[SOLVED] My first brawl

drobole · 2012-07-25 00:49:17

Ok, so I got into some bad backwater trying to install the latest netinstall.

Basically everything went fine until I got to grub2. The official installation article sent me on my way to this page ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB2 ) which I consider to be a minefield at best. At least for someone inexperienced with Arch.
As it turns out I forgot to execute the grub-install command (and friends) the first time around, so I rebooted the install media and mounted root/boot and chrooted.
At this point I realized that I also forgot to mount the boot partition the first time around so I ran genfstab with the -L option again before I executed grub-install etc.
Another reboot and now I get straight into the grub shell (I did not forget to run grub-mkconfig). So I load up the install media again and decides to brew my own grub.cfg to see if that helps, but when I start to look around I see that the kernel and the initramfs image is gone.
I saw them earlier when I ran grub-mkconfig so as far as I can tell they must have been deleted somewhere in the process.

Another thing I noticed was that fstab had two entries for the root partition, something that seems reasonable since I ran genfstab twice, however, the boot partition was only listed once.
Also, there was no entry for my swap. Not a big surprise maybe but I would say that the installation article needs to at least link to this page ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Swap ) somewhere.

The last issue I noticed was that geninitramfs (or whatever it is called) kept telling me that my default locale could not be set. I edited rc.conf, locale.conf and what not but to no avail. Maybe this is because I was in a chrooted environment. I don't know.

Finally I admit that I was too tired when I started this and I probably made some unnecessary mistakes, and I am definitely too tired to continue right now. Maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow.

Last edited by drobole (2012-07-25 14:33:10)

2ManyDogs · 2012-07-25 00:59:25

I'm not sure what "official installation article" you're using, but you should use the Beginners' Guide.

When you start over tomorrow, just start at the beginning and do it all over again. You've got your install so messed up now it will be very difficult to recover.

Read the guide. Be careful and follow all the steps. It's all in there, even setting up your swap partition and configuring the bootloader.

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2012-07-25 01:04:04)

drobole · 2012-07-25 10:51:06

Thanks! That went much better.
I should have known better than to end up with an old and deprecated installation guide

I did have a couple of issues along the way though:

1. Swap filesystem not listed in fstab
The entry for swap was added but the first item (file system) was missing.

2. The wiki section about hardware clock time was quite slim so I added a few lines to that.

3. The wiki section about bootloaders didn't emphasize that only one of syslinux and grub2 should be installed so I made a small adjustment on that.
This might be obvious to most of us but still...

DSpider · 2012-07-25 11:20:40

It's recommended that you add a small description when you edit a wiki article so that it shows up on the "Recent Changes" page and in the article's history page... Not here. But don't worry, I think nobody understood what that description line was for (at least not right away).

The wiki is in a state of transition right now so you need to take that into account.

Don't forget to mark this topic as solved (by editing the first post).

2ManyDogs · 2012-07-25 12:47:22

drobole wrote:

Thanks! That went much better.
I should have known better than to end up with an old and deprecated installation guide

You're welcome; and thanks for your input on the wiki.

(more like "round one" than a brawl...)

As dspider said, don't forget to mark the topic [solved].

drcouzelis · 2012-07-25 13:14:38

Actually, this raises the question: How can a new user know whether to useth Beginner's Guide or the Installation Guide?

Back when I installed Arch Linux, I was confused about which I should use. I mean, the Beginner's Guide isn't even "official", and Installation Guide makes sense since I want to install Arch Linux. On the home page the Installation Guide is listed before the Beginner's Guide. The main page on the wiki gives a good description of the two, but almost everything else implies that a person should use the Installation Guide, but of course it's the Beginner's Guide that most people should use. Can this be clarified?

Has this been discussed recently? I hope I'm not beating any dead horses.

Trilby · 2012-07-25 13:21:23

Has it been updated since you last checked drcouzelis?

wiki main page wrote:

Beginners' Guide
A guide through the whole process of installing and configuring Arch Linux; written for new or inexperienced users.
Installation Guide
A concise installation guide; aimed at experienced Arch users.

2ManyDogs · 2012-07-25 13:31:14

Trilby wrote:

Has it been updated since you last checked drcouzelis?

It has been since I last checked -- the descriptions are very useful now.

I'd also like to see the Official Guide page link to the Beginners' Guide (something like "this is a brief guide for experienced users; if you need more help see the Beginners' Guide") but the official guide page can't be edited by normal users (probably a wise move).

