Boot problems while/after installing

Sabu · 2019-09-21 01:27:31

Hi there,

At first, I'm not new to Linux in general but to Arch. So this is my second Arch installation which fails (the first one was a Manjaro installation which took more than 2 days of work).

I want to install Arch on my home desktop PC as a replacemnt for an older Ubuntu-like installation which is since few month outdated. There should only run arch, nothing more, no Win-Dos, Ubuntu, ... and no VM and no RAID.

The used hardware:
Mainboard: AsRock, type not known now, something with Extreme .... with 16 GB RAM on it
CPU: AMD FX-8320 (8 core)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GT 730
Hard disk 1: SSD with 110 GB for the system except home
Hard disk 2: mechanical HD, 1 TB for /home-directories, mounted on /home

Partitions (output of fdisk -l /dev/sda):
Disk model: SanDisk SDSSDH11
[...]
Disklabel type: gpt
[...]
/dev/sda1: 260 MB, EFI System [mounted on /efi, fs-type vfat32]
/dev/sda2: 95.5 GB, Linux root (x86-64) [mounted on /, fs-type ext4]
/dev/sda3: 16 GB, Linux swap [SWAP]

None of the disks are encrypted.

What I've done so far:
I downloaded the iso-image and installed it on an USB-stick. I can boot from iẗ in UEFI mode but I have to add the kernel parameter 'nomodeset' otherwise the screen will be black and nothing will happen (the keyboard is also dead when checking the numlock LED). When Arch is booted I've the directories /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/... so I´ve succesful booted in UEFI mode.
After that I followed the installation procedure described in Installation Guide. Everything went fine until I reached the end thus rebooting failed.

I found out that after the installation procedure nothing was done with the EFI partition, no directory was created and no files on it, so I suppose rebooting must fail. Then I've tried to get the SSD bootable and that is what is now happend but I'm confused after more or less several hours of work like installing GRUB, microcode, making an Initramfs, ....

The current state is now that I can boot from the SSD in UEFI mode but grub-mkconfig created 3 menu entries where the first one and the first one of the GRUB-submenu (2nd page) are exactly the same. The third entry (fallback) was the only one which is a bootable one. If I want to boot one of the other two (equal) entries I get only two rules of the bootmessages and that's it. (The first rule something like "loading vmlinuz ....." and the second rule something like "loading initramdisk ...."). I found out that grub-mkconfig added 'amd-ucode.img' to the menuentries rule 'initrd', thus there's written

initrd  /boot/amd-ucode.img  /boot/initramfs-linux.img

When I remove 'amd-ucode.img' the I can boot.

Now I'm confused about all the boot-things. My questions:

What's about the /efi mount point? If I'm right, that is the (new?) mountpoint for the EFI-partition (/dev/sda1). On my laptop (Manjaro) the EFI-partition is mounted on /boot/efi. Does it matter if the EFI-partition is mounted on /efi or /boot/efi or something else?
What should be copied/installed on the EFI-partition? Have I to to this manually or does it one of these install scripts like grub-install?
Where is the file 'amd-ucode.img' located or what is the place where it should be? Currently the amd-ucode.img is used because when I execute "dmesg | grep microcode" I get several entries, the last one is [3.192930] microcode: Reload completed, microcode revision: 0x6000852, so amd-ucode.img is already loaded and this was seemly not done by GRUB I suppose, because in grub.cfg I've removed this entry from the initrd line to get the SSD bootable.
Why fails the boot procedure if amd-ucode.img is a parameter of initrd in grub.cfg? Is this not the right place to load it?
Whats about the both /boot/initramfs-linux*.img files? Are these necessary in my situation thus no other OS, no VM, and no RAID?
Is it a good idea to use GRUB as bootloader or shall I use another one which can handle UEFI? Or in general, do I need a bootloader?
How can i detect if the PC is running in a normal-state and not in a fallback state? There are two initramfs-files, one initramfs-linux.img (9 MB) and a second one called initramfs-linux-fallback.img (30 MB).

Next upcoming issue, I've seen right now, that the wired network connection is not working. When I boot from USB it is....
[Why it is such a big issue to install Arch?]

It would be highly appreciated if someone knows the answers to my question. Perhaps I've done several things not right in the last two evenings. Currently nothing important is installed so if I've to create a new partition or similar would not be such an big issue.

jasonwryan · 2019-09-21 01:55:56

Please read https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … ow_to_post and note the injuction against onimbus threads. Pick one issue, and stick to that.

Why it is such a big issue to install Arch?

It's not. It just requires either an understanding of the system, or a willingness to read all of the excellent documentation.

Moving to NC...

ArchNoob24 · 2019-09-21 06:39:28

link redacted

Followed this guide when I first installed arch before I was comfortable to use the wiki for a full install by myself, worked great a while back!

As for the network, is it wireless or ethernet? You will need to re configure it outside of the live copy

Mod edit: Removed link to unsupported installation tutorial. Please do not suggest people use such guides, even as a temporary measure; they are not Arch, and they are not supported here. -- WorMzy

Last edited by WorMzy (2019-09-21 09:09:11)

Alber · 2019-09-21 08:41:15

I'll try to give some clues. Or what comes to my head in a shallow read.

1, 2, 3) Yours ESP (EFI System Partition) looks mounted at /efi/. Partition sda1 goes to /efi/ in root filesystem.

/dev/sda1: 260 MB, EFI System [mounted on /efi, fs-type vfat32]

I understand it, but I may be wrong.
Surely use /boot/ as mount point is more standard. And Maybe if ESP is not mounted on /boot you'll need to use -path parameter when install grub (I don't use grub so I don't know it exist or which one is its default path). It could be the reason why you haven't files at this partition.

Edit:
The idea behind is that when you do something like "grub install" it put the files in the EFI partition. Or where it thinks the EFI partition is.

Last edited by Alber (2019-09-21 09:01:23)

Arch Linux

#1 2019-09-21 01:27:31

Boot problems while/after installing

#2 2019-09-21 01:55:56

Re: Boot problems while/after installing

#3 2019-09-21 06:39:28

Re: Boot problems while/after installing

#4 2019-09-21 08:41:15

Re: Boot problems while/after installing

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