Managed to get a few things to run standalone on 64bit Arch (Jan 15 2016 -- arch uses a rolling update so version numbers are always in flux). First some obvious (yet not obvious) things:
*) the LeapSDK does not contain everything you need - you must download the Linux .deb install package, break it open with
$ ar xv Leap-....-x64.deb
$ xv -d data.tar.xz
and tar xf data.tar someplace safe (like /opt/leap)
*) plug in your device and make sure it is present
# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 007: ID f182:0003 Leap Motion Controller
...
*) you must then run the leapd program as root:
# cd /opt/leap/usr/sbin
# ./leapd --run
Configuration file not found
Resetting /var//.Leap Motion/config.json.
[Info] WebSocket server started
[Info] Secure WebSocket server started
[Info] Leap Motion Controller detected: SxxxAxxxxxx
[Info] Firmware is up to date.
at which point three red lights will appear inside the device. I ran leapd as a foreground process - there are other threads in this forum which describe installing leapd as a systemd service. I did not install special libraries (I'm only using Arch supplied packages - which may have caused some of the problems below).
*) As a non-root user in a different terminal run the /opt/leap/usr/bin/Visualizer program
$ cd /opt/leap/usr/bin
$ ./Visualizer
It worked very well for me as did Playground, however LeapControlPanel interfered with xorg/openbox significantly and Recalibrate would only sit at the startup screen asking me to plug in the device (it was).
At this point Sample.cpp sometimes ran (and sometimes caused leapd to crash).