This script allows you to replace any Linux distribution with Arch Linux, preserving user data and providing extensive configuration options for the new system. The script will also be useful if your VPS provider allows system changes but does not provide Arch Linux image or custom image uploads.

Download and run required scripts:

git clone https://github.com/hardraple/archify
cd archify
sudo bash archify.sh

This will ask some questions and begin Arch Linux installation. Data in /home, disk configuration (even with LVM and LUKS!), user accounts and passwords, sudo/wheel group will be preserved. Additionally, you can install one of many graphical environments, choose graphics driver and audio server. It is also possible to use a configuration file to save parameters and automation.

• Internet connection
• x86_64 Linux kernel version suitable for glibc in Arch Linux (3.2+ for glibc version 2.39)
• grep, coreutils and util-linux
• bash version 4+
• wget or curl and to download Arch Linux bootstrap, tar and zstd to decompress bootstrap archive. You can also manually download and extract bootstrap archive to /archlinux-bootstrap

• The script copies needed files to safe place where they will not be removed
• Downloads Arch Linux rootfs and extracts it to /archlinux-bootstrap
• Recursively mounts root to directory host-system inside /archlinux-bootstrap (mount --rbind / /archlinux-bootstrap/host-system)
• Mounts /sys, /dev and /proc to corresponding directories inside /archlinux-bootstrap
• Copies stage2.sh to /archlinux-bootstrap, chroots and runs the script

• Removes everything in /host-system/{bin, boot, etc, lib...}
• Installs the base system with pacstrap
• Copies fstab and users configuration to new system
• Chroots to /host-system and runs stage3.sh

• Configures locale, hostname and time
• Installs kernel and generates initramfs
• Installs chosen graphics driver, sound server, graphical environment
• Installs and configures GRUB
• Reboots or redirects you to bash

Edit the mirrorlist.default file to change the mirrors. If reflector is enabled, that mirrors will only be used to download python and reflector.

Installing via ssh seems like a bad idea. However, it will probably work but you will have to setup ssh manually after installation. Script will detect $SSH_CONNECTION and proceed to installation. If you are running script from some another remote shell, set environment variable FORCE_NO_OPENVT=1.

To preconfigure the script, create a file called config.default, here's an example:

COPY_USER_CONFIGURATION=1
GRAPHIC="gnome"
SET_SPACE_PASSWORD=1
NEW_NONSPACE_PASSWORD="Will be overriden by 1) COPY_USER_CONFIGURATION 2) SET_SPACE_PASSWORD"
DRACUT=0
NETWORKMANAGER=1
LOCALTIME="Europe/Monaco"
NEWHOSTNAME="archify"
REFLECTOR=1
GRAPHICS_DRIVER="all-open"
SOUND_SERVER="no"
FORCE_REBOOT_AFTER_INSTALLATION=1

If COPY_USER_CONFIGURATION is set to 1, script will try to copy user configuration from files wheel_users, passwd_delta, shadow_delta, group_delta, gshadow_delta and any password parameters will be ignored. If SET_SPACE_PASSWORD is set to 1 and COPY_USER_CONFIGURATION is set to 0, root password will be ' ', i. e. space and NEW_NONSPACE_PASSWORD will be ignored. If COPY_USER_CONFIGURATION and SET_SPACE_PASSWORD are set to 0, then NEW_NONSPACE_PASSWORD value will be used as root password.

wheel_users contains list of users (one per line) that will be added to wheel group. This implies creation of %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL rule in sudoers.

passwd_delta, shadow_delta, group_delta, gshadow_delta contains corresponding lines from getent. Example:

$ getent passwd pimp | tee -a passwd_delta
pimp:x:1000:1000::/home/pimp:/usr/bin/bash
$ getent shadow pimp | tee -a shadow_delta
pimp:$y$j9T$LuhFnrcezH0TUA1GaUqwa/$Ptme335MkS61UIlNQ.0jRD1doz7zQFzKIQcP6MXW6O1:19729:0:99999:7:::

Сhanges in Archify do not affect compatibility with distributions. Archify, as Turboarch, works successfully on the following distributions:

• Manjaro
• Debian
• Ubuntu
• Fedora
• ROSA
• Astra
• Void
• Slackware
• Gentoo
• OpenSUSE
• Tiny Core

Archify basically just doesn't care about your partition scheme. All mountpoints will be transferred to the new system.

It is supported, but if LVM or LUKS is detected, Archify will use DRACUT to generate initramfs. However, hooks for pacman will be installed, so DRACUT shouldn't be a big problem.

No, it is currently not supported.

Select the driver that is intended for the GPU that is currently displaying the image. If necessary, you can install other drivers yourself after switching to Arch Linux.

On BIOS, GRUB will be installed to device that has partition that is mounted to /boot or /. On UEFI, GRUB will be installed to /boot or /boot/efi. OS-PROBER will be enabled by default.

Other locale requires fonts to be configured and this can cause problems with displaying characters in various parts of the system. In linux it is generally better to use only this locale to avoid errors.

Archify is a fork of Turboarch. For additional information, see Turboarch github page