Archibald ⚙️🐧

Archibald is a small utility designed to help automate post-install tasks on a fresh system — such as installing a desktop environment, setting up your favourite packages, or dropping configuration files in the right place.

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Why not just use archinstall? 🤔

Archibald is for users who enjoy performing the manual Arch Linux installation by following the handbook, but don't want to manually reinstall and reconfigure their everyday tooling every single time.

Got a custom window manager setup? A fine-tuned list of packages? Archibald handles it: write your profile once, and you're done. 💨

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Requirements 📦

You only need:

• Python 3
• A user account with sudo privileges (root is actually not supported)
• linux-headers if you’re using NVIDIA hardware

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How to Use 🚀

Archibald can run either inside arch-chroot or on a fully booted system. It’s intended to run as a standalone script — not a Python module (yet 😄).

Clone and run:

git clone https://github.com/.../archibald
cd archibald
chmod +x archibald.py
./archibald.py

Configuration profiles are stored under:

archibald/profiles/

More details below.

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Configuration Profiles 🧩

Profiles define exactly what Archibald should install or configure. Place them inside archibald/profiles/ following specific attributes that Archibald parses at runtime. And yes... these are actual python source code.

Example profile:

deps     = ["a_profile", "another"]              # Profile dependencies            | list, optional

name     = "Example"                             # Profile name                    | str, MANDATORY
        
drivers  = {                                     # Graphics drivers                | dict, optional
    "A Gpu Manifacturer": ["driverpackage1", "mesasomething"]
}
    
pkgs     = packages.ex + packages.ex2            # OR: pkgs = ["pkg1", "pkg2"]     | list, optional
    
units    = ["test", "example"]                   # Systemd services to enable      | list, optional
    
groups   = ["wheel", "example"]                  # User groups                     | list, optional
    
shell    = "/bin/somecustomshell"                # Custom shell (via chsh)         | str, optional

aur      = ["aurpkg", "another"]                 # AUR packages (paru auto-install)| list, optional

flatpaks = ["org.some.flatpak", "another"]       # Flatpak packages                | list, optional

bash     = ["a command", "another command"]      # Arbitrary bash commands         | list, optional

files    = {                                     # Custom configuration files      | dict, optional
    "filename": [
        "some/system/path/like/{home}",
        "somerandomtexttoputinyourfile"
    ]
}