Quite some time ago, I have written a blog entry about
how to install
Arch Linux on the Zipit Z2, but I did not provide an image back then.
Now I have prepared a ready-to-use image of
Arch Linux ARM for the Z2.
It is based on official up-to-date packages. Only for the kernel I had to build one compatible with the Z2.
It is based on official up-to-date packages. Only for the kernel I had to build one compatible with the Z2.
I have chosen the 3.6.0-rc3 vanilla kernel (config).
I have pre-configured zram for use as swap. zram allows portions of a computer's RAM to be used as a block device. This alone would not be of much use, but zram compresses the data of the block device in RAM, so when using a zram block device as a swap device the total amount of available memory increases. This is essential on the Z2 as the device's 32 MB of RAM alone are not enough for pacman and some other programs. With zram swap pacman runs fine most of the time. One could also use the SD card for swapping, but I do not recommend that as swapping to SD card is very slow and also reduces the card's lifespan considerably.
I have also included my own little repository in pacman's config file, so in case I update the kernel or prepare some other packages for the Z2 not found in the main repositories, you can still easily install/update those through pacman.
You need a Zipit with the U-Boot bootloader installed to use this image. Installation of the image is pretty simple. All you need is some kind of Linux computer to prepare an SD card with the ext2 file system, then extract the archive onto that SD card. A SD card with 1 or 2 GB is fine. Larger cards are okay too, if U-Boot recognizes them correctly.
The system comes with only one user: root. The password for root is 'root'. You should probably change that. Also, you should create a non-priviledged user with useradd.
To connect to a wireless network, you can use wifi-menu and netcfg-menu.
To select a wireless network from the available networks run:
Size: 105 MB, md5sum: 3448e0ee37e38a6e3bbef7685fe87f2e
If you want to try this image, but are not familiar with Arch Linux, I recommend having a look at the official ArchWiki.
I have pre-configured zram for use as swap. zram allows portions of a computer's RAM to be used as a block device. This alone would not be of much use, but zram compresses the data of the block device in RAM, so when using a zram block device as a swap device the total amount of available memory increases. This is essential on the Z2 as the device's 32 MB of RAM alone are not enough for pacman and some other programs. With zram swap pacman runs fine most of the time. One could also use the SD card for swapping, but I do not recommend that as swapping to SD card is very slow and also reduces the card's lifespan considerably.
I have also included my own little repository in pacman's config file, so in case I update the kernel or prepare some other packages for the Z2 not found in the main repositories, you can still easily install/update those through pacman.
You need a Zipit with the U-Boot bootloader installed to use this image. Installation of the image is pretty simple. All you need is some kind of Linux computer to prepare an SD card with the ext2 file system, then extract the archive onto that SD card. A SD card with 1 or 2 GB is fine. Larger cards are okay too, if U-Boot recognizes them correctly.
The system comes with only one user: root. The password for root is 'root'. You should probably change that. Also, you should create a non-priviledged user with useradd.
To connect to a wireless network, you can use wifi-menu and netcfg-menu.
To select a wireless network from the available networks run:
# ifconfig wlan0 up # wifi-menuTo later connect to a previously configured one run:
# netcfg-menuarchlinuxarm-zipit-z2-wej-20120912.tar.xz
Size: 105 MB, md5sum: 3448e0ee37e38a6e3bbef7685fe87f2e
If you want to try this image, but are not familiar with Arch Linux, I recommend having a look at the official ArchWiki.
