Introduction: Arch Linux on Raspberry Pi

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On this tutorial I will be showing you how I would install Arch Linux on my raspberry Pi. Since there are many different approaches to what could be configured there is no right or wrong way to install this. Thanks

Step 1: Prepare the SD Card and Install Arch Linux

on linux PC:

lsblk 
sudo fdisk /dev/sdX

clear partitions on the drive (o)

create first partition (n, p, 1, enter, +100M, t, c)

create second partition (n, p, 2, enter, enter), then write and exit (w)

sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdX1 
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX2 

make folder to mount partitions

mkdir /mnt/boot/ 
mkdir /mnt/root/ 
sudo mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt/boot/ 
sudo mount /dev/sdx2 /mnt/root/ 

download and install arch

wget  http://archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-rpi-2-latest.tar.gz
sudo su
tar zxvf /location/of/file/ArchLinuxARM-rpi-2-latest.tar.gz -C /mnt/root 
mv /mnt/root/boot/* /mnt/boot 
sync

Step 2: Init

On Raspberry Pi:

login: root

password: root

setting up wifi with wpa_supplicant

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/home_wifi

add following and edit ssid and psk with your old network info

network={
ssid=”neworkname”
psk=”password”
}

initiating pacman, upgrading arch and install sudo

pacman-key –init
pacman -Syu
pacman -S sudo screen
nano /etc/sudoers.d/myOverrides

add following

alarm ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

switch to user alarm:

su alarm

Step 3: Installing Desktop

install packer for additional software down the road

sudo pacman -S packer

now lets install the desktop

sudo pacman -S xorg-server xf86-video-fbdev xorg-xrefresh

leave everything as default

XFCE4:

sudo pacman -S xfce4 xfce4-goodies

now we need desktop manager:

sudo pacman -S sddm

we are going to load default configs with this command

sudo sh -c “sddm –example-config > /etc/sddm.conf”

autologin:

sudo nano /etc/sddm.conf

search and modify:

[autologin]
Session=xfce.desktop
User=alarm

custom theme i’m using

packer -S arc-gtk-theme

custom fonts

packer -S ttf-roboto

SDDM autostart:

sudo systemctl enable sddm
sudo systemctl start sddm

Step 4: Network Manager

lets install a network manager so you can control your wifi or ethernet via gui

sudo pacman -Syu networkmanager network-manager-applet
sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager
sudo systemctl start NetworkManager

reboot

Step 5: Bluetooth

lets install the tools we need to compile bluetooth

sudo pacman -S make gcc git-core automake autoconf pkg-config libtool patch
packer -S yaourt blueman
yaourt -S pi-bluetooth
sudo systemctl start bluetooth.service
sudo systemctl enable bluetooth.service
sudo systemctl enable brcm43438.service
sudo pacman -Syu pulseaudio-alsa pulseaudio-bluetooth pavucontrol bluez bluez-libs bluez-utils bluez-firmware