How to access the RPi, see boot screen?

[coolaj86]

I'm a Linux user of too many moons and an ARM user for a few as well, but RPi is a bit different and I don't know how to get to the point of seeing a boot screen.

I torrented the img, dd'd it to my sd card, plugged it into the RPi and realized that there's no serial or usb-serial connector (what!?).

I've plugged it into my TV both HDMI and RCA, but I don't see anything. I tried pinging the first few IP addresses that OS X gives out for ICS (192.168.2.2-5), nada.

How am I supposed to watch the kernel boot and get to a prompt?

[nick.mccloud]

You should see something on the TV. However it may be that your Pi isn't booting for some reason - check out this troubleshooting guide:

http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting

[pepedog]

It is possible to see that (kernel boot), but not interact, aside from no uboot or serial, it ends up in dmesg.
If you recompile kernel package with this patch disabled https://github.com/archlinuxarm/PKGBUIL ... evel.patch (edit PKGBUILD), and remove obvious from cmdline.txt you will see it as it happens.
Patch is there just following other arm kernels, cmdline one because it helped with other issues (storm) in the past

[brightspirit]

Look for config.txt file in the first partition and # out all the commands.
I think it's the hdmi_mode line that causes the problem. You can set it manually later but it gives you a starting point.
The video configuration settings can be found at:
elinux.org/RPi_config.txt

[pepedog]

I think my eyes only saw last line of op's post
Yes, comment out all lines in config.txt that is in fat partition.

[geep999]

My RPi is connected to a PC Monitor with DVI cable.
Boot screen OK with both Debian and ARMedslack but nothing with Archlinux..
Solution: connect to RPi with ssh
ssh root@192.168.1.9 # I could see the address in my router
cd /boot
Comment out the first line of config.txt
#hdmi_mode=19

Reboot - and the boot screen appeared fine.

Cheers,
Peter