ArchEZ / News and updates: Recent posts

A recent surge of malware has affected over 1500 AUR (Arch User Repository) packages. Daily builds will be temporarily suspended while I work on improvements to security. System updates will still be available though, and you can update from the most recent OS download.

From Arch Linux news: (https://archlinux.org/news/active-aur-malicious-packages-incident/)
"We continue to encourage all users of AUR packages to review all PKGBUILD and install script changes when updating, especially during this time. If you notice suspicious commits to a package that you use, please reach out to Arch staff via the aur-general mailing list with more information."... read more

So today I just discovered an issue in the installer that has possibly been present for months. The installer never set the boot flag for the boot partition when booted in BIOS mode, causing many systems to refuse to boot the newly installed OS. It took many hours, but I finally fixed the issue.

Since this is a major issue I thought I'd post an update regarding this issue. I apologise for not discovering and resolving this issue earlier. I will be doing lots of testing and improvements over the next few days. I want everyone to know that I am committed ensuring a great user experience on both old and new hardware.

ZestISO will soon be renamed to ArchEZ, and all ZestISO branding will be removed. I have decided to use that name because it's Arch Linux, but easy to install and use. It just sounds way more familiar. And you all get to say "I use Arch, BTW."

First of all, as you are probably aware I have not uploaded daily ISO builds or updated my AUR repo for a while. This is due to network connectivity problems as well as some hardware failures. I plan to get my server back up and running by next Monday.

Second, I'm planning some changes to my distro. I'm renaming it to something more appealing to users, as well as making it more lightweight and optimised. Existing ZestISO users will automatically be upgraded to the newer version with the new name when it is released. Other than that, there aren't any significant changes in functionality.... read more

ZestISO has reached 100 monthly downloads! Thanks to all of those who showed interest in my project! I love making open-source projects for the community and I'm glad that some people found it useful.

To celebrate this milestone, I will be releasing the first stable builds of ZestISO XFCE and IceWM editions today, as well as the second stable build of ZestISO KDE Plasma Gaming Edition for 2026. There will of course also be daily builds for these editions as well.... read more