Installing the system

Falconia is the TUI installer for BerserkArch. It runs entirely in your terminal and collects every configuration choice upfront before touching your disk. Once you confirm, it streams live output while performing the full installation.

Requirements

• A BerserkArch live ISO booted from USB
• A terminal at least 80 × 24 characters (maximise if in doubt)
• Internet access (ethernet recommended; Wi-Fi supported)
• The disk you want to install to (all data on it will be erased)

Launching the installer

From the live ISO shell run:

sudo falconia

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Navigation

Key	Action
↑ / ↓ or Tab / Shift+Tab	Move between fields
← / →	Cycle through inline options
hjkl	Vim style navigation
Tab / Shift+Tab	Jump between sections
Space	Toggle
Enter	Confirm / advance
Esc	Go back one step
Ctrl+A	Toggle advanced mode
Q	Quit (asks for confirmation)

The sidebar (visible at ≥ 150 columns) shows a live summary of everything you have chosen so far.

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Step-by-step

Welcome

The welcome screen shows the detected firmware type (UEFI or Legacy BIOS). This affects which bootloaders are available later. Press Enter to begin.

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01 — Disk

Choose the target disk and how it should be set up.

Field	Options	Notes
Disk	all detected block devices	← / → to cycle
Scheme	guided / manual	guided auto-partitions; manual launches cfdisk
Filesystem	ext4 / btrfs	applied to the root partition
Encrypt	yes / no	full-disk LUKS encryption
Pass / Confirm	(text input)	only shown when encrypt is yes

Caution

The selected disk will be completely erased. Double-check the device path and size before continuing.

Advanced mode (Ctrl+A) reveals an extra field:

Field	Default	Notes
Swap MiB	4096	size of the swap partition in MiB; 0 disables swap

Guided vs manual

• Guided creates the partition layout automatically: an EFI/boot partition and a root partition (plus swap if configured). You will not see the partition step.
• Manual launches cfdisk for full control. After you exit cfdisk, you will be taken to a partition-mapping step where you assign mount points to your partitions.

Encryption

When enabled, the root partition is encrypted with LUKS1 (cryptsetup --type luks1). LUKS1 is required because GRUB cannot unlock LUKS2. Your passphrase is never written to disk or logged.

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Tip

Partition mapping (manual scheme only)

If you chose the manual scheme you will land here after cfdisk exits. Assign each partition (e.g. /dev/sda1) to a mount point (e.g. /boot, /). At minimum you need /.

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02 — Network

Mode	When to use
ethernet	Wired connection — no further input needed
wifi	Enter your SSID and passphrase
skip	Dangerous — pacstrap requires internet

Wi-Fi credentials are used only to connect during installation. They are not persisted into the installed system’s network configuration.

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03 — Locale

Set your timezone, locale, and keyboard map. Falconia ships with a searchable list — start typing to filter. The defaults are:

• Timezone: Asia/Kolkata
• Locale: en_US.UTF-8
• Keymap: us

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04 — Hostname

The machine name on your network. Lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only; no leading or trailing hyphens. Maximum 63 characters. Defaults to berserkarch.

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05 — Users

This step has two sub-screens.

Root password Set and confirm the root account password. You must set a non-empty root password before you can proceed to user creation.

User account

Field	Notes
Username	Lowercase alphanumeric + hyphens
Password / Confirm	Must match
Shell	bash / zsh / fish — ← / → to cycle
sudo (wheel group)	Space to toggle — adds user to wheel for sudo access

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06 — Kernel

Option	Description
linux	Latest stable kernel — recommended for most users
linux-lts	Long-term support — older but very stable
linux-zen	Desktop/gaming optimisations, better latency
linux-hardened	Extra security patches — more restrictive behaviour

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07 — Desktop environment

Option	Display manager	Approx. size
None (minimal)	—	0 MB
GNOME	GDM	~800 MB
KDE Plasma	SDDM	~700 MB
XFCE	SDDM	~250 MB
Hyprland	SDDM	~180 MB
i3wm	SDDM	~120 MB
OpenBox	SDDM	~120 MB

Choosing None installs a TTY-only system. You can add a desktop later from the installed system.

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08 — Extra packages

A categorised package picker. Navigate categories with the left panel and packages with the right panel.

• Space — toggle a package
• Enter — confirm and advance

Categories include: Browsers & Internet, Development Tools, Multimedia, System Utilities, Gaming, and more. Packages marked (AUR) are installed via an AUR helper.

Advanced mode shows additional lower-level packages.

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09 — Bootloader

Option	Firmware	Notes
grub	UEFI + BIOS	Most compatible; works everywhere
systemd-boot	UEFI only	Lightweight, minimal configuration

systemd-boot is only offered on UEFI systems. On legacy BIOS, GRUB is the only option.

When LUKS encryption is enabled, GRUB embeds the crypto modules and a keyfile in the initramfs so you are only prompted for your passphrase once at boot. systemd-boot does not use a keyfile (the ESP is unencrypted).

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Confirm

A summary screen shows every choice you have made. Review carefully — this is the last step before any changes are made to your disk.

Press Enter to start the installation, or Esc to go back and change something.

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Installation

Once confirmed, Falconia runs the full pipeline. The screen splits into two areas:

• Left — a scrolling step list showing completed, in-progress, and pending steps
• Right — a live log viewport showing the output of the current operation

The pipeline includes: clock sync, mirror ranking, disk partitioning, filesystem creation, base system install (pacstrap), locale and timezone configuration, kernel and initramfs generation (dracut), bootloader install, user creation, hardware driver installation, service configuration, and cleanup.

Most failures are fatal and will show an error screen with the exact command that failed. A small number of steps (clock sync, mirror ranking, Windows detection) are marked soft — a failure shows a warning but the installation continues.

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After installation

Once the pipeline completes, reboot and remove the USB:

reboot

Your configured display manager (or a TTY login if you chose None) will greet you on first boot.