bugmenot wrote:

I would very much like to see a full libre version of Arch-based distros featuring a user-friendly and full featured ISO.
Something like what Manjaro is doing, but with freedom in mind: http://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Installation_Guide_for_Beginners_0.8.4

I am on my road to prepare graphical installation and LIVE CD experience for Parabola. However I am going to use GNOME 3 (some kind of personal preference) and the installer from Cinnarch (It is graphical and user-friendly in terms of partitioning, although still in development.): http://forum.cinnarch.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=686. It is difficult to say whether I succeed, because I have got a full-time job, but it is something I am going to push forward.

You may be interested in knowing that I'll be uploading a new git repo of our version of archiso, featuring full rebranding and a portable branch, and fully updated from Arch's version, hopefully in the following days. It will be called parabolaiso (with git repo parabolaiso.git). The rebranding will have it's own git branch to ease future rebrandings (like adding a string to identify a graphical edition).

Here's the new git repo: https://projects.parabolagnulinux.org/parabolaiso.git.

Explanation of the branches (source: https://lists.parabolagnulinux.org/pipermail/dev/2013-March/001212.html).

• rebrand: archiso.git plus Parabola rebranding. It's possible to create similar branches for other ISOs (different rebrandings).
• master: rebrand branch plus Parabola customizations. It will be the source for the package parabolaiso (also renamed).
• portable: Portable branch of master, so build.sh can run without installing parabolaiso. Package dependencies must be installed to use it.

• It uses GNOME desktop environment.
• It is a DVD ISO. I will consider packages included next time, so that it fits a CD.
• It doesn't contain a graphical installer, yet.
• It hasn't been generated using parabolaiso.
• It is a dual image.
  ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola-live/parabola-gnome-201303.iso (deleted)

I have downloaded your Parabola/Gnome. Thank you. :-) Will it work from a USB drive (/dev/sdb) if I do the following?:
sudo dd if=parabola-gnome-201303.iso of=/dev/sdb

quiliro wrote:

I have downloaded your Parabola/Gnome. Thank you. :-) Will it work from a USB drive (/dev/sdb) if I do the following?:
sudo dd if=parabola-gnome-201303.iso of=/dev/sdb

Yes, it will. Just make sure you have enough free space on it.

New ISOs have been released.
- Use of parabolaiso to create images. Some minor changes including the new Parabola logo come with it.
- Both configurations are available (releng and gnome).
- The gnome configuration is aimed to provide full experience (it contains packages from gnome-extra group regardless of the size of the image for now). The image fits on an FSF Membership Card.
- It is known that there is a problem with rebooting/shutting down inside the GNOME Shell. Probably an empty password for the parabola user prevents authorization from working. You need to either use a key sequence like CTRL+ALT+DELETE or issue a command from the CLI.

Download
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola-iso/parabola-2013.04.21-dual-releng.iso (deleted)
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola-iso/parabola-2013.04.21-dual-gnome.iso (deleted)

It would be cool to have some screenshots too!

I was talking with alfplayer and Emulatorman about making distros "more P2P", meaning having default configurations for file sharing, local networking, local network services, etc. I'll provide some along with guides on the wiki :)

New ISOs have been released.
- GNOME ISO configuration now provides GNOME 3.8.
- GNOME ISO configuration contains walkaround for problem with GDM and Intel graphic cards (i915).
- GNOME ISO configuration contains a fix for the problem with shutting down and rebooting from GNOME.
- Pacman configuration used for generating ISO has been updated to the latest.

Downloads.
- ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/parabola-2013.04.27-dual-releng.iso (deleted)
- ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/parabola-2013.04.27-dual-gnome.iso (deleted)

New ISO has been released.
- Better package selection so that the image is smaller and more useful software is included.
- A password was set (which is 'parabola') for ISO unprivileged user parabola to enable using software requiring privilege elevation (like gparted).
- Parabola branding started, a default desktop background image (space theme).
- Feedback is welcomed.

Download
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/parabola-2013.05.12-dual-gnome.iso (removed)

Screenshots
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-1.png (replaced)
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-2.png (replaced)
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-3.png (replaced)
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-4.png (replaced)
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-5.png (replaced)
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-6.png (replaced)

Good work drtan.

Antergos (Cinnarch renamed) released a new ISO including the installer package: https://github.com/Antergos/antergos-packages/blob/master/cnchi/PKGBUILD

I'm working to update parabolaiso.git and prepare it for easy merging of releng in the other profiles.

alfplayer wrote:

Good work drtan.

Antergos (Cinnarch renamed) released a new ISO including the installer package: https://github.com/Antergos/antergos-packages/blob/master/cnchi/PKGBUILD

I'm working to update parabolaiso.git and prepare it for easy merging of releng in the other profiles.

Thanks, alfplayer. I will do more branding and then I plan to switch my focus to the installer. It's nice to see we're getting there.

I needed to change in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf: 'Driver "intel"' to 'Driver "vesa"' to make Xorg work

A new ISO has been released.
- A new default background which uses Parabola colours.
- Parabola logo is displayed on the login screen. (Although login screen is not available when there is only a single user. This is the case for the live system. You can enable log out option to be always displayed in dconf.)
- Branding resolved in the way that will enable future packaging.
- Automatic logon to the desktop session.
- The X.org walkaround which enabled GDM to start has been removed as no longer necessary. Thank you bugmenot for pointing out the side effect of this walkaround. I believe that standard X.org driver selection should work now. Absence of walkaround has been tested with an Intel, an nVidia and a vesa-compatible graphics card (virtual ennvironment).

Download
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/parabola-2013.07.18-dual-gnome.iso

Screenshots
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-1.png
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-2.png
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-3.png
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-4.png
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-5.png
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-6.png
ftp://31.6.71.62/parabola/screenshot-7.png

With this:
lspci -vmmnn
Slot: 01:00.0
Class: VGA compatible controller [0300]
Vendor: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] [1039]
Device: 771/671 PCIE VGA Display Adapter [6351]
SVendor: Elitegroup Computer Systems [1019]
SDevice: Device [5057]
Rev: 10

For Xorg, this is needed:
echo 'Section "Device"
Identifier "Silicon Integrated Systems"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection'>/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-sis.conf
systemctl restart gdm

Or this:
pacman --noconfirm -R xf86-video-sisimedia
systemctl restart gdm

After that, there's another issue I couldn't workaround:
The screen becomes weird (color issue?)

Have you looked at Antergos (http://antergos.com/) and it's Cnchi installer (https://github.com/Antergos/Cnchi)? Antergos is pretty much what I'd like to see. Maybe even more an Antergos Parabola version than a Parabola Antergos version?