Every setting install.conf accepts, alphabetically. The
shipped file itself documents each of these inline with more context;
this is the flat list for when you already know roughly what you want
and just need the exact name and default.
A_DISK | whole disk to partition automatically; unset by default |
A_ROOT_PART | existing root partition instead of A_DISK |
A_BOOT_PART | existing boot/ESP partition |
A_HOME_PART | existing separate /home partition |
A_FORMAT | no — format existing partitions before use |
A_ROOT_FS | ext4 — ext4, ext3, ext2, btrfs, xfs, f2fs, zfs |
A_BOOT_FS | vfat |
A_BTRFS_OPTS | mount options for every btrfs subvolume |
A_BTRFS_SUBVOLS | @ @home @snapshots @log |
A_SNAPSHOT | none — btrfs to snapshot before every package change |
A_MOUNTS | extra fstab lines beyond root/boot/home, one per line |
A_DISK_RESERVE | space to leave unpartitioned at the end of a whole-disk install |
A_ENCRYPT | no — LUKS2 under the chosen filesystem |
A_ENCRYPT_PASS | required if A_ENCRYPT=yes |
A_SWAP | none — none, file, partition |
A_SWAPSIZE | 4G — size of a swapfile |
A_SWAPDEV | partition, if A_SWAP=partition |
A_ZRAM | no — compressed swap in RAM, composes with A_SWAP |
A_ZRAM_SIZE | 50% |
A_ZRAM_ALGO | zstd |
A_BOOT_FW | unset — detected automatically (efi or bios) |
A_BOOTLOADER | limine — or grub |
A_BOOT_MOUNT | /boot/efi |
A_BOOT_TIMEOUT | 3 seconds |
A_KERNEL_ARGS | extra kernel command line, appended to every entry |
A_GENERATIONS | 5 — how many appear in the boot menu; 0 disables the entries |
A_KERNEL | Arctic-base-kernel — see kernels |
A_MICROCODE | auto — auto, intel, amd, none |
A_INIT | busybox — see init systems for the full list and honest status of each |
A_HOSTNAME | arctic |
A_TZ | UTC |
A_LOCALE | en_US.UTF-8 |
A_LANG | en_US.UTF-8 |
A_KEYMAP | us |
A_CONSOLE_FONT | unset — a specific console font, if wanted |
A_NTP | yes — sync the clock at boot |
A_TRIM | auto — periodic TRIM; auto enables it only on non-rotational disks |
A_USER | unset — no account created, log in as root |
A_USERPASS | password for A_USER |
A_ROOTPASS | unset — root stays locked |
A_SHELL | /bin/zsh |
A_USER_GROUPS | wheel users audio video input |
A_DOAS_NOPASS | no — let wheel use doas without a password prompt each time |
A_LOCK_ROOT | no — lock root outright once A_USER exists |
A_NET | offline — offline, dhcp, wifi, static |
A_WIFI_SSID, A_WIFI_PSK, A_WIFI_IFACE | see networking |
A_IP, A_GATEWAY, A_DNS | for A_NET=static |
A_SSH | no |
A_SSH_PASSWORD_AUTH | yes |
A_SSH_KEYS | public keys to seed into authorized_keys |
A_FIREWALL | yes — nftables, default-deny inbound |
A_MAC_RANDOMIZE | no |
A_DESKTOP | none — see desktops and audio |
A_DM | unset — follows the desktop's own default |
A_GPU | auto |
A_AUDIO | no |
A_BLUETOOTH | no |
A_PKGS | extra alpm package names, space separated |
A_FONTS | extra fonts, space separated |
A_SERVICES | extra services to enable, beyond what other settings imply |
A_SETS | package category shortcuts — devel, net, media, office, virt, gaming, cli |
A_PKGIT | no — install pkgit alongside alpm |
A_HARDEN_TMP | no — mount /tmp nosuid,nodev,noexec |
A_POST | shell commands run inside the new system once everything else finishes |
A_CHROOT_SHELL | no — drop to a shell in the new system before unmounting |
A_REBOOT | no — reboot automatically once the install finishes |
More: arctic linux docs · install · declarative configuration · generations and rollback · init systems · kernels · packages (alpm) · desktops and audio · networking · ephemeral shells · musl · building from source · troubleshooting