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NoSignal-OS/README.md
28allday 19fd794b6b NoSignal — fully-offline Arch → Hyprland desktop installer 
Single-script builder (nosignal.sh) that turns a stock Arch Linux ISO into a
fully-offline installer for a themed Hyprland + caelestia (Quickshell) desktop:
matching SDDM greeter, Btrfs/Limine bootable snapshots, chwd-style GPU
detection, and a curated "os updates" layer (keybind cheatsheet, settings
panels, system polish, on-box management skill). See README.md.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-06-21 11:03:10 +01:00

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NoSignal OS

A single-script builder that turns a stock Arch Linux ISO into a fully offline installer for a ready-to-use Hyprland desktop: Arch + Hyprland + the caelestia dotfiles/shell, with a themed SDDM login screen that matches the desktop.

Everything needed for the install is bundled on the ISO — a complete pacman repo (every package incl. all GPU driver variants, with the caelestia stack pre-built from the AUR at ISO-build time), the pinned dotfiles, the theme. No internet is needed to install or on first boot: the machine boots straight into the themed login screen and a fully configured desktop.

NoSignal is the ISO builder. It bundles and installs the upstream caelestia dotfiles; it is not affiliated with that project.

⚠️ Experimental — and built to be modified. NoSignal OS is young and opinionated; expect rough edges. It is designed to be reshaped by you: every NoSignal tweak sits in a config-override layer on top of stock caelestia (delete a file to revert one), and the installed system ships an on-box AI guide so you can customise and fix it with Claude Code — see Customising the desktop below.

What you get on the installed system

  • Hyprland + caelestia shell (Quickshell), restyled with a restrained flat look (no blur/glassmorphism) and the OS's own Moebius-style wallpaper set (dynamic Material palette generated from the wallpaper).
  • Themed SDDM login that mirrors the desktop palette/wallpaper/font (sudo sddm-theme-sync re-syncs it after you change wallpaper).
  • Omarchy-style keybindings — Super+K opens a searchable cheatsheet of every bind. Universal Super+C/Super+V copy/paste, Print = region screenshot, Super+Space launcher, Super+D dashboard/calendar, Super+Grave workspace overview.
  • Software story: yay (AUR), the Shelly GUI store on Super+I (repos + AUR + Flathub), flatpak preconfigured.
  • Btrfs + bootable snapshots: every package transaction snapshots (snapper + snap-pac), and each snapshot appears as a bootable entry in the Limine menu (10-second timeout) — roll back a bad update from the boot screen.
  • nosignal-update: one command for snapshot → package upgrade → layer migrations; a Settings → Updates page shows pending counts.
  • Gaming (opt-in): the [multilib] repo is enabled and Omarchy-installer shims are included, so DeckShift-style Steam gaming sessions can be added post-install — including a login fix that keeps a password on cold boots. Not active unless you set it up.
  • Bluetooth, printing (CUPS + network discovery), power-profiles, zram swap, ufw on, locale/timezone/keymap of your choice.

Customising the desktop (on-box AI guide)

NoSignal OS is meant to be tinkered with, so nothing is locked down. Every NoSignal change lives in a config-override layer at ~/.config/caelestia/ on top of stock caelestia — edit a file to change behaviour, delete it to fall back to the default. Updates and rollbacks are safe: nosignal-update snapshots before every upgrade, and each snapshot is a bootable entry in the Limine menu.

To make changes easy — even if you don't know the internals — the installed system ships an on-box AI skill for Claude Code. It explains exactly what's safe to edit, how to change keybinds / monitors / wallpaper / theme, how updates and snapshots work, how to install software, and how to recover the desktop if the shell ever fails to start.

  • Just ask. Run claude on a NoSignal machine and it auto-discovers the nosignal skill — say "customise my NoSignal desktop" or "the bar didn't load, fix it" and it reads the guide before touching anything.
  • Point an assistant at the files directly if you prefer:
    • ~/.claude/skills/nosignal/SKILL.md — the Claude skill (guardrails + tasks)
    • ~/.local/share/nosignal/ONBOX-AI-NOTES.md — the full system briefing
    • ~/.local/share/nosignal/NoSignal-keybindings.md — the keybinding reference

The skill is strictly for managing your installed system — it carries no build/release tooling, and it always reads the guardrails before editing config.

Build the ISO

The builder runs on an Arch Linux (or Arch-based) host with an internet connection — it uses pacman, makepkg, and devtools to assemble the offline package set, so it can't run on a non-Arch distro.

