This is a basic tutorial running through the steps for partitioning, updating, and installing xfce4 on the Raspberry Pi. Note: This is assuming you already have made the SD card and have booted up, and are logged in as root.

1) Resize Partition

The reason why you need to resize the partition is that you want to match it to the size of the SD card.

  • fdisk /dev/mmcblk0
  • p [enter]
  • Note the first number on the second line
  • d [enter]
  • 2 [enter]
  • n [enter]
  • p [enter]
  • 2 [enter]
  • Enter the number that you noted [enter]
  • Select largest number of last sector aka [enter]
  • w [enter]
  • q [enter]
  • reboot
  • resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p2

2) Update the system

pacman -Sy pacman
pacman-key --init
pacman -S archlinux-keyring
pacman-key --populate archlinux
pacman -Syu --ignore filesystem
pacman -S filesystem --force

3) Install X Server (xorg)

pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-server-utils

4) Install Video Divers for Pi

pacman -S mesa xf86-video-fbdev xf86-video-vesa

5) Install xfce4

pacman -S xfce4

6) Start x-session with xfce

startxfce4

Optional:

I think the fonts are terrible with the stock install so, I also installed a set of TrueType fonts:

pacman -S ttf-dejavu