esox1/arch-on-rasberry-pi

How to install Arch linux on the rasp. pi without a screen or a keyboard using only a secure shell client.

Arch-on-rasberry-pi

How to install Arch linux on the rasp. pi without a screen or a keyboard using only a secure shell client.

In this guide I am using a 8G Sdcard, pi3 & my archlinux latptop. I will install arch, xfce4 DE, BLE, Audio, yaourt and some themes via SSH.

1- first thing first, you want to connect your Sdcard to your pc via a sdcard adapter or a usb.

2- Run command lsblk to find the parititions of your Sdcard with their assigned names. it will probably be memk. or sdx -- 'x'
can be letters a or b

3- Once you know your Sdcard name, run the command sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb. Where sdb is your SDcard parition name. it was sdb
for my case.

4- Type o to clear any existing partitions on the Sdcard, then p to list partitions, there should be no partitions left. Then
type n for new partition, then p for primary, 1 to assign the first partition on the drive, then press ENTER to accept the default first sector, then type +200M for the last sector. We just dedicated a 200M for the first partition, which will be used as the boot partition.

5- Type t, for partition type, then type c to set the first partition to type W95 FAT32(LBA).

6- Type n one more time, then p for primary, 2 to assign the second partition on the drive, then press ENTER twice to accept the default first and last sector.

7- Write the partition table and exit by typing w.

8- Type lsblk, you should have two partitions. sdb1 with size 200M & sdb2 with the rest of the Sdcard size in my
case it was 7.4G

9- Now, we need to create and mount a filesystem on the Sdcard partitions. type mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1. This will create a FAT32 filesystem on our first partition (200M). We are going to have our boot files on that partition

10- Type mkdir -p ~/Desktop/pi3/{boot,root} to create a boot and a root sub-folders in pi3 in your Desktop. Or whichever directory you prefer.

11- Type mount /dev/sdb1 ~/Desktop/pi3/boot. Type mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb2 to format your second partition. Type mount /dev/sdb2/ ~/Desktop/pi3/root/

12- Now that we have our two partitions mounted in root and boot subfolders under pi3. lets download the image of arch linux. Type cd ~/Downloads && wget http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-rpi-2-latest.tar.gz to download the image. Type tar zxvf ~/Downloads/ArchLinuxARM-rpi-2-latest.tar.gz -C ~/Desktop/pi3/root/ to extract the contents of the image into your root folder

13- Next we are going to move the boot folder that is in the ~/Desktop/pi3/root/ to our boot partition. Type mv ~/Desktop/pi3/root/boot/* ~/Desktop/pi3/boot/

14- That's it. Let's unmount the root and boot paritions. Type umount ~/Desktop/pi3/

15- In this step we need to power pi3 to configure arch. By the way our default username:alarm - password: alarm. The root password is root. To connect to pi3 board, use the hdmi and your usb keyboard (if you have one) and type root as the username and the password is root.

By the way, I dont have a usb keyboard so I am going to use ssh from my laptop to connect to the board and configure arch. To do so, first connect your pi board to your router via ethernet. Next, we need to figure out the asssinged ip address by the router to the pi3. Type sudo nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24 (to find your ip address type on linux type ifconfig it should be next to inet). Nmap will output a list of all the connected devices along with pi3 assigned ip address. If you dont have Nmap, you can install it on your linux distro, on Arch, type sudo pacman -S nmap. if you're using apt-get package manager. type sudo apt-get install nmap.

16- OR you can use the android app find to search your network for all connected devices instead of you using Nmap. Once you ahve your Pi3 IP. Type ssh -o StrickHostKeyChecking=no [email protected] then type alarm. Type ENTER to connect. We need to go root. Type su -l root and Type root then ENTER. Now we are root.

17- If you have connected with ethernet, you should have an ip-address already. If you want to configure the wifi. The first step to connect to an encrypted wireless network is having wpa_supplicant obtain authentication from a WPA authenticator. In order to do this, wpa_supplicant must be configured so that it will be able to submit the correct credentials to the authenticator. If you been following everything, you should be in root.

18- In your terminal, type -wpa_passphrase MYSSID passphrase > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wifi.conf. where MYSSID is your ssid name and the password. This will only create a network section in wifi.conf.

19- wpa_supplicant command, most commonly used arguments are:

-B - Fork into background.
-c filename - Path to configuration file.
-i interface - Interface to listen on.

To check your interfaces type ip link. To get the name of wireless interface type iw dev, the name of the interface will be output after the word "Interface". I got wlan0. Type wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wifi.conf. You should see >!"Succesfully initialized wpa_supplicant" on the screen.

