[SOLVED] Trouble Booting Arch - First install attempt

acoustic · 2026-01-14 15:09:20

Hello, I am having trouble booting after installing from installation media. When I select GRUB from my BIOS boot options, I get the GRUB menu and select Arch. I only see two lines printed to the screen
Loading Linux linux
Loading initial ram disk

and it appears to hang forever with a solid cursor.

If I press "e" on the GRUB menu and and remove "quiet" from the linux line, I get some more messages and the last line I see is
"[ OK ] Finished File System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/2c76a010-3b8b-4c68-9503-caa69e180e17"
and nothing happens.

This is the output of lsblk

sdb 8:16 0 232.9G 0 disk
├─sdb1 8:17 0 1G 0 part
├─sdb2 8:18 0 8G 0 part
├─sdb3 8:19 0 25G 0 part /mnt
└─sdb4 8:20 0 198.9G 0 part /mnt/home

My intended partition scheme is sdb1 is the EFI partition ("esp" in the installation guide), sdb2 is swap, sdb3 is root, and sdb4 is home.

This is the output of lsblk -f
sdb
├─sdb1 vfat FAT32 1923-8AAA
├─sdb2 swap 1 a8b7f336-084b-4377-aec7-bbd2485a89a3
├─sdb3 ext4 1.0 2c76a010-3b8b-4c68-9503-caa69e180e17 20.5G 11% /mnt
└─sdb4 ext4 1.0 baba8256-0926-4452-9089-17d45669bb3e 184.7G 0% /mnt/home

This is my fstab
# /dev/sdb3
UUID=2c76a010-3b8b-4c68-9503-caa69e180e17 / ext4 rw,relatime 0 1

# /dev/sdb1
UUID=1923-8AAA /boot vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 2

# /dev/sdb4
UUID=baba8256-0926-4452-9089-17d45669bb3e /home ext4 rw,relatime 0 2

Here is a pastebin of the output of journalctl for the last boot
https://pastebin.com/BjXxymEk

Please let me know what troubleshooting steps I can take next or if something is obviously wrong here. Thanks!

Last edited by acoustic (2026-01-15 12:34:40)

cryptearth · 2026-01-14 15:24:48

the linked journal doesn't help as it's from archiso install environment - not from the installed system

twelveeighty · 2026-01-14 15:32:20

The logs you posted are from when you booted off the Arch ISO, not a failed boot from your installed system. We'll need to see those logs to be able to help.

For troubleshooting purposes, try setting up a simpler boot loader such as systemd-boot, and don't use things like 'quiet' on the boot line or Plymouth, to ensure you see everything that's happening. You can always switch and add those later once you've got the problems identified and fixed.

To confirm, you are using the official Installation Guide, correct?

Scimmia · 2026-01-14 15:33:47

And if it's not mounting the root filesystem, those logs would disappear completely on reboot.

What else do you see? Anything with [FAIL] for sure would be needed, but really, we would want to see everything. This is one of the few times where a picture of text is acceptable.

It shouldn't be critical, but if you're intending to have the ESP at /boot, why are you not mounting it there while troubleshooting?

system72 · 2026-01-14 15:51:55

this sounds more like your display manager failing to start and killing tty1, most likely a gpu problem e.g. drivers

acoustic · 2026-01-14 17:58:54

cryptearth wrote:

the linked journal doesn't help as it's from archiso install environment - not from the installed system

Oops. I have updated the pastebin with the latest journal, thanks

acoustic · 2026-01-14 18:01:59

Scimmia wrote:

And if it's not mounting the root filesystem, those logs would disappear completely on reboot.
What else do you see? Anything with [FAIL] for sure would be needed, but really, we would want to see everything. This is one of the few times where a picture of text is acceptable.
It shouldn't be critical, but if you're intending to have the ESP at /boot, why are you not mounting it there while troubleshooting?

I just didn't bother mounting the boot partition the time I ran that lsblk from the installation media because I wasn't changing anything on it. Here is a picture of the boot attempt after removing "quiet" in GRUB menu
https://imgur.com/a/X6uDqhx

acoustic · 2026-01-14 18:20:24

system72 wrote:

this sounds more like your display manager failing to start and killing tty1, most likely a gpu problem e.g. drivers

You were right. I unplugged the power to my GPU and moved my display cables over to the motherboard ports. The screen continued showing a successful boot right away. Now I just have to figure out how to install NVIDIA drivers I suppose

Last edited by acoustic (2026-01-14 18:21:03)

system72 · 2026-01-14 18:22:46

acoustic wrote:

Oops. I have updated the pastebin with the latest journal, thanks

have you tried installing one of the drivers here:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA#Installation

compare with your gpu

Arch Linux

#1 2026-01-14 15:09:20

[SOLVED] Trouble Booting Arch - First install attempt

#2 2026-01-14 15:24:48

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Booting Arch - First install attempt

#3 2026-01-14 15:32:20

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Booting Arch - First install attempt

#4 2026-01-14 15:33:47

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Booting Arch - First install attempt

#5 2026-01-14 15:51:55

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Booting Arch - First install attempt

#6 2026-01-14 17:58:54

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Booting Arch - First install attempt

#7 2026-01-14 18:01:59

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Booting Arch - First install attempt

#8 2026-01-14 18:20:24

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Booting Arch - First install attempt

#9 2026-01-14 18:22:46

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble Booting Arch - First install attempt

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