Arch setup - feel free to add any tips

[antiloquax]

Here's a few notes on how I set up my Arch desktop (running a virtual Pi on qemu). Please share any Arch tips!

Arch Setup

Login
User: root
P'wd: root

Update system
pacman -Syyu

Install X

pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-server-utils
pacman -S mesa mesa-demos
pacman -S xorg-twm xorg-xclock xterm

Install ROX-Filer

pacman -S rox



Video-Drivers
Find out what video card you have:
lspci | grep VGA
Search the package database to find the driver for your card.
pacman -Ss xf86-video | less

Install driver (eg.if in qemu):
pacman -S xf86-video-fbdev

Remove the empty .xinitrc
rm ~/.xinitrc

Install dbus
pacman -S dbus
rc.d start dbus
Add dbus to the DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf (you can do this later).

Install some fonts:
pacman -S ttf-dejavu

Start the X server:
startx

Some terminals will appear on a desktop. To get a pinboard, type:

rox -p pin

Install a browser (netsurf is basic, but runs quite fast!)

pacman -S netsurf



Install GNU compiler
pacman -S gcc make

and then ... ?

[cjan]

@antiloquax

as you mention (running a virtual Pi on qemu), how about share qemu or aqemu howto? i got problem to run VM with .img, thanks.

[antiloquax]

I followed the instructions from CNX software to build qemu:

CNX page.

I used this zImage.

And I followed the CNX instructions for extracting the root file-system from the Arch release image.

Extract root f-s.

Let me know if that doesn't work for you.

[cjan]

use -cpu arm1136-r2 or arm1176 both got 'Unable to find x86 CPU definition'...? thanks.

[antiloquax]

I am using arm1176.

[Joe Schmoe]

Let me ask what is probably a dumb question - but why do you have to "extract the rootfs" from the image? (in order to run it under QEMU).

One does not need to do that to run the Debian image.  Is there something about the Arch image that makes it necessary?

Note: I skimmed the page - got the basic idea of what he was doing, but not why he was doing it.

[antiloquax]

@Joe: I'm not sure you have to do it this way - but I followed the instructions given on CNX because I'd failed trying it in a different way.

[frostbyte]

As I'm still awaiting for my R-Pi to show up, I'm interested if any of you RasPiArchers have tried UZBL web browser? It's probably not for everyone, but considering it's quite customizable and very light on its feet, it might be worth trying.