20- Once we have network running. Test by typing ping -c3 google.com. You should be able to ping it.

21- Now the fun part begins. Type pacman-key --init to create a trustdb and generate pacman keyring master key. Type pacman -Syu to download & install the latest repos of packages

22- Installing sudo. Type pacman -S sudo. Now to give user "alarm" super privilges. Type visudo. Scroll to "# User
privilege specification" under root ALL=(ALL) All. Type "alarm ALL=(ALL) All. Save by typing :x. Now exit out of root
   by typing exit and try to update pacman database as user alarm. Type sudo pacman -Syu. It should work . LAter we are
going t oadd a new passwd protected new user.

23- Lets set a timezone. Type sudo ln -S /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime. Set the hardware clock. Type hwclock --systohc --utc. the hardware clock command may not work if you are using ssh. Just because of /proc is eactly available when you ssh (pls correct me if Im wrong).

24- lets create a new user. type useradd -m -g users -G audio,lp,optical,storage,video,games,power,scanner,wheel -s /bin/bash neyu. Type passwd neyu to set the passwd for new user neyu. Next, input the passwd then Press Enter then enter passwd again tap ENTER.

25- We need to edit /etc/sudoers file to allow use of the wheel group for our normal users. type visudo again. Uncomment the #%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL line by deleting the # infront of %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

26- Let's install a desktop manger I will choose XFCE since it's light on resources. if It wasnt for the limited memory on pi3 I would have installed GNOME. I do use the i3 WE more than any DE on my main PC. But for the sake of this guide, let's install XFCE. Type sudo pacman -S xfce4 xorg-server xorg-xrefresh xf86-video-fbdev xarchiver

27- Next, let's install a login screen prompt manager. I will use sddm since its smaller in size compared to what I would use which is gdm from gnome DE. Type sudo pacman -S sddm. To enable sddm. Type sudo systemctl enable sddm. It will create a symbol link in /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.servie

28- Type sudo systemctl start sddm. Congrats, now you should have a login screen if you reboot. type your user and password to login. Once you are logged in. I would install the network-manager package which will detect and configure system to automatically connect to your home network. Type sudo pacman -S network-manager-applet networkmanager. By the way I forgot to tell you to install bash-completion package which autocompletes strings in bash by tabbing the TAB key. Will make your life much easier.

29- Now lets enable NetworkManger. Type sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager.service. To start NetworkManger type sudo systemctl start NetworkManager. We have to disable "dhcpcd" and "sysemd-networkd" since you are going to be using NetworkManger. Type sudo systemctl stop dhcpcd.service. Next Type reboot

30- Once you have rebooted, you should see a drop down icon in the corner, that should be our NetworkManger applet, click on a new wifi connection and type in your ssid and password. Now you should be connected to your wifi.

31- Next lets intall yaourt which is a package manger to install AUR (ARCH USER REPOSITORY) packages. Install git package to git clone the yaourt repo and package query. Type sudo pacman -S base-devel git && git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/package-query.git then Type cd package-query && makepkg -si. If you get a prompt to install any packages press ENTER. Once it installs package-query package. Type cd .. && git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yaourt.git. Type cd yaourt && makepkg -si. Press ENTER when you get the prompt to intall yaourt. Type cd .. and You are ready to install audio and bluetooth packages.

32- Type yaourt -S pi-bluetooth. If you get any prompts to edit a package. Tap the n key on your keyboard. If you get any prompts to continue to install a package, tap the y key on your keyboard. let's enable our bluetooth. Type sudo systemctl enable bluetooth.service and sudo systemctl start bluetooth.service

33- Next installing an audio and a browser (firefox is my choice). Type sudo pacman -S pulseaudio-alsa pulseaudio-bluetooth bluez-libs pavucontrol firefox bluez-utils bluez-firmware. To enable audio on pi. Type sudo vim /boot/config.txt and add this line dtparam=audio=on

34- I will install some themes, Type yaourt gtk-theme and choose 55, 58, 53, 41, 38 (gtk-theme-arc-git, gtk-engine-murrine, gtk-theme-aurora-nuevo, gtk-theme-elementary).

35- Configure pacman to be a little colorful. Type sudo vim /etc/pacman.conf under #Misc options uncomment "Color, TotalDownload, VerbosePkgLists". To see something cool with the progressbar. Type ILoveCandy under VerbosePkgLists. Save and exit.

36- Finally to create all your default directories in $HOME such as: Documents Desktop Music. Type sudo pacman -S xdg-user-dirs and xdg-user-dirs-update

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