Parabola Install Script

This project comes with a dedicated tool to install a fully set up and well configured Parabola GNU/Linux-libre System: Zerocat’s Parabola Install Script

The script is meant as a drop-in replacement for the original Install CLI of the parabola-dual-openrc-lxde-2020.08.03-netinstall.iso, which can be downloaded from the Parabola Wiki.

The Parabola Project follows the FSDG, and ships with nothing but Free Software.

The Init-System of the ISO is OpenRC, and this same system is suggested for the operating system to be installed onto disk. However, at the time of writing (2021/06/12), this fails due to conflicting dependencies. To make the installation process finish successfully, the script allows you to switch to SystemD for the time being.

Successful Script Run

The script has been tested in detail, successfully, as of June 2021.

Since August 2021 however, the script fails due to invalid packages, keys, and unresolved dependencies. See Notes.

Please give it a try, nevertheless. Parabola packages and signatures might have been repaired now.

Get Your Zerocat Machine Started

Script in Action

Let’s use the script to install a fully encrypted Parabola-SystemD-XFCE System. Instead of providing all screenshots of the session, let’s talk about selected key stones only.

Let’s jump forward, with all partitions used for selected mountpoints, including “[cryptSWAP]”. Encrypted swap space will be set up by SystemD during boot, using a random key. Therefore, it does not yet show up as a mountpoint. Instead, the selected container partition gets tagged with the “[cryptSWAP]” marker:

From now on, the script’s dialogues should be quite intuitive, so let’s drop details here. For most settings a default value is suggested, and you can safely hit the “Enter” button to end up with a german setup. However, the Xfce Desktop Environment has to be selected explicitly, same as user accounts. Your interaction is required.

Note the script is tailored to put a system onto a corebooted laptop with the GRUB2 bootloader located in chip. By default, no bootloader is installed into the MBR of the selected disk.

Boot into The New System

Now, let’s try the new zerocat-parabola-machine:

Verify Mounted Partitions

Let’s check whether Swap is encrypted: