Dualboot Arch and Ubuntu on UEFI system with gummyboot

Pk_JoA · 2014-12-13 14:38:05

Hey guys. Been using Arch for a time and everything works pretty much great, but I wanted to install Ubuntu to have better compatibility with some STEAM games. That's when troubles started. I really don't know how to set the system ups. It seems to me that when I try to install Ubuntu it messes up with my UEFI system, no matter what I try to do.

My attempts resulted in utter failure which I was (after a full day) able to resolve and now I can log into Arch again. How do I go about this successfully?

Some info on my system:

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 931,5G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   525M  0 part /boot
├─sda2   8:2    0    81G  0 part /
└─sda3   8:3    0   850G  0 part /home
sdb      8:16   0 931,5G  0 disk 
├─sdb1   8:17   0 776,9G  0 part /media/backup
├─sdb2   8:18   0  18,6G  0 part 
└─sdb3   8:19   0   136G  0 part

sda1 is my UEFI /boot partition. gummyboot manages that well enough for arch.
sda2 is root for arch
sda3 is /home/ for arch.
sdb1 is my backup.
sdb2 is nothing, but I want it to be my root for ubuntu
sdb3 is nothing, but i want it to be my home for Ubuntu.

Anyone has any info on how to accomplish this? Docs on installing Ubuntu on UEFI mode are strangely scarce, let's not even mention Ubuntu + gummiboot config.

Xabre · 2014-12-13 15:10:32

Ubuntu's kernel naming is simply too complicated for gummiboot, because for efistub/gummiboot you need kernel image to be on efi partition, and every time you have a kernel upgrade in Ubuntu, you'd have to manually adjust loder entry (Ubuntu's kernel image names are not static). Grub is much less time consuming in this case, just let Ubuntu's grub handle it all.

TheSaint · 2014-12-13 15:19:42

If you sdb is removable, it's better to have its own ESP.
For gummiboot it's just a matter to add a new file in /boot/loader/entries. It may point to the Ubuntu grub.
Many boot loader can coexist in the ESP. Ubuntu will be able to find the ESP and put its grub in there.
Do not attempt automatic installation, it may not do as you expect.

Last edited by TheSaint (2014-12-13 15:22:34)

Pk_JoA · 2014-12-13 15:19:55

Ubuntu's kernel naming is simply too complicated for gummiboot, because for efistub/gummiboot you need kernel image to be on efi partition, and every time you have a kernel upgrade in Ubuntu, you'd have to manually adjust loder entry (Ubuntu's kernel image names are not static). Grub is much less time consuming in this case, just let Ubuntu's grub handle it all.

Hey Xabre, thanks for the input, I imagined something like that after problems arouse.

When you say "just let ubuntu handle it", what do you mean by that? I know Ubuntu installs GRUB by default, but I don't know how to set it up successfully.

In Ubuntu install program, I'd go to "let me do something different" (goes something along those lines) and I'd select:

/dev/sdb2 / xt4
/dev/sdb3 /home/ xt4

but ubuntu also lets me select where the boot loader should install, as you can see in this image: http://blog.sudobits.com/wp-content/upl … ubuntu.png

should that be /dev/sda1?

when I did that, everything went... just wrong. but I will try again, if that should work.

thanks!

If you sdb is removable, it's better to have its own ESP.
For gummiboot it's just a matter to add a new file in /boot/loader/entries. It may point to the Ubuntu grub.
Many boot loader can coexist in the ESP. Ubuntu will be able to find the ESP and put its grub in there.
Do not attempt automatic installation, it may not do as you expect.

Hey TheSaint. My sdb is not removable .

That was my line of though! Just add the entry to gummyboot, right? do you know how this is done?

Arch's is so:

joaquin@GladOS:~$ cat /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf 
title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
options root=/dev/sda2 rw

but I have no idea how Ubuntu's settings should go.

What do you mean when you say "point it to ubuntu's grub"? And "automatic installation"? Sorry for the questions!
Thanks!

Last edited by Pk_JoA (2014-12-13 15:25:31)

TheSaint · 2014-12-13 15:23:28

You may share your /home for both distro.

TheSaint · 2014-12-13 15:31:30

Ubuntu should put its grub into ESP
Then gummiboot can pick it up. See here (spanish available too) to tell gummiboot like this

title Ubuntu grub
efi /EFI/arch_grub/grubx64.efi

That's all.
Verify where the grubx64.efi will reside. Excluding the path out of ESP. See other entries as guideline.

Last edited by TheSaint (2014-12-21 01:39:12)

Xabre · 2014-12-13 16:20:52

Ubuntu's installer will complain if esp is not mounted into /boot/efi.
As for how Ubuntu manages it, it's pretty simple: it sets up entries for itself, then runs os-prober which picks up Arch entries with no issues whatsoever.
Another thing you can do is to use Arch's grub, and tell Ubuntu's installer not to install bootloader. It will require regenerating grub.cfg every time you have a kernel update in Ubuntu, but it's a matter of running one simple command (assuming you have os-prober on Arch too).

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-12-13 17:31:51

I haven't tried this with Ubuntu, but I am currently dual-booting Arch with Debian sid using gummiboot as a boot manager.

I share the EFI system partition with both distro's and made sure that Debian did not install a bootloader on the system.

IIRC, I set up the ESP as /boot in Debian post-install by modifying the fstab and copying over all the files to the new partition.

Then I created /boot/loader/entries/debian.conf:

title          Debian Unstable
linux          /vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-amd64
initrd         /initrd.img-3.16.0-4-amd64
options        root=UUID=191c641f-66ed-47fc-9adb-df2b189ed367 ro quiet

As you can see, Debian names it's kernel images according to the kernel version used (Arch does not do this, I think Ubuntu does) -- this means I have to edit the debian.conf file every time the kernel is updated.

I've tried this with Fedora as well, and it worked fine.

TheSaint · 2014-12-14 09:19:14

I think that allowing ubuntu to put its boot loader is less messy and any update won't break anything.
Some case ubuntu may put wrong kernel line for Arch. It will set ro mode.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-12-14 11:36:06

TheSaint wrote:

I think that allowing ubuntu to put its boot loader is less messy and any update won't break anything.

You may have a point there -- almost all distro's perform a GRUB update when updating their kernel images -- this does require some fixing with my method...

Arch Linux

#1 2014-12-13 14:38:05

Dualboot Arch and Ubuntu on UEFI system with gummyboot

#2 2014-12-13 15:10:32

Re: Dualboot Arch and Ubuntu on UEFI system with gummyboot

#3 2014-12-13 15:19:42

Re: Dualboot Arch and Ubuntu on UEFI system with gummyboot

#4 2014-12-13 15:19:55

Re: Dualboot Arch and Ubuntu on UEFI system with gummyboot

#5 2014-12-13 15:23:28

Re: Dualboot Arch and Ubuntu on UEFI system with gummyboot

#6 2014-12-13 15:31:30

Re: Dualboot Arch and Ubuntu on UEFI system with gummyboot

#7 2014-12-13 16:20:52

Re: Dualboot Arch and Ubuntu on UEFI system with gummyboot

#8 2014-12-13 17:31:51

Re: Dualboot Arch and Ubuntu on UEFI system with gummyboot

#9 2014-12-14 09:19:14

Re: Dualboot Arch and Ubuntu on UEFI system with gummyboot

#10 2014-12-14 11:36:06

Re: Dualboot Arch and Ubuntu on UEFI system with gummyboot

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