>larch</em> is a collection of scripts designed around the creation and
use of live CD/DVD/USB-stick versions of <em>Arch Linux</em>.
</p>
<p>One design aim was easy customization, so that even relatively inexperienced
users could build personalized live CDs (etc.), containing whatever packages they
wanted and with their own personal configurations. The resulting medium should
also be usable for installation purposes, so that one has a customized
<em>Arch Linux</em> installation/rescue medium. As the content can be chosen
freely, a comfortable working environment is possible - in contrast to
the rather Spartan standard <em>Arch</em> installation CD.
</p>
<p><em>larch</em> also offers a flexible approach to building your live media.
You can use 'profiles' to determine what gets installed, and how it is
configured. The advantage of this method is that all your specifications are
kept together in a folder which can be used to rebuild the same or a similar
system at a later date. Alternatively you can do a normal <em>Arch Linux</em>
installation (if there is such a thing!) and then make a live medium from this.
You can even 'livify' your existing installation (though it might be worth
tidying it up a bit first ...).
</p>
<p><em>Squashfs</em> offers convenient compression of the data on the CD so that
up to about 2 GB of code can be included on a 700 MB CD. <em>aufs</em> (a
'unification' file system, originally based on <em>unionfs</em>) offers
the ability to write to all directories even though
the CDROM is read-only, which allows such fancy stuff as installation
of new software packages to the running live system. Using <em>aufs</em>
you could do, say, 'pacman -S fluxbox' and <em>fluxbox</em> would be
installed. The limit to the amount of overwriting is determined by the size of
the available memory.
</p>
<p>All this would normally be gone when you reboot as the changes are
really only stored in memory. However, thanks to various technical wizardry, it
is also possible (on suitable media) to save any changes you make while running
the live system back to the medium on shutdown.
</p>
<p>Hardware detection is provided by the same <em>udev</em> approach as is used
in a standard <em>Arch Linux</em> system.
</p>
<p>The <em>larch</em> project comprises several components. The scripts for
building a larch live medium are in the <em>larch</em> package, which need not
itself be installed in the live system, though it may be useful. Scripts and
data for the live environment are provided in the <em>larch-live</em> package,
which must be installed in the live system. There is also an optional installer
(<em>larchin</em>, written in python and bash, with a <em>GTK</em> interface) which
can install the live system to hard disk, providing a convenient way to install a
ready-configured <em>Arch Linux</em> system.
</p>
<p>I have tried to maintain the distribution-independence of the
<em>larch</em> scripts, so that they can be used on other <em>GNU/Linux</em> systems -
you shouldn't need an <em>Arch Linux</em> installation in order to build a <em>larch</em>
live medium, the dependencies (e.g. <em>bash</em>, <em>wget</em>,
<em>mkisofs</em> ) should be satisfied on pretty well any <em>GNU/Linux</em> system
(and a static version of <em>pacman</em> can be downloaded). In other words,
it should not be difficult to generate your own customized <em>larch</em>
CD on pretty well any <em>GNU/Linux</em> system.
But I must admit that this feature hasn't been tested much.
</p>
<p>As with most stuff around <em>Arch Linux</em>
it's not really designed for beginners - you should know your
way around a <em>GNU/Linux</em> system (preferably <em>Arch</em>!), and have at least a
minimal idea of running command-line stuff and editing configuration
files. In any case, I hope that the
documentation will be clear enough to help anyone who wants to exploit
<em>larch</em> to the full (feedback is welcome!).</p>
<p><b>Requirement:</b>
You need quite a lot of space to create an <em>Arch Linux</em> live CD system - to build a
700MB CD image you'll need up to about 4GB. That is because a complete <em>Arch Linux</em>
system is installed, then a compressed ('squashed') verion is made, and then
a CD image (iso). Building for a USB-stick requires slightly less space, as the
iso-image is not built.
</p>
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