i desire my new distribution but .....

Lucanobile · 2026-04-11 08:25:32

Good morning everyone, I’m an astronomy enthusiast, and I’m thinking about putting together my own distribution to take out into the field.
Many of you will say, ‘But there are loads of them!’ :-) , but I like a bit of a challenge, so here I am.
The first step I took was to create a directory to put the ISO in, and then copy the archiso directory into my directory
(cp -r /usr/share/archiso/config/releng/* .) I kept all the original files except for the astronomy packages to be added and the profilede.sh file.
Now, after nearly a week of testing, I can’t seem to make any progress.
The ISO finishes, I copy it (DD) to a USB stick, but it always boots as if it were ARCH for installation?
What am I doing wrong?

qinohe · 2026-04-11 12:10:16

Okay, so lets see if I understand what you're saying and you understand what needs to be done...

You copied the 'releng' profile to a directory lets say 'astro'
Then you added the needed astro packages to 'packages.x86_64' or created customrepo/s(AUR or foreign repos) and added it to 'releng/pacman.conf'
For modifications to profiledef, shadow, syslinux etc. consult the wiki!

After that you created a home directory(if needed) and placed the neccesarry template files in there for your astro project
You may have added dir/files to other directories like 'releng/airootfs/etc' or 'releng/airootfs/usr'
If a graphical environment is needed you added dir/files essential to you or the working environment to the home directory

If all this was done you created a working environment(graphical or not) and you have say 'wayland/wlroots' or something like that

This should, after building, give an ISO that when started has all the tools you need, maybe even a graphical env.

If not, study examples on the archiso wiki page or even check someones build, there are plenty on github for example

The rules for creating a build-able profile are basically the same as the one running on your disk

Btw. you're not really building your own distro but a modified version of Arch ISO, which can still be used to install or troubleshoot Arch;-)

Lucanobile · 2026-04-12 08:29:02

Hi, first of all, thanks for your reply. Last night, when I read your reply, I tried doing something a bit ‘unusual’.
I tried using Ollama’s AI to generate a Bash script to build everything, and I have to say it worked to some extent – partly because, after creating the USB stick many times this week and restarting the PC with the installation boot option, the USB stick now doesn’t prompt me for the installation procedure but stops, displaying these errors:
:: mounting ' ' on real root
mount : /new_root: wrongfs type, bad option, badsuperblock on,missing codepage or helper program, or another error

qinohe · 2026-04-12 10:19:08

I would advise you to not use AI scripts that you don't understand what they are doing
You just can't get AI to learn for you it's that simple
Learn the basics of archiso itself using the wiki and gitlab
WHat went wrong?, I have no idea

Lucanobile · 2026-04-12 15:39:13

qinohe wrote:

I would advise you to not use AI

Thanks. I did try to work out what it was doing, but apart from the general instructions – which were easy to follow – I didn’t really understand much of it.
In the meantime, I’ve added the list of packages I’d like on the distro, removing those that can’t be downloaded with pacman, and we’ll see if it works properly.

Lucanobile · 2026-04-13 14:52:31

Here I am again, trying to do things in my head.
I would like to do that when creating the ISO (so when you download the packages you also download them from a local repo which is on /home/astro/SunnyAstroRepo/ but when installing it sends me this message: :: Synchronizing package databases...
core is up to date
extra 8.2 MiB 27.3 MiB/s 00:00 [##################################] 100%
custom.db failed to download
error: failed retrieving file 'custom.db' from disk : Could not open file /home/astro/astrorepo/repoastro.db.tar.zst/custom.db
error: failed to synchronize all databases (unexpected error)
==> ERROR: Failed to install packages to new root

I can't figure out where to look for that custom.db

qinohe · 2026-04-14 07:56:16

Be clear about what you have done to make things happen, I don't have a crystal ball;-)
Meaning in this case it's best to describe the steps how you build that customrepo and get it on the profile!

Anyway, that customrepo needs to be created by you first.