1. Install the build dependencies:

sudo pacman -S --needed git libisoburn squashfs-tools coreutils devtools pacman-contrib

2. Clone this repository and enter it:

git clone https://github.com/28allday/NoSignal-OS.git
cd NoSignal-OS

3. Download a stock Arch Linux ISO into this folder. The filename must start with archlinux-. Grab the latest from any mirror, e.g.:

curl -LO https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/iso/latest/archlinux-x86_64.iso

(or pick a mirror from https://archlinux.org/download/.)

4. Run the builder:

./nosignal.sh

It downloads the full package closure and builds the AUR pieces in a clean chroot — allow roughly 15–40 minutes on the first run (you'll be asked for sudo). Everything is cached in ./offline/, so later rebuilds take a couple of minutes.

5. Done. nosignal-arch-YYYYMMDD.iso (~4 GB) appears in the folder — Ventoy-compatible and dd-bootable. Write it to a USB stick and install (see Install below).

Install

1. Write the ISO to a USB stick. Replace /dev/sdX with your USB device (check it with lsblk first — this erases the whole stick):

sudo dd if=nosignal-arch-YYYYMMDD.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

(or just drop the .iso onto a Ventoy USB.)

2. Boot the USB on the target machine — UEFI only (no BIOS/MBR).

3. Follow the installer. It is fully offline (no network questions) and asks for: hostname, user, password, your region (timezone / locale / keyboard), and the target disk. It then wipes that disk — 1G EFI + btrfs with @/@home/@snapshots/@log subvolumes and the Limine bootloader — and runs a clean, centred progress screen. It erases the chosen disk — back up first.

4. Reboot into the themed SDDM login and your desktop. Connect Wi-Fi from the desktop's network panel; once you're online, run sudo pacman -Syu one time to sync the package databases.

GPU detection

The installer auto-detects the GPU(s) and installs the right drivers, borrowing CachyOS chwd's method (PCI display-class scan → vendor-id → driver set) but implemented natively, so the ISO stays vanilla Arch (no CachyOS repos / lib32 / cachyos-kernel deps). Multiple GPUs union their package sets (e.g. an Intel/AMD iGPU + an NVIDIA dGPU). All variants are bundled in the offline repo; only the matching subset is installed.

Detected Packages
NVIDIA (10de) nvidia-open-dkms nvidia-utils egl-wayland libva-nvidia-driver nvidia-settings linux-headers + DRM/KMS setup
AMD (1002) mesa vulkan-radeon
Intel (8086) mesa vulkan-intel intel-media-driver
VM guest (1af4/1b36/1234/15ad/80ee) qemu-guest-agent spice-vdagent
Unknown vulkan-swrast (software fallback)

For NVIDIA it also does the Wayland-critical bits (the same ones chwd does): early-loads nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm in the initramfs, drops the kms hook so nouveau doesn't grab the card, sets nvidia_drm.modeset=1, and writes the EGL/VA env to /etc/environment.

Notes / current limitations

  • UEFI only. No BIOS/MBR boot.
  • No disk encryption yet.
  • NVIDIA uses the open kernel module (nvidia-open-dkms), which is for Turing and newer (RTX 20-series+). Older Maxwell/Pascal cards would need the proprietary/legacy branch — not yet selected by generation.
  • The bundled packages are a snapshot from build day — run sudo pacman -Syu once online.

Credits

NoSignal OS is a thin builder around excellent upstream work — it bundles, themes, and installs these projects rather than replacing them. Please support the originals. Each remains under its own licence.

  • Arch Linux — the base system and live ISO.
  • Hyprland — the Wayland compositor.
  • caelestia — the desktop dotfiles and shell that define the look and most of the UX. The installed shell is a light soft-fork; the CLI / theming engine is upstream, unchanged.
  • Quickshell — the runtime the shell runs on.
  • SDDM — the login manager (themed to match).
  • Limine, with snapper and snap-pac — bootloader and Btrfs snapshot tooling (bootable snapshots).
  • Omarchy — keybinding layout and UX inspiration, and its prebuilt [omarchy] package repo for the Limine snapshot tools.
  • CachyOS chwd — the GPU-detection method (PCI scan → vendor-id → driver set), reimplemented natively here.
  • Fonts: JetBrains Mono Nerd Font and Material Symbols.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. The wallpaper art set is the project author's own original work and ships with the ISO under the same licence.