Greetings!
So I have several systems running Arch Linux now (3-4, depending on if Arch is still on the universities computer...).
Anyhow, as you might imagine I have installed this system quite a lot.
And there is one specific way I like my arch when it is an ordinary desktop or laptop computer (no touch or silly shenanigans like that): That is with i3wm, a certain set of packages, a specific set of configurations and some other things. Hunting the configs on other computers has been a bit annoying at times.
Now for future Arch Installations I want to make it easier for myself to load up this configuration onto the target system. Here is what I was thinking I should probably do:
- Have a file that lists all the major packages on my VPS and download that during install to pass the contents onto pacstrap or pacman.
- Maybe have a skeleton home folder on my VPS that I can also fetch. I'd then just have to put that into /etc/skel and every new user will get that configuration.
How do you guys deal with this? Do you just copy stuff from another machine? Do you have a post-install setup script?
TL;DR: have installed arch a lot. Sick of gathering up configs, want to automate.
view the rest of the comments →
[–] Silver_Tube 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Folks often script it, some even go as far as making their own install media with the script sitting there ready to go. There is also a project based from the arch evo guy that is made to do what you want, take an existing arch setup and make an automated installer out of it. I'm not sure how far along they are though. The arch forums get people posting install scripts to them from time to time. The community frowns upon them because they think that install ritual is necessary, but the need to save time is legitimate if you ask me.
[–] aoeu [S] ago
Since most of the installs I do depend on the device I am using, I'd like to keep most of the install ritual. At least up to the point where I have a working system. After that gathering up configs is annoying, which is what I aim to automate. I should look into fetching stuff from my VPS with a script.