archlinux-alez-2019.02.27

ALEZ iso releases are now automated and should happen with (almost) every commit. This is the first automated release.

Maintainance ISO release

This is an updated ISO simply to update archlinux-keyring. Without having an up-to-date keyring package, importing the archzfs key fails and the installation 'completes' prematurely.

I have added create-alez-iso.txt to the repo which details the process of creating your own ALEZ install ISO should you want to create your own.

This ISO includes:

Linux 4.20.8
zfs-linux 0.7.12

LTS kernel option and ncurses interface added

Thanks to the following improvements, combined with feedback/patches from users, ALEZ is starting to mature as an installer. I have been running an ALEZ install as my one and only OS at home for months now with no issues so I think ALEZ is ready for wider use and testing. There is no need for an updated install ISO, the 0.6 ISO works fine still - it will fetch and run the latest ALEZ installer.

New in ALEZ 0.7:

• Choice of Stable or LTS kernels. If installation fails with the stable kernel (eg the ZFS stable kernel modules are out of sync with the Arch kernel) - try the LTS kernel
• Thanks to John Ramsden for adding an ncurses interface to make the install process more fast and simple than it already was
• POSIX ACL support enabled by default - required by journald
• ZPOOL_VDEV_NAME_PATH now gets exported by default. It is needed when installing and configuring GRUB eg on kernel updates

John's zedenv grub plugin (which is still in alpha) is now installable via the AUR for managing GRUB ZFS boot environments.

GRUB UEFI support, new ALEZ downloader ISO

The ALEZ 0.6 install script now includes support for installing GRUB on UEFI installs (previously ALEZ' UEFI support was for the systemd bootloader only) and it enables compression for the pool, a feature which should've been enabled all along.

The ALEZ 0.6 ISO now fetches the install script from github (an internet connection was always required to run the install script anyway) so there will no longer be the need to download a new ISO whenever the install script is updated.

The archlinux-alez-2018.10.15 (0.6) install ISO includes:

Linux 4.18.12
zfs-linux 0.7.11
alez-downloader 0.6

Write the ISO to a USB drive or burn to a disc as you would regular Arch Linux.

MD5:

43f56f11139317dd43c0c74f35363105 archlinux-alez-2018.10.15-x86_64.iso

ALEZ gains UEFI support

Thanks to John Ramsden for adding UEFI (partitioning) support to ALEZ 0.5! UEFI support means you should now be able to use ALEZ to easily install Arch with ZFS onto any 64 bit x86 machine.

I have now successfully tested the zedenv GRUB plugin using an ALEZ installation so I'd expect to see a new release of zedenv complete with GRUB support shortly.

The archlinux-alez-2018.10.14 install ISO includes:

Linux 4.18.12
zfs-linux 0.7.11
ALEZ 0.5

Write it to a USB drive or burn to a disc as you would regular Arch Linux.

MD5:

2a1a5b067f0002a37f9894f89f6ae44e archlinux-alez-2018.10.14-x86_64.iso

GRUB boot environment support arrives

ALEZ 0.4 is a very significant release because this is the first version of the Arch Linux Easy ZFS installer (or any Linux distro) to let you install to ZFS complete with datasets pre-configured so as to work with the new zedenv GRUB boot environment plugin. Thanks to John Ramsden, author of zedenv, for submitting the required changes.

When you create a new boot environment using zedenv using this GRUB-friendly ZFS configuration, zedenv will update your GRUB config to add a new GRUB menu entry, allowing for bulletproof system upgrades, instant system restores and much safer and easier testing of software under Linux than was previously possible.

zedenv is still in testing and needs to be built from git to use the grub plugin hence zedenv packages are not included yet.

The archlinux-alez-2018.10.13 install ISO includes:

Linux 4.18.12
zfs-linux 0.7.11
ALEZ 0.4

Write it to a USB drive or burn to a disc as you would regular Arch Linux.

MD5:

e2b7deafaff75ee422576702602ccccb archlinux-alez-2018.10.13-x86_64.iso

0.333

ALEZ 0.333 is a significant release as it includes the first patches from a contributor, John Ramsden, author of zedenv. Thanks to John for contributing a patch to display disks by partuuid instead of by their id (which isn't always available) and another patch to make the installer use a temp directory if /mnt isn't empty. I have also tweaked a few of the messages to hopefully make some steps clearer as to what's going on.

The archlinux-alez-2018.10.07 install ISO includes:

Linux 4.18.12
zfs-linux 0.7.11
ALEZ 0.333

Write it to a USB drive or burn to a disc as you would regular Arch Linux.

MD5:

00b07f5770f82c0b5463fb393c906cc0 archlinux-alez-2018.10.07-x86_64.iso

archlinux-alez-2018.10.03

After a 2 year hiatus, I became motivated to update alez and the archlinux-alez ISO because I want to test the zedenv GRUB plugin, which promises to bring ZFS boot environments to the Linux GRUB menu, a feature I've wanted under Linux for years.

The old ALEZ install ISO stopped working a while ago because the pacman key for the arch ZFS repo changed. This updated ISO includes the new key for the arch ZFS repo, the alez script now disables atime on the pools for increased performance and ZFS features not compatible with FreeBSD ZFS have been disabled so that it should be possible to import any pools created with ALEZ under FreeBSD. If you don't care about FreeBSD compatibility then feel free up 'upgrade' the pool to enable the ZoL-specific features.

Write the ISO to a USB drive or burn to a disc as you would regular Arch.

MD5:

a8f658d74b816037bae8323ecad3543a archlinux-alez-2018.10.03-x86_64.iso

archlinux-alez-2016.05.30

This is the first release of archlinux-alez, a version of Arch Linux remastered to include ZFS support and the Arch Linux Easy ZFS (ALEZ) installer.

archlinux-alez-2016.05.30 includes:

Linux kernel 4.5.4
zfs-linux 0.6.5.7
ALEZ 0.3

Write it to a USB drive or burn to a disc as you would regular Arch.

MD5:

c5c07c4dbb02ba75868583d7b0a672b6 archlinux-alez-2016.05.30-dual.iso