theramiyer/arch-arm-rpi3-b-plus.md

## arch-arm-rpi3-b-plus.md

      
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              arch-arm-rpi3-b-plus.md
            
          
    Install Arch Linux (ARM) on Raspberry Pi B+

Created 17 Aug 2018
This is a simple installation that I did on my Raspberry Pi. Of course, this is only one of the many reasons to do it.
Here are my requirements:
Let's start!
First, insert the memory card into your laptop. I use a memory card slot, so my device name would differ from yours if you use a USB memory card reader.
Setup the SD card

Format the SD card with fdisk


List out all the drives and partitions using lsblk. Note down the name of the SD card. In my case, it is mmcblk0.
Start fdisk using sudo fdisk /dev/mmcblk0.
Delete the existing partitions by entering o at the prompt. This clears out all partitions on the card.
Type p to list the partitions; there should be none.
Create a new partition with n, make it primary by entering p, set it as the first partition using 1.
Press Enter to accept the default first sector. At the prompt, enter +110M to make it a 100 MB partition.
Type t and then c to set the partition type to W95 FAT32 (LBA).
Now, to create the second partition, type n, then p, make it the second partition by typing 2, and then, press Enter twice to accept the default first and the last sectors.
Enter w to write this configuration to the card.
Next, format the first partition as VFAT, and the second as EXT4.
mkfs.vfat /dev/mmcblk0p1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mmcblk0p2

Now, mount the two partitions.
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/boot
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /mnt/root


Transfer Arch Linux ARM to the card

The next step is to transfer the OS files onto the partitions.

Download Arch Linux ARM from www.archlinuxarm.org. The steps are pending an update. Please follow the instructions in the Installation tab of the Raspberry Pi 3 page over at Linux ARM.
wget http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-rpi-armv7-latest.tar.gz

Unzip the contents of the zip file to /mnt/root/
sudo tar -xpf ArchLinuxARM-rpi-latest.tar.gz -C /mnt/root/
sync

Move the contents of the boot directory to the boot partition.
sudo mv /mnt/root/boot/* /mnt/boot/

Unmount the partitions from your file system.
sudo umount /mnt/boot /mnt/root


Setup the Pi

Insert the SD card into the Pi. Now, connect a keyboard and a mouse. Connect the Pi to a display using the HDMI port. Next, connect the ethernet cable. Finally, plug in the power supply.
As soon as the login prompt arrives, enter root as the username and root as the password. You are now logged into the device.
Connect to WiFi (in case you don't use Ethernet)

If you would rather connect the device to WiFi:

Navigate to /etc/wpa_supplicant.
Create a new file called anything of your choice.
nano home-network

Enter the following in the file:
network={
  ssid="YOURSSID"
  psk="YOURWIFIPASSWORD"
}

Now, run the following command to connect to your WiFi.
wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 /etc/wpa_supplicant/home-network &

Your device should now connect to the Wifi. The next step is to get a DHCP address.
dhcpcd wlan0
Once the command completes, you should get your prompt back. Ping any domain on the web to see if you're connected.

Arch Linux allows SSH by default. If you would like to connect to the Pi using SSH from your personal computer instead of attaching a keyboard and a mouse and HDMI and everything, by all means, please do.
Setup swap

This setup may be optional. I prefer doing this because I'm used to swap.

Setup the swapfile.
fallocate -l 1024M /swapfile
chmod 600 /swapfile
mkswap /swapfile
swapon /swapfile
echo 'vm.swappiness=1' > /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf

Configure fstab with the swap entry.
/swapfile none swap defaults 0 0


Setup pacman

pacman is the package manager for Arch Linux.

Add colour to pacman.
sed -i 's/#Color/Color/' /etc/pacman.conf

Initialise pacman
pacman-key --init
pacman-key --populate archlinuxarm
pacman -Sy pacman
pacman -S archlinux-keyring

Update the system using pacman -Syu.
Reboot your Pi using reboot.

User setup

Right out of the box, Arch Linux ARM comes with two users: root and alarm. The first thing we would want to do is reset the password for root, and then, either create a new user to replace alarm, or reset the password for alarm. I go with the former approach.

Change the password for root.
passwd

Set the hostname of your Pi as per your preference.
hostnamectl set-hostname YOURHOSTNAME

Install sudo and vim.
pacman -S sudo vim

Now, enable the wheel group, create your user, and add the user to the group.
visudo

# Search for the line that contains `%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL` and uncomment it. Save the file.

Create your user.
useradd -d /home/YOURUSERNAME -m -G wheel -s /bin/bash YOURUSERNAME

Set a password for the new user.
passwd YOURUSERNAME

Delete the user, alarm.
userdel alarm

Log out and log back in as the new user you created.

Install packages

Now that we have most things set up, we will now proceed and install the necessary packages.

First, install a bunch of necessary software.

sudo pacman -S --needed nfs-utils htop openssh autofs alsa-utils alsa-firmware alsa-lib alsa-plugins git zsh wget base-devel binutils diffutils libnewt dialog wpa_supplicant wireless_tools iw crda lshw

Install blueman for Bluetooth.

sudo pacman -S blueman

Install pi-bluetooth from the AUR. You should already have the packages necessary to build packages from the AUR. The package, pi-bluetooth, needs hciattach-rpi3 installed. Run the following.

mkdir builds # A directory where all packages will be built.
cd builds/
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/hciattach-rpi3.git # Clone the repository
cd hciattach-rpi3/
makepkg -si # Build the package
Update: Looks like hciattach-rpi3 is no more available. Use bluez-utils-compat instead. Thanks to @SleepingNewton.
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/pi-bluetooth.git
cd pi-bluetooth
makepkg -si

Enable Bluetooth using sudo systemctl enable bluetooth.service.
Start the Bluetooth service using sudo systemctl start bluetooth.service.
Now, let us install packages necessary for audio.

sudo pacman -S pulseaudio-alsa pulseaudio-bluetooth pavucontrol bluez bluez-libs bluez-utils bluez-firmware

Enable audio at boot by adding the following line to sudo vim /boot/config.txt.

dtparam=audio=on
Final touches

Increase the life of your SD card.

Open the fstab file.

sudo vim /etc/fstab

Add the following line to the file.

/dev/root  /  ext4  defaults,nodiratime,noatime,discard  0  0
That should get you going with Arch Linux on Raspberry Pi 3 B+.