I think this might help beginners who navigate to the Official Guide from the Home page (there is no description with the guide links on the Home page). I think that's what drcouzelis was referring to.

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2012-07-25 14:05:51)

drcouzelis · 2012-07-25 14:27:57

drcouzelis wrote:

The main page on the wiki gives a good description of the two, but almost everything else implies that a person should use the Installation Guide...

Trilby wrote:

Has it been updated since you last checked drcouzelis?
wiki main page wrote:
Beginners' Guide
A guide through the whole process of installing and configuring Arch Linux; written for new or inexperienced users.
Installation Guide
A concise installation guide; aimed at experienced Arch users.

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. What you posted confirms what I posted.

2ManyDogs wrote:

I'd also like to see the Official Guide page link to the Beginners' Guide (something like "this is a brief guide for experienced users; if you need more help see the Beginners' Guide") but the official guide page can't be edited by normal users (probably a wise move).
I think this might help beginners who navigate to the Official Guide from the Home page (there is no description with the guide links on the Home page). I think that's what drcouzelis was referring to.

I think that sounds like a perfectly acceptable and simple solution. I'll mention it to the maintainer of the Installation Guide.

2ManyDogs · 2012-07-25 14:33:58

drcouzelis wrote:

2ManyDogs wrote:
I'd also like to see the Official Guide page link to the Beginners' Guide (something like "this is a brief guide for experienced users; if you need more help see the Beginners' Guide") but the official guide page can't be edited by normal users (probably a wise move).
I think this might help beginners who navigate to the Official Guide from the Home page (there is no description with the guide links on the Home page). I think that's what drcouzelis was referring to.
I think that sounds like a perfectly acceptable and simple solution. I'll mention it to the maintainer of the Installation Guide.

Thank you. It wouldn't hurt to have a (very) brief description on the Home page as well. Something like:

Official Installation Guide
for experienced users
Unofficial Beginners' Guide
for users who need more help

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2012-07-25 14:34:34)

Inxsible · 2012-07-25 14:41:06

I, for one, always point everyone to the BG and I don't know how many users actually use the OIG. I'll be flamed for this but maybe we can merge them into one

drcouzelis · 2012-07-25 16:02:31

Inxsible wrote:

I, for one, always point everyone to the BG and I don't know how many users actually use the OIG. I'll be flamed for this but maybe we can merge them into one

That's certainly understandable, but I think it has it's place. I hadn't looked at the Installation Guide in about three years until reading this thread, and it looks like very handy very concise instructions for an experienced Arch Linux user, which I now am.

I mean, I sometimes think to myself, "I sure love Arch Linux, but I DREAD having to reinstall it because the Beginner's Guide is SO LONG and tedious". I should probably be using the Installation Guide instead.

ataraxia · 2012-07-25 18:39:52

drcouzelis wrote:

I mean, I sometimes think to myself, "I sure love Arch Linux, but I DREAD having to reinstall it because the Beginner's Guide is SO LONG and tedious". I should probably be using the Installation Guide instead.

To solve that problem, I wrote my own private checklist, which could be best described as "How to do a bare-metal restore from my backups". Basically, I do only the mandatory parts of the installation, and then set up enough in the chroot that I can restore my backups (which include /etc, /home, and /var/lib/pacman/local only) to a temp directory. I then compare the new pacman DB to the restored one to figure out what to install and remove, compare the new and restored /etc and merge changes, copy /home over entirely, and do a few other things that require setup outside of these three areas. As my list wouldn't be very useful to others, I haven't posted it here, but I highly recommend everyone have such a checklist, and stores it somewhere not on your own computers (on your phone, on in the cloud somewhere).

Arch Linux

#1 2012-07-25 00:49:17

[SOLVED] My first brawl

#2 2012-07-25 00:59:25

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

#3 2012-07-25 10:51:06

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

#4 2012-07-25 11:20:40

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

#5 2012-07-25 12:47:22

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

#6 2012-07-25 13:14:38

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

#7 2012-07-25 13:21:23

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

#8 2012-07-25 13:31:14

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

#9 2012-07-25 14:27:57

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

#10 2012-07-25 14:33:58

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

#11 2012-07-25 14:41:06

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

#12 2012-07-25 16:02:31

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

#13 2012-07-25 18:39:52

Re: [SOLVED] My first brawl

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