Installing Arch Linux on the Raspberry Pi
My brand-new Raspberry Pi was delivered last night. I finally got a chance to start playing with it this evening. The first thing I wanted to do was get my favourite Linux distribution Arch installed.
Here's a quick and easy way to get Arch Linux ARM installed onto the Raspberry Pi.
These instructions are taken directly from http://archlinuxarm.org/
- Download the zip file containing the dd image from one of these resources:
* [Torrent](http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/images/archlinuxarm/archlinux-hf-2012-09-18/archlinux-hf-2012-09-18.zip.torrent)* [Direct Download](http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/images/archlinuxarm/archlinux-hf-2012-09-18/archlinux-hf-2012-09-18.zip)- At this time, not all mirrors have the updated rootfs. If you get a 404, please try a different mirror.
- Extract the zip file to your hard drive, giving you the dd image archlinux-hf-2012-09-18.img
- Write this image to the target SD card. The SD card will need to be 2GB or larger.
* **Linux*** **Windows**- Eject the card from your computer, insert into the Raspberry Pi, and power it on.
- If your keyboard, mouse, or other USB device doesn't appear to be working properly, try using it through a POWERED USB hub. The Raspberry Pi's USB ports are limited to 140mA.
Please note: The rootfs for the Raspberry Pi has been converted to systemd. There is no more /etc/rc.d or /etc/rc.conf. Please read up on systemd.
Summary
Please keep in mind that Arch is not designed for beginners and it will definitely help a lot if you have some Linux experience, and a great deal of patience. The advantage that it does have is that it is very light on resources, and comes with a very basic install. This means just a terminal interface and a limited number of programs. This is comes in handy when you want to configure your Pi for a specific purpose.
Once you've installed Arch and looked around take a look at this Article for some more important steps to get the most out of your Arch Linux Raspberry Pi.