What is this?

This is a toolset to create headless embedded systems with a lighweight Arch Linux ARM that boots within seconds and performs real-time tasks. It's initial focus is on real-time audio processing. Currently tested with the Raspberry PI 2 it should run on other ARM SoCs (supported by arch linux ARM)[https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms] due to its generality.

What's in there?

It comes with several scripts for a linux host:

• SD card preparation and flashing of bootloader
• a chroot script to alter the Arch Linux ARM on any x68/x64 linux host
• incremental sync to SD card and via SSH of root filesystem
• Minifier to reduce the compelete OS size to about 200MB (for small ramfs images)

For the ARM system it has:

• easy Wi-Fi adapter management that automatically creates a hotspot if no wireless network is available. The SoC will always be accessible, even without any network infrastructure or cable (only a WI-Fi USB dongle is needed)
• It can boot into a RAM disk so the SD-Card module can be disabled. This increases real-time reliability
• Custom systemd services for initial boot automation
• Configuration service that enables configuration through a FAT-partition from a Windows machine
• Some boot optimization techniques (not all possible). The aim is to get the system to boot within 5 seconds

Getting started

Recursively clone this repo on a linux host (required packages on host: bsdtar sshfs qemu binfmt-support qemu-user-static )

• ./rootfs-init : Choose your board, it will then download the latest Arch Linux ARM image
• ./sdcard-prepare while downloading, run this to initialize an SD card (SD card will be erased!)
• ./rootfs-sync-to-sdcard after all previous steps are done, run this to copy the rootfs to the SD card
• ./sdcard-unmount to unmount the SD card You can then plug the card into your ARM embedded system and it will boot. It will create a WiFi hotspot you can connect to.

To start over with a fresh rootfs, delete, rename or move the work/ dir.