Welcome To The Zone

Zone Linux is a custom Arch Linux-based live ISO with an XFCE desktop themed around S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Build (Docker — recommended)

Requires Docker on a Linux host. Run once from the repo root:

chmod +x build.sh
./build.sh

The ISO is written to zone-out/.

Build (native archiso)

Requires a current Arch Linux host with archiso installed.

sudo pacman -S archiso
sudo mkarchiso -v -w /tmp/zone-work -o ./zone-out ./archiso

Flash to USB

sudo dd if=zone-out/zone-*.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync

Replace /dev/sdX with your target device (check with lsblk).

Adding a Package

1. Add the package name to archiso/packages.x86_64
2. If the package has executables in airootfs/usr/local/bin/, add a "0:0:755" entry in profiledef.sh's file_permissions array
3. If it is a custom package, build a PKGBUILD in zone-pkgbuild/, add the binary to the appropriate zone-*-repo, and ensure pacman.conf references that repo

Repository Layout

Path	Purpose
archiso/	archiso profile (packages, hooks, configs, bootloaders)
archiso/airootfs/	Files overlaid onto the live rootfs
archiso/packages.x86_64	All packages installed in the live ISO
installation-scripts/	Legacy manual build helper scripts
docker/	Dockerfile for containerised builds
build.sh	Docker build wrapper

Notable Changes (2022 → 2026)

• mkinitcpio HOOKS: removed archiso_shutdown (dropped upstream) and archiso_kms (deprecated); added kms; added MODULES=(loop squashfs overlay)
• Compression: switched from xz to zstd for faster build and boot
• pacman.conf: removed defunct [community] repo (merged into [extra] in Aug 2023)
• packages: removed crda (defunct since kernel 5.15), reiserfsprogs (removed from kernel 6.6), ueberzug (project archived), bind-tools/dnsutils (replaced by bind); renamed nerd-fonts-jetbrains-mono → ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd
• syslinux: fixed stray 16 that broke the NVIDIA BIOS boot entry
• chrooted_post_install: fixed GPU variable initialisation bug that left stale drivers on installed systems