Raspberry Pi Releases Arch Linux SD Card Image

English: Logo of Arch Linux Nederlands: Het lo...

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has just announced the release of Arch Linux for the Raspberry Pi. This image is based on a minimal image of Arch Linux and does not come with a graphical interface. This distribution may not be suitable for beginners and you may be better off using the Debian SD Card image or even the upcoming Fedora 14 Raspberry Pi Remix image.

You can always install extra packages with Pacman,  the Arch Linux package manager.

To update the package list:


To Install LXDE Graphical Interface:


To run LXDE:


You can download it using BitTorrent: archlinuxarm-01-03-2012.zip.torrent (preferred method) or via one of the HTTP mirrors: archlinuxarm-01-03-2012.zip. (This link will redirect your download to the closest available HTTP server).

The default login credentials are: root/root

I haven’t tried it, but you should be able to use this release in qemu, by following instructions similar to the one I gave to run Raspberry Pi Debian release in QEMU.

Share this:
FacebookTwitterHacker NewsSlashdotRedditLinkedInPinterestFlipboardMeWeLineEmailShare

Support CNX Software! Donate via cryptocurrencies, become a Patron on Patreon, or purchase goods on Amazon or Aliexpress

ROCK 5 ITX RK3588 mini-ITX motherboard

6 Replies to “Raspberry Pi Releases Arch Linux SD Card Image”

  1. I did get it to boot per your instructions but it never finishes the boot process. The debian image boots just fine so I wonder if it is because I use the same kernel for both…

    I did try extracting the kernel.img from the rootfs and use that instead of zImage_3.1.9 but that just produced a black screen in qemu…

    1. If you use the same kernel as I provided by debian, you won’t be able to use the keyboard in LXDE, but it should still boot.
      You cannot use the image kernel because it is for the Raspberry Pi and qemu emulates ARM versatile board.

  2. I am running the following qemu-system-arm version:

    QEMU emulator version 1.0.50 (Debian 1.0.50-2012.03-0ubuntu1), Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Fabrice Bellard

    I tried using the same steps as the Debian article for the Arch image. I was not able to get to a prompt. Output:

    It starts sshd (bkgd) and then shows nothing for some time.

    Later, after some time, it shows:

    INIT: Id “c1” respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
    INIT: Id “c2” respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
    INIT: Id “c3” respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
    INIT: Id “c4” respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
    INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel
    INIT: Id “c1” respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
    INIT: Id “c4” respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
    INIT: Id “c3” respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
    INIT: Id “c2” respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

    If I try to ssh, it asks for the password (root) and then shows this message:

    PTY allocation request failed on channel 0

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Khadas VIM4 SBC
Khadas VIM4 SBC