🐧 Introduction

(skip intro if you want, its not important)

I have a raspberry pi zero 2 w (let's call it zero 2 after this), but I never use it, recently I got a plan to run a local web app on my pi zero 2, so I try find lightest linux distro, I have several experience on archlinux with XWindow(xorg), so I try to install it on my zero 2, but sadly it doesn't work for unknown reason, I try to investigate it for a week, but no luck.

Then I try to install raspios lite, its work, with wayfire on wayland. although it work, the os is too slow to run browser.

So I take another change to re-install archlinux with wayland, and luckly its worked, and here is my documentation to install it.

⚠️ Disclaimer

I am not professional about linux, so use this text at your own risk.

Installation Step

💿 Booting zero 2 with archlinuxarm os

most of this part was copied from official archlinuxarm installation guide, and assume you work on linux for this installation.

  • firstly prepare your sdcard, then insert with card reader into you pc
  • next try to list your sdcard with sudo ls /dev/sd*, output command will look something like this
$ ls /dev/sd*
/dev/sda  /dev/sdb
  • you will find several device, make sure you choose correct device sdb in this case
  • next replace all X with your device (b in this case)
  • Start fdisk to partition the SD card
fdisk /dev/sdX

  • At the fdisk prompt, delete old partitions and create a new one:

    • Type o. This will clear out any partitions on the drive.
    • Type p to list partitions. There should be no partitions left.
    • Type n, then p for primary, 1 for the first partition on the drive, press ENTER to accept the default first sector, then type +200M for the last sector.
    • Type t, then c to set the first partition to type W95 FAT32 (LBA).
    • Type n, then p for primary, 2 for the second partition on the drive, and then press ENTER twice to accept the default first and last sector.
    • Write the partition table and exit by typing w.

  • Create and mount the FAT filesystem:

mkfs.vfat /dev/sdX1
mkdir boot
mount /dev/sdX1 boot
  • Create and mount the ext4 filesystem:
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX2
mkdir root
mount /dev/sdX2 root
  • Download and extract the root filesystem (as root, not via sudo):
wget http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-rpi-armv7-latest.tar.gz
bsdtar -xpf ArchLinuxARM-rpi-armv7-latest.tar.gz -C root
sync
  • Move boot files to the first partition:
mv root/boot/* boot
  • Unmount the two partitions:
umount boot root

  • Insert the SD card into the Raspberry Pi and apply 5V power.

  • Use the serial console or attach HDMI and a keyboard

    • login as root with username root and password is root

  • connect to network (internet)

  • there is many way to connect into network, we will use wpa_supplicant

    • first generate config with wpa_passphrase <your-wifi-name> <your-wifi-password> > homenetwork.conf, ex: wpa_passphrase homenetwork 1234567890 > homenetwork.conf
    • then try to connect with wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c homenetwork.conf, -i is for interface (might be different, mine is wlan0), and -c is for config.
    • try to ping ping 1.1.1.1, make sure you got a response

  • if wpa_supplicant and wpa_passphrase not working, try to use netctl by

    • set wlan0 (or your device down) -> sudo ip link wlan0 down
    • then create/or copy netctl config by copying from /etc/netctl/examples, change SSID and password based on your need
    • then run netctl stop-all to stop all services of netctl
    • finally run your config by netctl start yourConfigName, hopefully its connect
    • now try to ping ping 1.1.1.1, make sure you got a response

  • Initialize the pacman keyring and populate the Arch Linux ARM package signing keys:

pacman-key --init
pacman-key --populate archlinuxarm

  • next install several package to run wayland

    • pacman -Syu base-devel sudo --noconfirm, update and install base development package, sudo
    • pacman -S wayland xorg --needed --noconfirm install wayland and xorg (at the time wayland is not complete yet, and most of app was based on xorg, so there still need xorg to work)
    • pacman -S sway alacritty vim less --noconfirm install sway window manager (compositor), and alacritty for terminal emulator

  • after installation complete, give default alarm user to sudo.

    • run visudo, then uncomment %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL, its about line 125
    • type :wq then enter, to save and exit

  • next copy sway config into home ~/.config/sway/ directory, cd ~ && cp /etc/sway/config ~/.config/sway

  • next change default terminal to use alacritty, vim ~/.config/sway/config

    • change $term variable to alacritty, from set $term foot to set $term alacritty
    • save and exit, type :wq then enter

  • then re-login to user alarm

  • inside terminal with alarm user, run sway sway.

Inside Sway

by default you can run terminal by hit mod + Enter (mod is windows key if you in windows). you can read other shortcut key on ~/.config/sway/config, to ease of reading config you can run cat ~/.config/sway/config | less

Troubleshooting

if something error when you run sway, install below then try to restart by sudo reboot now.

  • try to install glib2, sudo pacman -S glib2 --noconfirm

Reference