The release of the Archinstall 2.7 installer has been published, which has been an optional component of Arch Linux installation ISO images since April 2021. Archinstall operates in console mode and can be used instead of the default manual installation mode of the distribution. A graphical installation interface implementation is being developed separately, but it is not included in the Arch Linux installation images and has not been updated for over three years.
Archinstall provides both dialog (guided) and automated modes. In dialog mode, the user is sequentially asked questions covering essential settings and actions from the installation guide. The automated mode allows the use of scripts for deploying standard configurations. The installer also supports installation profiles, such as the 'desktop' profile to select a desktop environment (KDE, GNOME, Awesome) and install the necessary packages, or the 'webserver' and 'database' profiles for selecting and installing web server and DBMS components.
Among the changes in the new version:
- Support for UKI (Unified Kernel Image) format kernel images has been added, which are generated in the distribution's infrastructure and digitally signed by the distribution. UKI combines a UEFI boot stub, a Linux kernel image, and the initial RAM disk (initrd) into a single file. When invoking the UKI image from UEFI, it allows for integrity and authenticity checks based on the digital signature not only of the kernel but also of the initrd contents, whose authenticity is important as the keys for decrypting the root file system are extracted in this environment.
- During the installation of proprietary NVIDIA drivers, the nvidia-dkms package is now installed.
- A "--skip-ntp" parameter has been added to disable the detection and verification of the NTP server for systems where time is set manually.
- A check for a newer version has been added when starting archinstall.
Source: opennet.ru
