ArchLinux Torrent Image

[Chris-W65]

Can anyone suggest a method to unpack this image (on the C201 - I'm working from a crouton chroot) onto a micro SD card (or usb)?

I've tried the following, which is unpacking ok, but it's generating lots of 'Can't create symlink' errors...
From a terminal session, cd into the location where the image is stored, then:
sudo tar -xvf ArchLinuxARM-veyron-latest_with-x11-lightdm-mate.tar.bz2 -C /media/removable/'USB Drive'

I suspect I need to somehow mount my target media in a chroot as /, and then write to it. Just not sure how I can do that on the C201.

[nikolas-n]

I have created the tar, but unfortunately I haven't tried actually doing the reverse, i.e. downloading the tar and exporting it. So, let me tell you how I came with that tar. First I did whatever was here. Then, I changed some files and installed some packages so that I can make it actually work. And then I just copied all the contents of the SD Card I had created (and was booting from) to another pc and created the torrent.

What I'd suggest is that you do something similiar (for now). Follow the instructions from here and then copy paste the contents of the tar to the main partition (not the boot one, be careful).

In the meantime, I'll try to see if I can download and create the image from the torrent.

Also, to chroot to a usb/media drive you have to have the same CPU architecture (or have an emulator installed like qemu), so if the pc you're mounting the drive is not ARM, chroot can't happen...

Edit: I just saw you're booting from Crouton, so you can chroot (most likely). So, theoretically you can copy everything, but you also need another partition, the boot one, to make the drive work. So, maybe in any case you have to follow the instructions on how to do so with the above link, anyway :-)

[Chris-W65]

Thx Nikolas - much appreciated!
I just tried to plonk it straight into a virgin SD card (doh!). It makes sense I should prep per the instructions you pointed out.
I'll give that a go.

Incidentally I have tried them already & successfully got the original archlinuxarm image going. However I then tried to update the image so I could put on other s/w, and it updated a number of things incl. Systemd to 244.1-1.
This appeared to cause similar boot loop behaviour to what your published fix seemed to be for, so I tried re-applying your instructions without success.
I've googled and read archlinux forums etc but can't find anything helpful, and your instructions seemed the mist promising.
Have you updated your install to systemd 244.1-1?
Any advice? (Guess I'll need this to update your image anyway)

[Chris-W65]

Hello Nikolas,
I've now installed your torrent image onto an SD card prepped per the original instructions you linked.
Unfortunately this gave me a similar set of errors. I've captured all these & have attempted to attach:
20200120_tar_errors.txt

The SD Card booted, but bootlooped & wouldn't complete.
It seemed to be failing to start 'Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status'
See 'Systemctl status systemd-rfkill.service' for details
.. It then got as far as Started Daily man-db regeneration
before going no further.
As I can't get beyond the bootloop, I don't know how to check this.

I did try sudo journalctl --root=/media/removable/'SD Card' from my arch install on crouton
to check things, but I confess there appear to be a number of errors and services failing to start. I don't really know what I'm looking for.

Any thoughts welcome!

Also, any thoughts on how to resolve my issue of updating to systemd 244.1-1 on the stock image also welcome.. Could I simply mark it to not upgrade systemd?

[Chris-W65]

Update: I've now solved my issue with updating the stock image with systemd 244.1-1.
I actually hadn't followed your instructions correctly it seems.
I've now updated again and have problems with the nameservice resolver. Good for the soul I guess :o)

Still no luck with the torrent image though.

[nikolas-n]

I'd suggest to refrain from updating, although this is very counterintuitive for Arch... I'm glad to hear you managed to get it working. I'll update README.md as soon as I manage to find time to test the image I have created. I'll update it now with a caution note, so that I don't torture any other people :-P

Thanks a lot for the feedback anyway!

[Chris-W65]

Thanks for that advice - sounds very practical.
Re the torrent image, I get that you're trying to make it simpler for people given the propensity of updating to break stuff.
However it does present some issues of it's own:

1. Letting ppl know whether you've changed the root pw, and perhaps pointing to some instructions for removing & replacing user nik.
2. It's a very large file (2.7Gb). I used JSTorrent to pull it down and it basically took 8 hours of coaxing from my chromebook! Installing a standard image and then adding to it (albeit with the breakage risks involved in updating) may be somewhat easier and potentially a lot less time consuming. If there is any way you can improve the compression on your image file it would be well worth it for any users.

Regardless of the above, I truly appreciate your effort for all C201 users - thank you!
With the C201 going end of support by Google in July it's great to see some 'help' here to avoid lots of very good hardware (even if cheap) going to the landfill.

cheers Chris W