biglinux-livecd

BigLinux live-session setup and Calamares installer integration.

This package is what runs between powering on the live media and having an installed system: it starts the live desktop, offers a wizard to pick language, keyboard and appearance before that desktop appears, and carries those choices into the installation performed by Calamares.

What the package provides

Live session bootstrap. startbiglive prepares the display manager and the monitor layout, runs the setup wizard and then hands over to the desktop session. livecd-tweaks applies the tweaks a live session needs before the user arrives, including the ones requested through kernel arguments.

Setup wizard (/usr/share/biglinux/livecd, GTK4 and libadwaita). Choices are written to /tmp under the names listed in usr/lib/biglinux-livecd/live-state, which is the single place that maps a setting to its file. Calamares copies them into /etc/big-default-config so the installed system starts as the live session was left.

Installer integration. calamares-biglinux is the wrapper that launches Calamares with the right profile and environment, and /usr/share/biglinux/calamares is the GTK wizard that collects the installation options before it starts.

Calamares profiles for the three products built from this base — biglinux, bigcommunity and xivastudio — each with its own settings.conf, module configuration and branding.

Calamares modules under usr/lib/calamares/modules:

Module	Purpose
btrfs-fix	Applies the Btrfs layout and mount options the installed system expects
grubcfg-fix	Adjusts the generated GRUB configuration
luks-pbkdf	Lowers the Argon2id cost of the volume GRUB unlocks, so the passphrase prompt answers quickly

Live profiles

The active profile is named in /etc/biglinux-livecd/profile, which must be a regular root-owned file. resolve-profile reads it and returns the profile directory, preferring /etc/biglinux-livecd/calamares-profiles over the ones shipped in /usr/share/biglinux/calamares-profiles, so an image can override a profile without replacing this package. Without the marker the profile is biglinux.

Kernel arguments

Recognised on the live media's boot line:

Argument	Effect
biglinux.bootcmd=<command>	Skips the normal flow. Accepts only-calamares, boot-in-plasma, only-konsole, calamares_polkit, konsole, urxvt and startplasma-x11
driver=nonfree	Installs the runtime mkinitcpio shim for proprietary drivers
driver=free	Disables proprietary driver detection
wayland	Starts the session under Wayland
sshenable	Enables the live SSH server for recovery

These arguments are dropped from the command line written to the installed system, so a choice made to get through the live session is not inherited.

sshenable

Useful when a machine cannot be operated locally — a failing boot, or a display that does not come up. It sets a temporary password on the existing UID 1000 user, whose name is read from /etc/passwd and is usually biglinux, and adds a runtime drop-in to sshd_config allowing password authentication for that user only. The password is big, PermitRootLogin stays no, and no account is created or otherwise modified.

ssh <live-user>@<live-address>

The password is public, so this is for a trusted local network and never for a machine reachable from the Internet. Everything is in effect only while the live session runs: reboot without the argument and nothing remains, and nothing is written to the installed system.

Repository layout

biglinux-livecd/         files installed on the system, mirroring their paths
  locale/                gettext catalogs, compiled at package time
  usr/bin/               live session entry points and installer wrappers
  usr/lib/biglinux-livecd/   shared shell helpers: kernel-options, live-state
  usr/lib/calamares/modules/ Calamares job modules
  usr/share/biglinux/livecd/     setup wizard
  usr/share/biglinux/calamares/  installer wizard
  usr/share/biglinux/calamares-profiles/  per-product Calamares profiles,
                                         each with its own QML branding
pkgbuild/                PKGBUILD and install scriptlet
tests/                   test suite

Development

Requires an Arch or Manjaro based system, Python 3.11 or newer, and GTK4 with libadwaita.

python -m pytest tests/      # test suite
ruff check                   # lint
ruff format --check          # formatting

All three pass on a clean checkout, so a failure means the change under review.

The test suite is the quality gate. Besides covering behaviour, it type-checks the Calamares modules and the two wizards by running mypy against each entry point in the isolation Calamares itself uses — a plugin is loaded as a standalone module named main, so checking them together reports false duplicates. Adding a module means adding it to the list in tests/test_mypy_plugins.py; a test fails if an entry point is left out.

Shell scripts are checked with shellcheck and shfmt -d, syntax-checked with the interpreter each one declares — most are bash, a few are POSIX sh.

Building the package:

cd pkgbuild
makepkg -si

makepkg builds from the published git repository, not from the working tree. To try local changes, copy them into a live session or install the built package over an existing one.

Translations

Sources are the .po files in biglinux-livecd/locale, compiled by the PKGBUILD into /usr/share/locale. msgfmt --check-format runs during the build, so a catalog whose placeholders do not match its source fails the package rather than the running program.

License

GPL-3.0-only, with CC0-1.0 material. See LICENSE.