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<h1><span><em>live Arch Linux</em> builder</span></h1>
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<h2 id="pagetitle" level="1">Running a <em>larch live</em> system</h2>
<p>Of course the details depend on what you have installed and how you have
configured it. For example, the 'mini2' example profile builds a console-only system,
the 'xmaxi' profile boots to <em>xfce</em>.
</p>
<p>One thing worth noting is that these supplied profiles automatically login
to the root account, which - potentially - allows all sorts of 'dangerous' actions,
like reformatting your disks or making a mess of your file-systems in other ways.
This is because one of the main <em>raisons d'être</em> for <em>larch</em> is its use
as an <em>Arch</em>-installation-and-rescue medium. For this, you need root access.
However, if you want to use the system in other ways, e.g. for text or image editing,
or for internet browsing or e-mail writing, it might be safer to do this as an
unprivileged user. Such a user is easily created with the 'adduser' command, or
with some other utility (e.g. the graphical 'luser.py' script in the <em>larch</em>
'<em>luser</em>' package). If you have a writeable boot medium, such changes can be
'remembered' by saving the session when you shut the system down (the possibility
will normally be offered automatically).
</p>
<h3><a name="bootparm"></a>Boot parameters</h3>
<p>As the <em>larch</em> build system is highly configurable, the available
boot parameters can also vary, but by default 'swap' and 'c2r' are provided.
'swap' indicates that an existing swap partition should be used (the default
is not to use it). 'c2r' means 'copy to RAM', i.e. the system data is copied
to main memory before the system is initialized. This allow the system to run
very fast and frees up the boot device (e.g. the boot CD can be ejected and the
drive used for another CD), but it does require a lot of memory (significantly
more than the size of the boot medium), and the boot process is rather slow
because so much data must be copied. Because of the high memory usage, I have
arranged it so that 'c2r' also implies 'swap'. With A USB-stick as boot medium,
the 'c2r' parameter should generally not really be needed, performance is normally
pretty good and it doesn't occupy the CD-drive (if an extra boot CD is needed, on
a machine that can't boot directly from USB, that can be removed after
booting even without 'c2r').
</p>
<p>There are also boot options connected with the boot device. The 'nocd' boot
option, if present, prevents booting from CD. This might be useful if you use a
boot CD but want to boot a <em>larch</em> system on another device (normally
a CD will be detected before other devices). This only works if the kernel is
compatible of course.
</p>
<p>The 'root=' option allows explicit specification of the device containing the
<em>larch</em> system. It is also possible to choose the boot device on the basis
of UUID ('uuid=') or label ('label='). The default maximum waiting time (to
allow USB devices to be recognized) is 12 seconds (if a device is recognized
earlier the pause will automatically be shorter), which should be adequate, but
if you want to change this you can do it using the 'usbdelay=' option.
</p>
<h3><a name="config"></a>Configuration</h3>
<p>The supplied profiles are not intended to be complete, though I hope they
work reasonably well. They should be seen as examples, perhaps as starting points
for your own configurations.
If you are running a profile with X11, you may find that you
need to configure it before it will run, though nowadays much hardware will work
to at least some extent without any tweaking (even without an 'xorg.conf').
Minimal starting-point 'xorg.conf' files are offered in the <em>xfce</em> examples.
</p>
<p>The 'xmini' and 'xmaxi' profiles use a slightly more elaborate login approach on
the first terminal, with a simple menu as well as automatic login. There is also
a logout gui for <em>xfce</em>, which together with the login script can
trigger session saving directly, bypassing the console prompt.
</p>
<p>If you are stuck with the console, there is still hope. It's not as pretty or
newbie friendly as an X11 desktop, but still quite capable. I always like to have
<em>mc</em> available, it's a real godsend for non-geeks (you should also install
<em>lynx</em> so that HTML files can be displayed on the console - at a
pinch you can also surf with it, but it is painful).
</p>
<p>If your console keyboard map is
wrong, try running <i>km</i> (I stole this from the
standard <em>Arch</em> install CD and modified it a bit to work in <em>larch</em>).
It also modifies '/etc/rc.conf', so the change can be retained for subsequent
runs by performing a 'session-save'.
</p>
<p>If you have a DHCP server on your network, you might well find that
the network interface is configured automatically (assuming your <em>rc.conf</em>
is configured appropriately). Otherwise you can use any method to set up
the network available in <em>Arch Linux</em> - see the appropriate
<em>Arch Linux</em> documentation (primarily the wiki, I guess) for details.
</p>
<p>Of course the exact details of what you can do depends on what
software you installed, so I won't rabbit on endlessly about it here.
Nearly all configuration details should be just the same as in a normal,
hard-disk based installation.
</p>
<h3><a name="install"></a>Installation to hard disk</h3>
<p>The <em>larch</em> hard-disk installer <em>larchin</em> may be used to install
<em>Arch Linux</em> to hard disk (or similar). ***+ Or, at least it will be
possible to use it when I have updated (rewritten?) it for <em>larch</em>-7. -***
<em>larchin</em> deals with partitioning and formatting of hard drives, placing
<em>Arch Linux</em> (primarily a copy of the live system on which it is running)
on the newly formatted partitions, and installation of the GRUB bootloader.
</p>
<p>As mentioned above the main approach to <em>Arch</em> installation covered by
<em>larchin</em> is to copy the contents of the live system to a hard drive. Those
(few) bits peculiar to the needs of a live system are removed and the result is a
completely normal <em>Arch Linux</em> installation. I should perhaps mention
the file 'delarch' in the '/.livesys' directory (copied there from the 'larch/copy'
directory on the boot medium). This script (if it exists) is run at the end
of the installation
and allows custom installation actions to be performed (the
main reason for its existence is to allow features of the <em>live</em> system
to be removed, because they would be out of place in a normal installation).
</p>
<h3><a name="install-live"></a>'Live' installation to hard disk</h3>
<p>This is sometimes called a 'frugal' install and means that the system
as it is (compressed, running in a <em>union</em> file system) on the
USB-stick or CD is installed as a <em>live</em> system to a hard-drive
partition. This might be useful if you want to run from a flash device,
for example, as it minimizes write operations to the device (normal access
is read only).
</p>
<p>The <strong>larch2hdd</strong> script (in the <em>larch-live</em> package)
performs such an installation. The partition for the installation should exist
before calling this script, which will format it as <em>ext2</em>. The script
will also install GRUB, either to the same partition or else to the MBR.
</p>
<h3><a name="change-medium"></a>Copying the <em>live</em> system to other
media</h3>
<p>The bootloader configuration files for both isolinux(/syslinux) and grub
are copied to the medium when it is being built, regardless of which
bootloader has actually been selected. This will, however, only happen
if the support packages for the corresponding bootloader is installed in
the <em>live</em> system. This behaviour allows the <em>larch</em> scripts
to copy an already built system from one medium to another, retaining the
boot commands, and even switching the bootloader. See the
<a href="medium.html">documentation</a> for
the 'larch-live_iso' and 'larch-live_part' scripts.
</p>
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