quick manual install method

thetrivialstuff · 2009-10-17 23:35:45

The other night I wanted to install Arch on my laptop, which already had Windows 7 on it. Since I haven't tried the usual installer since 2007, I didn't want to risk misreading something and clobbering the Windows 7 partitions. But, I also couldn't remember all the ins & outs of aif and how to tell it not to do any partitioning, and my favourite aif config file wasn't accessible just then... so I did this instead:

- booted the install CD
- made all the partitions I wanted
- mounted the new root into /mnt, created boot, var, and so on and mounted them in there as well
- pacman -Sy
- pacman -S pacman
- pacman -r /mnt -S pacman
- pacman -r /mnt -S base
(waited for pacman to finish)

Now, some things didn't work right during the mkinitcpio run, so I did this:

mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount -o bind /proc /mnt/proc
mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys

And edited /mnt/etc/mkinitcpio.conf (nothing special, just removed some hooks I didn't need). Then

pacman -r /mnt -S kernel26

Which worked. Finally:

# grub
grub> root (hd0,2)
grub> setup (hd0,2)

(usually I would setup (hd0) but I wanted to leave Windows 7's bootloader alone for now.)

...edited fstab and rc.conf, unmounted everything, rebooted. Worked fine; system booted first try.

Does this go in a wiki or is it "not recommended"?

kjon · 2009-10-17 23:39:46

mkfs.(your fs) /your/device
mount /your/device /somewhere
mkdir /somewhere/{var/lib/pacman} -pv
pacman --cachedir /somewhere/var/cache/pacman/pkg -r /somewhere -Sy
pacman --cachedir /somewhere/var/cache/pacman/pkg -r /somewhere -S filesystem
mount /dev /somewhere/dev -o bind
mount /proc /somewhere/proc -o bind
mount /sys /somewhere/sys -o bind
pacman --cachedir /somewhere/var/cache/pacman/pkg -r /somewhere -S base

then you can chroot and make whatever you want. That's my preffered way of installing arch on my machines.

vacant · 2009-10-18 08:07:03

Sounds like you've done a few installs so I think you'll find the installer quite safe and understandable, though I admit when I backed up, wiped and totally reconfigured my laptop I use gparted from a Kubuntu CD to shrink Vista first.

thetrivialstuff wrote:

(usually I would setup (hd0) but I wanted to leave Windows 7's bootloader alone for now.)

Does Windows 7 boot loader rely on hd0? When I've made room for Linux on various Windows systems in the past, I've found the Window partition (hd0,0) is marked as bootable and that's where the Windows boot loader is. Installing Grub or Lilo on the hd0 is fine because it just "chainloads" the boot loader on the first partition when I select Windows.

thetrivialstuff · 2009-10-18 08:31:14

vacant wrote:

Does Windows 7 boot loader rely on hd0? When I've made room for Linux on various Windows systems in the past, I've found the Window partition (hd0,0) is marked as bootable and that's where the Windows boot loader is. Installing Grub or Lilo on the hd0 is fine because it just "chainloads" the boot loader on the first partition when I select Windows.

I'm not sure if Win7 relies on hd0, but it does reset its own partition to be the active one as soon as you boot it (I set it up with chainload in my grub menu). I have a feeling it might go into some kind of self-repair mode if I were to do something to hd0; I'll try it sometime though and post the results here.

vacant · 2009-10-18 08:55:26

thetrivialstuff wrote:

it does reset its own partition to be the active one as soon as you boot it (I set it up with chainload in my grub menu). I have a feeling it might go into some kind of self-repair mode if I were to do something to hd0

As I understand it, an unmodified MBR just chainloads the partition marked as active. If W7 resets the active partition to itself (e.g. (hd0,0)) then if you install grub to (hd0,1) you'll never see a grub boot menu again after booting W7.

thetrivialstuff · 2009-10-18 19:33:35

vacant wrote:

thetrivialstuff wrote:
it does reset its own partition to be the active one as soon as you boot it (I set it up with chainload in my grub menu). I have a feeling it might go into some kind of self-repair mode if I were to do something to hd0
As I understand it, an unmodified MBR just chainloads the partition marked as active. If W7 resets the active partition to itself (e.g. (hd0,0)) then if you install grub to (hd0,1) you'll never see a grub boot menu again after booting W7.

Yeah, that's basically what happened; I used the boot CD to reset things after that. I haven't bothered going back into Windows since, just 'cause I'm having too much fun in Arch

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-17 23:35:45

quick manual install method

#2 2009-10-17 23:39:46

Re: quick manual install method

#3 2009-10-18 08:07:03

Re: quick manual install method

#4 2009-10-18 08:31:14

Re: quick manual install method

#5 2009-10-18 08:55:26

Re: quick manual install method

#6 2009-10-18 19:33:35

Re: quick manual install method

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