ArchLinuxARM Image Generator

Extensible shell script to generate disk image files from the archlinuxarm.org tarball files.

Introduction

The script generates images with a predefined set of configurations and software packages. It works by reading separate shell scripts that provide the neccesary commands to generate the image. These scripts are divided in the following two components.

• platform - Instructions for a specific SOC (system on a chip), eg: odroid n2, odroid c4, etc... On these scripts you can specify commands to install specific kernels, u-boot files, config files...

• env - Instructions to install a Desktop Environment like: xfce, gnome, etc... On this scripts you can specify which software to install for a specific Desktop Environment, generate configuration files or anything else.

Also these components may depend on resources inside the 'mods' directory which contains pre-defined configuration files that are copied to the target generated image.

Requirements

The main build.sh should detect if you have a missing dependency and let you know, but besides this you will need the following:

• ArchLinux installation running same architecture of target image.
• User account with sudo priviliges.

Usage

So far Odroid N2/N2+ and Odroid C4 images are generated, but it should be easy to add support for many other platforms. Pull requests with improvements and platforms/environments additions are welcome. The command line options need some refining and improvements, but for now the option that generates the images is working properly.

To generate a Odroid N2 image you would do:

./build.sh build n2

This will set the environment by default to xfce, you can specify a different environment by using the -e flag, for example:

./build.sh build -e wayfire n2

Then the instructions on platform/n2.sh and env/wayfire.sh are executed. By default the script will install some packages, you can take a look on env/base.sh for the defaults.

Extending

Adding additional platforms and environments should be pretty simple. The script uses a hook system to call into other scripts depending on the desired platform and environment that was specified on the command line options.

Platforms

In case of adding a platform you would need to add a platform shell script in the platform directory with the name of the platform. Lets say for example the Odroid C2, you would create a file called c2.sh. After creating the file you can start by adding some variables used by the build script:

#!/bin/bash

# Name of the tar file to download from ArchLinuxARM website
NAME="ArchLinuxARM-odroid-c2-latest"

# Name of the generated image file
IMAGE="ArchLinuxARM-odroid-c2"

# The size in gigabytes of the generated image file
IMAGE_SIZE=5

Then you should add the installation instructions of this new platform into platform/c2.sh. by specifying 4 hook functions that get called by main build script:

• platform_variables - declare variables that let the user control the platform setup process
• platform_pre_chroot - executed before entering the image chroot
• platform_chroot_setup - executed inside the image chroot
• platform_post_chroot - executed after exiting image chroot

You can take a look in platform/n2.sh to get an idea.

Environments

Finally, adding environments should be the same process as adding a new platform. Lets say you want to add sway. You would create a new file as env/sway.sh, and add to it the following hook functions:

• env_variables - declare variables that let the user control the env setup process
• env_pre_chroot - executed before entering the image chroot
• env_chroot_setup - executed inside the image chroot
• env_post_chroot - executed after exiting image chroot

Note: You can overwrite the IMAGE_SIZE on this file in case more than 6 GB are needed.

You can see the env/xfce.sh file for ideas. In order to use the new platform and environment to generate a new image you would call the script as follows:

./build.sh build -e sway c2

Platform and Environment Variables

In order to see the variables declared on the platform_variables or env_variables functions one can execute:

./build.sh vars n2 -e panfrost-wayfire

Output:

----------------------------------------------------------------
Variables for environemnt panfrost-wayfire:
----------------------------------------------------------------
PIPEWIRE: set to 1 to install pipewire instead of pulseaudio.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Variables for platform n2:
----------------------------------------------------------------
WAYLAND: set to 1 to install wayland GL libraries instead of fbdev.
DISABLE_MALIGL: set to 1 to disable installation of mali libraries.
MAINLINE_KERNEL: set to 1 to use mainline kernel.
PANFROST_KERNEL: set to 1 to use panfrost enabled kernel.

To use any of those variables you can execute the image builder script as follows:

./build.sh build n2 -e panfrost-wayfire DISABLE_MALIGL=1 PANFROST_KERNEL=1

Pull requests with improvements, new platforms or environments are welcome!

Inspiration for this script was taken from: https://github.com/EasyPi/alarmpi-image