Arch Linux

PhanTomFoolery

Member

Registered: 2025-02-12

Posts: 2

[SOLVED] Issues Getting Arch to boot

Hey all, I have a very specific issue trying to get Arch to boot. I followed the installation guide (installing from a live medium via USB stick) with no (major, see below) errors, and did all the required steps. When I try to boot, I first got an error saying "root mounted successfully, but sbin/init does not exist".

Following the advice of other posts, I
- installed (and reinstalled) systemd-sysvcompat, both with pacstrap (outside chroot) and with pacman -s (inside chroot)
- edited my boot options as follows (I'm trying to use systemd-boot):
  - I added in the "options" line of my arch.conf file all of the following:
    - init=/bin/systemd
    - init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd
  - when I tried to boot with each of these, the error message changed saying that that location doesnt exist (instead of sbin/init).
- added usr to my mkinitcpio.conf hooks
- added systemd-sysvcompat to my mkinitcpio.conf modules (and then removed it bc I think this is silly)

my arch.conf now looks like:

title   Arch Linux
linux  /vmlinuz-linux
initrd  /initramfs-linux.img
options init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd root=LABEL=BOOT rw

I also ran "ls -l usr/bin/systemd/systemd" which returned "-rwxr-xr-x", which I believe is what its supposed to look like.

Finally, I also ran "ls -l sbin/init" which does show a correct symlink to ".../lib/systemd/systemd"

With all this in mind, it seems like my symlinks/locations are in order when I'm chroot'ing around with the live media, but when I try to boot that location can't be found. Any idea what could be causing this? This is a fresh install of Arch.

The only notable error from the installation process before this is when I ran "bootctl install", the resulting output didn't contain the line "... making Linux Boot Manager...". To get around this, I used efibootmgr to make my own boot manager by specifying the partition to boot from, which did generate a boot manager.

Any ideas?

Last edited by PhanTomFoolery (2025-02-13 13:44:31)

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 2,130

Re: [SOLVED] Issues Getting Arch to boot

you did something very wrong during the install - did you really followed the https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide ? I never encountered such issue no matter the bootloader
what packages have you installed using pacstrap? for a bootable system you require at least
base
linux(-lts/-zen)
linux-firmware
efibootmgr (for proper installation of bootloaders in efi mode)
also - when in doubt with systemd-boot: how about good old grub?
also also: your root= looks wrong - unless you really set the label of your root partition to BOOT (which is a confusing choice but should work unless you named any other partition also BOOT)

Wild Penguin

Member

Registered: 2015-03-19

Posts: 390

Re: [SOLVED] Issues Getting Arch to boot

You need to do better than that to get help; i.e. you need to tell exactly what you have done and give relevant information about your system.

Now it seems you have done "fixes" which are not needed and are referencing to "instructions" which is not the official installation guide. As such, is it impossible to give help as no one has a crystal ball which would tell what is actually going on in your computer.

Minor errors could be important. Also paste them here (if short) or into some pastebin service.

You could start by:
- Pasting your partition scheme here
- Paste all your block device infomation here (lsblk && blkid)

Moreover, you do not need to adjust symlinks or not need to give an init= parameter in arch.conf, or actually you do not need any arch.conf for a basic setup when using systemd-boot (IIRC), nor do you need to instal systemd-sysvcompat, as it's a dependency of the `base` package.

You could also post output of `bootctl status´ here.

Last edited by Wild Penguin (2025-02-13 12:44:08)

PhanTomFoolery

Member

Registered: 2025-02-12

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Issues Getting Arch to boot

Actually, one of the things that @cryptearth pointed out ended up being right- my arch.conf set the root to be BOOT, my ESP partition. I learned this is incorrect, it actually needs to be ROOT (my ext4 partition), which I believe had backwards in my understanding while setting it up. Otherwise everything works fine now!