Install Arch Linux on Banana Pi Pro •

Arch Linux is a simple lightweight linux variant inspired by CRUX. The design approach of the development team follows the KISS principle (“keep it simple, stupid”) as the general guideline, and focuses on elegance, code correctness, minimalism and simplicity, and expects the user to be willing to make some effort to understand the system's operation.

Pi Unit	Processor	RAM	RAM Bus	Network	WiFi	USB	SATA	Cost
Raspberry Pi 3	1.2 GHz ARMv8 Quad Core	1 GB DDR2	450 MHz	100 Mbit	Yes	4	No	$35
Raspberry Pi 2	900 MHz ARMv7 Quad Core	1 GB DDR2	450 MHz	100 Mbit	No	4	No	$35.00
Raspberry Pi	700 MHz ARMv6 Single Core	512 MB SDRAM	400 MHz	100 Mbit	No	4	No	$25
Banana Pi	1 GHz ARMv7 Dual Core	1 GB DDR3	432 MHz	Gigabit	No	2	Yes	$36.99
Banana Pi Pro	1 GHz ARMv7 Dual Core	1 GB DDR3	432 MHz	Gigabit	Yes	2	Yes	$45.00

Install Arch Linux on Banana Pi Pro

There are 3 tutorials in this guide. One for how to install Arch Linux to Banana Pi Pro using Linux. Another for how to install Arch Linux to Banana Pi Pro using Windows and finally a guide on organizing the default Banana Pi user to a Banana Pi group. It also has instructions on how to use pacman.

Install Arch Linux on the Banana Pi Pro using Linux

You can use this part to install Arch Linux to the SD Card using a Linux distribution. You can do this part using most Linux distributions but a Debian based one is recommended.

Download the official LeMaker Arch Linux image.

wget http://mirror.lemaker.org/ArchLinux_For_BananaPro_v1412.tgz

Extract the official LeMaker image.

bsdtar -xpf ArchLinux*

Use fdisk to see the SD card used for the Banana Pi Pro (Usually sdb or sd something).

sudo fdisk -l

Flash the image to the card.

sudo dd if=<archlinux.img> of=/dev/<your-sd-card> bs=1M && sync

For example, my image is called: ArchLinux_For_BananaPro_v1412.img and the sd card is at /dev/sdb so I would use:

sudo dd if=ArchLinux_For_BananaPro_v1412.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1M && sync

Now you can put the SD Card in the Banana Pi Pro and boot it.

Install Arch Linux on the Banana Pi Pro using Windows

Download the Arch Linux LeMaker Archive file. You can download it from the LeMaker Website.

Then extract the image file using WinRAR or an alternative that can extract .tgz files.

Install Win32DiskImager from Sourceforge and Open it.

Select the Arch Linux image file and use drop down to select your USB.

Then click Write.

Now you can put the SD Card in the Banana Pi Pro and boot it.

By Default SSH is activated and the user details are, bananapi and bananapi or root and root.

Setup Default Banana Pi User Group

Create the Banana Pi group

sudo groupadd bananapi

Add the default Banana Pi user to the Banana Pi group

sudo usermod -aG bananapi bananapi

Basic Use of Pacman

To install a package type, a list of packages are found here.

sudo pacman -S <packagename>

To remove a package type

pacman -R <package_name>

To search a package type

pacman -Ss <package>

To upgrade all packages type

pacman -Syu