Introducing the F123e live iso

[Kyle]

The part that does the real work is still in a very early stage, but 
here it is for your testing pleasure. Introducing the F123e iso image, 
compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit Intel/AMD machines. This iso 
image is derived from TalkingArch, but includes an automated startup 
script that will download and run the Arch Ultimate Install (AUI) 
scripts to get an installed base system up and talking, and upon booting 
the new system, to install and configure desktop environments and other 
optional packages, and configure your non-root user account and other 
post-install configurations. The main thing that sets F123e apart from 
TalkingArch, aside from the AUI running automatically, is the fact that 
every boot of this live system will always give you the latest startup 
script and the latest F123 version of AUI, as long as you have an 
internet connection at startup, and if not, the iso boots in exactly the 
same way as TalkingArch, complete with all the packages that come with 
the TalkingArch live iso. Again, the startup script is in very early 
development, and some things may not work as expected, but you don't 
need to download a whole new iso image to take advantage of the bugfixes 
and developments in the installation script, thanks to an innovative but 
little known automated start procedure that downloads its own startup 
script automatically. Feel free to test F123 by downloading the iso at
http://public.f123.org/experimental/F123e-2016.10.25-dual.iso
verifying it with the file by downloading
http://public.f123.org/experimental/F123e-2016.10.25-dual.iso.sha512
into the same folder as the iso file and running
sha512sum -c F123e-2016.10.25-dual.iso.sha512
and then either burning it to a DVD, writing it via dd to a thumb drive 
or popping the iso directly into your favorite virtual machine software 
and booting it up. Be sure you do have either a real or virtual hard 
disk or flash media for installation, as the main idea is to quickly and 
semiautomatically get you a base system up and talking, with the option 
to run post-installation steps as root once you login for the first time.

The main known issue that you will encounter at this point is that the 
install script will ask for a reboot upon its completion, and will place 
what appears to be two copies of each of the AUI scripts into /root/aui 
on the newly installed system. If you want to test the post-install 
script from this point, it is currently necessary to answer the reboot 
prompt with y and then remove the iso, allowing the system to boot 
normally into the base system you just installed, login as root with the 
password you entered when running the install script and then manually run
aui/lilo
once you have logged into the new system. Don't worry, this will be 
fixed in an upcoming release, and the only thing you will need to do is 
to boot up the same live environment again and run through the install 
script in order to test the changes.

I would like to publicly thank Fernando Botelho of F123 for considering 
TalkingArch as the starting platform for this project, and for the 
opportunity to take a good look at the AUI scripts, which are the most 
flexible semiautomated installer scripts I have found for any system, 
but are still quite easy to use in spite of the flexibility they offer. 
Of course further contributions are welcome, as anyone can fork us on 
Github and send in pull requests. All code is licensed GPL version 3 or 
later, so go ahead and have some fun.
Sent from my purple banana