[SOLVED] Dual UEFI Arch (ext4+btrfs) installation

kaslusimoes · 2014-09-04 20:49:56

Hey there,

I'm already using Arch on a UEFI motherboard installed on a EXT4 partition for quite a while whithout further problems but I'd like to install another Arch (I'm using Gummiboot) just to test BTRFS.
Since I'm not so sure of how to do it, and as I'm somewhat new to Arch, I thought it'd nice to ask here first.

1. Can I use the same EFI partition without both Archs conflicting or do I need to do some workaround?
2. Does Gummiboot support BTRFS naturally?
3. Is there any precautions I should take (besides a backup)?

Thanks

Last edited by kaslusimoes (2014-09-06 01:20:44)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-09-04 21:12:56

1. I think you would have to use different subdirectories as both installations will have a vmlinuz-linux & initramfs-linux.img; just set the paths in the gummiboot config files.
2. Gummiboot operates in the EFI system partition (FAT32), so the btrfs root partition will not effect it AFAIK.
3. Backup

teateawhy · 2014-09-05 18:51:42

Do you already have free space for the btrfs partition on your harddrive?

kaslusimoes · 2014-09-05 23:23:30

@teateawhy Yes.

Actually I already managed to get it working ^^
Just had to follow some things spread over the ArchWiki and set a differente name for initramfs-linux.img (and add another Gummiboot entry).

I could explain it if someone wanted

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-09-05 23:31:26

@kaslusimoes: I believe it is considered polite for the OP to share an independently-discovered solution with the community.
After all, life is a two-way street
Also, won't the initramfs-linux.img be re-renamed every time the kernel is updated?

kaslusimoes · 2014-09-06 01:19:20

@Head_on_a_Stick Oh, my bad.. Surely you are right!
I don't exactly remebered every step but I'll try to summarize it in here by parts:

P.S.: I actually booted from my USB stick and my ext4 many times, so I don't remeber accurately how exactly I did it so it is NOT ASSURED TO WORK out of the box!!

1. I had a ~40G partition, which I formatted using mkfs.btrfs, and my usual Arch partitions (ext4, UEFI and swap);
2. I booted with my USB stick and created a subvolume (before doing anything else) as said on this page . (Also did the swapon /dev/sdaX - no big deal);
3. As far as I remember, I mounted my UEFI partition (/dev/sda2 on my case) on /boot/oldboot because I was afraid of having any conflicts between my old mkinitcpio image and the new one that would come (I wasn't afraid of vmlinuz-linux because I thought the kernel would be the same anyway, so no big deal - although I had it separate as well on /boot/oldboot);
4.

 # pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel

pulled many things, one of them being the kernel;

P.S.: As I said before, I don't remember very well but I think Pacman complained something about not creating another initramfs image since there was already one there (I know, this conflicts with what I've said on (3) but I really can't remeber very well.. sorry guys)

5. Generated my /etc/fstab and checked it (also added compress=lzo,subvol=rootvol to the boot parameters);
6. As mkinitcpio always creates the .img file following the file /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset, I created a backup /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset.bkp and altered the line

default_image="/boot/linux-test.img"

(also removed argument 'fallback' from field PRESETS as I thought I wouldn't need it on this case);
7. Installed lzop,btrfs-progs packages since I will use them later;
8. Somewhere in between I changed my mounted UEFI partition to /boot because now I couldn't have the conflict anymore (remeber to check it on /etc/fstab);
9. Changed /etc/mkinitcpio.conf as follows (if your pc is not Intel's :

MODULES="crc32c-intel"
HOOKS="base udev btrfs autodetect modconf block filesystems keyboard fsck"
COMPRESSION="lzop"

and regenerated the image using mkinitcpio -p linux;
10. Created /boot/loader/entries/btrfs.conf:

title    Arch Linux BTRFS TEST
linux    /vmlinuz-linux
initrd   /linux-test.img
options  root=/dev/sda3 rootflags=subvol=rootvol rw

and checked if the pathnames were matching
11. Reboot and be happy ^^

P.S.: Notice that I didn't install gummiboot afraid of having more problems (actually I installed but soon after uninstalled). It was already installed on my other Arch partition and fully configured so installing it could only bring me more trouble

P.S.: Also notice that I haven't changed my /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset file on my default Arch (the previous one, ext4). Only on the newer installation

Arch Linux

#1 2014-09-04 20:49:56

[SOLVED] Dual UEFI Arch (ext4+btrfs) installation

#2 2014-09-04 21:12:56

Re: [SOLVED] Dual UEFI Arch (ext4+btrfs) installation

#3 2014-09-05 18:51:42

Re: [SOLVED] Dual UEFI Arch (ext4+btrfs) installation

#4 2014-09-05 23:23:30

Re: [SOLVED] Dual UEFI Arch (ext4+btrfs) installation

#5 2014-09-05 23:31:26

Re: [SOLVED] Dual UEFI Arch (ext4+btrfs) installation

#6 2014-09-06 01:19:20

Re: [SOLVED] Dual UEFI Arch (ext4+btrfs) installation

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