Arch on a non-supported board: use root-fs from release?

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Arch on a non-supported board: use root-fs from release?

Postby Binabik » Fri Apr 21, 2017 10:06 am

Hi, I would like to install archlinux on a cyclone V development board (containing an ARMv7 MPCore). I guess it's possible because in https://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=10553&p=52547&hilit=altera#p52547, rqssouza has already stated that he runs archlinux successfully on a De0-nano-soc kit which also contains a cyclone V chip.

I am wondering how I could achieve this. I have seen that the installation instructions for different supported boards mainly consist of:
  • Formatting the SD card appropriately (boot partition, root-fs partition)
  • Downloading a release tarball
  • Extracting the appropriate parts of the release into the root-fs and the boot partition repectively

I think that the main differences between different boards reside in the preloader and bootloader. Therefore, I had the idea to just download any of the ARMv7 releases and use the root filesystem while generating the boot partition contents (preloader, bootloader, kernel) myself. Would that work? After searching, I found that http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ contains ArchLinuxARM-armv7-latest.tar.gz which sounds like being a generic release, not dedicated to a specific board. So, could I download ArchLinuxARM-armv7-latest.tar.gz, extract it into my root-fs partition and create the boot partition myself?

If it is that (relatively) simple, I would love to see that procedure documented somewhere because this would enable other users to bring archlinux arm to more and more boards, assuming that they are able to generate the required boot partition.

If there are any mistakes in my statements, please correct me. Thanks in advance for any help.
Binabik
 
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