Since I don't exactly know what you have done, have a look at these information in the first place;

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Makepkg
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman … repository
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archis … repository

Lucanobile · 2026-04-14 14:47:57

hi, so I'll give you a timeline of what I did for the
creating the iso file:
1) Generated local repository database with following command:
repo-add /home/astro/astrorepo//db/repo.db.tar.zst /home/astro/astrorepo/*.zst
and the command worked fine, creating what was supposed to create the checksum..
2)Added repository in pacman.conf
[astrorepo]
SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
Server = file:///home/astro/astrorepo/db
with error: mirror 'https://us.mirrors.cicku.me/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch' contains the '$arch' variable, but no 'Architecture' is defined.
3)After i think it's mirror? ok new mirror list with command sudo reflector --country 'Italy','US' --latest 20 --protocol https --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Last edited by Lucanobile (2026-04-14 16:16:44)

qinohe · 2026-04-14 17:19:04

There's a difference between adding a local customrepo or a remote repo
A customrepo is build from local available and already build packages.
A remote repo is basically the same as one of the repos available for Arch
However you still need to add the foreign remote repo to pacman.conf
Have a look at;
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archis … FS_example

Lucanobile · 2026-04-17 08:59:37

ciao , e grazie per la pazienza.Sto provando a fare riga per riga come dice l'esempio , ma ecco gli errori (trascura quelli dove ho omesso sudo come comando): la mia domanda è posso crearlo come repository esterno ? penso che la risposta sia affermativa :-)
curl -Lo archzfs.gpg 'https://github.com/archzfs/archzfs-keyr … 037BE9.asc'
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
100 153 100 153 0 0 310 0 0
[astro@asstro Astronomy]$ pacman-key --add archzfs.gpg
==> ERRORE: Per questa operazione pacman-key necessita di essere avviato da root.
[astro@asstro Astronomy]$ sudo pacman-key --add archzfs.gpg
[sudo] password di astro:
gpg: key ABEC0A1208037BE9: new key but contains no user ID - skipped
==> Aggiornamento del database in corso...
gpg: il prossimo controllo del trustdb sarà fatto il 2026-04-28
[astro@asstro Astronomy]$ pacman-key --lsign-key 3A9917BF0DED5C13F69AC68FABEC0A1208037BE9
==> ERRORE: Per questa operazione pacman-key necessita di essere avviato da root.
[astro@asstro Astronomy]$ sudo pacman-key --lsign-key 3A9917BF0DED5C13F69AC68FABEC0A1208037BE9
==> ERRORE: 3A9917BF0DED5C13F69AC68FABEC0A1208037BE9 non può essere firmata localmente.

Lucanobile · 2026-04-17 09:27:48

...benen ora ho aggiunto una chiave PGP a Github , adesso come faccio a usarla ? sostituendo quella dell'esempio con la mia ?
Ma i pacchetti vengono inseriti come repository esterno vero ?

seth · 2026-04-17 12:37:32

You gotta use the other language the pope is fluent in

export LC_ALL=C

to get english output from pacman etc.

Lucanobile · 2026-04-19 19:59:45

good evening everyone, these days I tried to create a local repository to make it easier to build the ISO, and I'm starting with 3 packages, mainly to see if it works, but it doesn't work! It creates these errors for me.

error:target not found: yay
error: target not found: paru
error: target not found: siril

First of all I created a repository with this command:
repo-add -n /home/Repo_for_Astronomy/Repo_x86_64.db.tar.gz ./x86_64/*.*

After adding the packages successfully, I edited the file pacman.conf in the directory Astronomy/airootfs/etc by entering this

[Repo_x86_64]
SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
Server = file:///home/astro/Repo_for_Astronomy

Having then encountered the same errors, I tried to insert the same lines in the /etc/pacman.conf file, but there is the same errors!

Lucanobile · 2026-04-19 22:18:18

sudo pacman -Sy
astro password:
error: unable to register database 'astronomy' (database has already been registered)
:: Synchronizing databases...
core is updated
extra is updated
unable to download astronomy.db
error: unable to download package 'astronomy.
db' from disk : Could not open file /home/astro/Repo_for_Astronomy/x86_64/astronomy.db
error: Unable to synchronize all databases (unable to download some files)

Last edited by Lucanobile (Yesterday 07:51:03)

WorMzy · 2026-04-19 23:18:49

Please post output in English, as directed by Seth in https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 9#p2295199

Alternatively use the report feature to request this topic be moved to the 'Other Languages' subforum.

Last edited by WorMzy (Yesterday 09:27:39)

seth · Yesterday 06:37:51

Also please use [code][/code] tags.

Could not open file /home/astro/Repo_for_Astronomy/x86_64/astronomy.db
…
Server = file:///home/astro/Repo_for_Astronomy

Don't use your $HOME as repo location, the package is fetched by an unprivileged user that has no access to it.
You can use a bind mount to expose the directory to a public (and read-only) path.
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=299394

Lucanobile · Yesterday 08:35:54

ok this morning I tried to move the directory containing the updated database to tmp (although one day I would like to put it on GitLab, but this is already more difficult)
After editing the pacman.conf file like this:

[astronomy]
SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
Server = file:///home/astro/Repo_for_Astronomy/x86_64

to like this

[astronomy]
SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
Server = file:///tmp/Repo_for_Astronomy/x86_64

I ran the pacman -Syuu command and the synchronization of the packages was successful

the next step is to make sure that during the creation of the ISO image I read these packages, but I will keep you informed, in the meantime thanks for everything.

qinohe · Yesterday 09:01:46

Why would you use '/tmp' for that, it could be any directory but 'alpm' user needs access to it.
SO you could create a directory FI. '/atro/custom' that your user(you) and alpm user have access to
The customrepo can be on your 'HOME' but then the system itself doesn't make use of it, archiso don't mind it!

Lucanobile · Today 16:26:38

...well I messed up a bit. I changed the directory with access for the user 'alpm'
To then see if it worked I tried to install the "skychart" program and it worked
I asked for the repository where to download it from, and I rightly chose the local one.
After installing the package I tried to create the iso,
but it gave me this series of errors:

[mkarchiso] INFO: Validating options...
[mkarchiso] INFO: Done!
[mkarchiso] INFO: mkarchiso configuration settings
[mkarchiso] INFO: Architecture: x86_64
[mkarchiso] INFO: Working directory: /home/astro/Astronomy/work
[mkarchiso] INFO: Installation directory: arch
[mkarchiso] INFO: Build date: 2026-04-21T18:07+0200
[mkarchiso] INFO: Output directory: /home/astro/Astronomy/out
[mkarchiso] INFO: Current build mode: iso
[mkarchiso] INFO: Build modes: iso
[mkarchiso] INFO: GPG key: None
[mkarchiso] INFO: GPG signer: None
[mkarchiso] INFO: Code signing certificates: None
[mkarchiso] INFO: Profile: /home/astro/Astronomy
[mkarchiso] INFO: Pacman configuration file: /home/astro/Astronomy/pacman.conf
[mkarchiso] INFO: Image file name: SunnyAstro-2026.04.21-x86_64.iso
[mkarchiso] INFO: ISO volume label: ARCH_202604
[mkarchiso] INFO: ISO publisher: Sunny_Arch_Linux <https://archlinux.org>
[mkarchiso] INFO: ISO application: Sunny Astro Linux Live/Rescue DVD
[mkarchiso] INFO: Boot modes: bios.syslinux uefi.systemd-boot
[mkarchiso] INFO: Packages File: /home/astro/Astronomy/packages.x86_64
[mkarchiso] INFO: Packages: hyprland waybar dunst rofi-wayland alacritty qt5-wayland qt6-wayland polkit-gnome networkmanager bluez pipewire pipewire-pulse pipewire-alsa brightnessctl grim slurp swaylock wl-clipboard xdg-desktop-portal-hyprland gimp syslinux memtest86+ memtest86+-efi edk2-shell skychart stellarium kstars libindi libnova cfitsio wcslib util-linux
[mkarchiso] INFO: Creating a list of installed packages on live-enviroment...
error: config file /home/astro/Astronomy/work/x86_64/airootfs/etc/pacman.conf could not be read: No such file or directory

Arch Linux

#1 2026-04-11 08:25:32

i desire my new distribution but .....

#2 2026-04-11 12:10:16

Re: i desire my new distribution but .....

#3 2026-04-12 08:29:02

Re: i desire my new distribution but .....

#4 2026-04-12 10:19:08

Re: i desire my new distribution but .....

#5 2026-04-12 15:39:13

Re: i desire my new distribution but .....

#6 2026-04-13 14:52:31

Re: i desire my new distribution but .....

#7 2026-04-14 07:56:16

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#8 2026-04-14 14:47:57

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#9 2026-04-14 17:19:04

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#10 2026-04-17 08:59:37

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#11 2026-04-17 09:27:48

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#12 2026-04-17 12:37:32

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#13 2026-04-19 19:59:45

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#14 2026-04-19 22:18:18

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#15 2026-04-19 23:18:49

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#16 Yesterday 06:37:51

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#17 Yesterday 08:35:54

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