[SOLVED] Installing Arch in Asus UX31A problems and wiki sketch

Slurp · 2012-08-05 10:26:22

I swear to God that if with your help I manage to install Arch on this darn thing I will write everything down in the Wiki with luxury details.

So, I was reading yesterday the whole day, test, error, test, error... And I am starting to lose my head.

-= Instalation Media =-
As far as I have read it is important to make sure that I am booting my live USB "in UEFI mode" but I can not find anything in the wiki. By now I have only downloaded archlinux-2012.07.15-netinstall-dual.iso and did

old_machine$ dd if=archlinux-2012.07.15-netinstall-dual.iso of=/dev/sdb

-> Question: Is this enough? How do I make the USB to boot in UEFI mode?

-= Partitions =--
I believe I need a partition about 512MB size for UEFI, as it is stated here.

Using gdisk I have created four partitions:

1. /dev/sda1 = uefisys: 1GB. I did it as it says here
"Using GPT fdisk (aka gdisk): Create a partition with gdisk type code "EF00". Then format that partition as FAT32 using mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/<THAT_PARTITION>"
-> Question: Am I missing at this point marking this partition with "boot" flag? I did not see any option for that in gdisk.

2. /dev/sda2 swap: 6GB. I set its type to Linux Swap.

3. /dev/sda3 root: 30GB.

4. /dev/sda4 home: 200GB.

-= Format =--
Then I formated sda3 and sda4 as ext4, using mkfs.ext4. sda1 was formated with:

new_machine$ mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda1

-= Mount partitions =--
Following Installation guide and this I did:

new_machine$ mnt /dev/sda3 /mnt
new_machine$ mkdir /mnt/efi
new_machine$ mnt /dev/sda1 /mnt/efi

-= Connect to internet =--
Done.

-= Install base system =--

new_machine$ pacstrap /mnt base base-devel

-= Install a bootloader =--

new_machine$ pacstrap /mnt grub-efi-x86_64

-= Configure system =--
Following again the Install Guide:

new_machine$ genfstab -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
new_machine$ arch-chroot /mnt
chrooted_machine$ echo new_name > /etc/hostname
chrooted_machine$ ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Madrid /etc/localtime

Then the guide says "Set locale preferences in /etc/locale.conf", but there was no such a file in my system, so I just skipped this to the next step, uncommented my locale in /etc/locale.get and did:

chrooted_machine$ locale-gen
chrooted_machine$ mkinitcpio -p linux
chrooted_machine$ passwd root
xxxxx
xxxxx
chrooted_machine$

-= Configure the bootloader =--
Following the specific UX31A wiki page I jumped to Grub2 UEFI systems wiki and did:

chrooted_machine$ modprobe dm-mod
chrooted_machine$ grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=arch_grub --boot-directory=/boot/efi/EFI --recheck --debug
-> Here it said: Fatal: Couldn't open either sysfs or procfs directorie for accessing EFI variables. Try 'modprobe efivars' as root.
chrooted_machine$ modprobe efivars
chrooted_machine$ grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=arch_grub --boot-directory=/boot/efi/EFI --recheck --debug
-> Here it said AGAIN: Fatal: Couldn't open either sysfs or procfs directorie for accessing EFI variables. Try 'modprobe efivars' as root.
chrooted_machine$ mkdir -p /boot/efi/EFI/grub/locale
chrooted_machine$ cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/efi/EFI/grub/locale/en.mo

Then continued with UX31A specific wiki and added to /etc/default/grub

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet add_efi_memmap i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 drm.vblankoffdelay=1 i915.semaphores=1"

Then reinstalled grub and "did the trick" for UEFI:

chrooted_machine$ grub-mkconfig -o /path/to/grub.cfg
chrooted_machine$ cp /boot/efi/EFI/arch_grub/grubx64.efi /boot/efi/shellx64.efi
chrooted_machine$ exit
new_machine$ umount /mnt/efi
new_machine$ umount /mnt/
new_machine$ reboot

I removed the live USB and, upon reboot, I got directly to BIOS/UEFI program, went to Save&Exit tab and hit "Launch EFI shell from filesystem device". A message said: WARNING. NOT FOUND.

So I tried a lot of things, I read a lot, I have a lot of confused steps en my head, a lot of places in the wiki say to do what it looks to me the same things in different ways... I do really not know how to continue or where are my mistakes. Please help and thanks in advance.

Last edited by Slurp (2012-09-04 17:23:22)

tehsu · 2012-08-06 10:16:42

Here is my gdisk output

1 131074048 132030463 467.0 MiB EF00 efi
2 132030464 133007359 477.0 MiB 8300 boot
3 133007360 140820479 3.7 GiB 8200 swap
4 140820480 250069646 52.1 GiB 8300 root

on the efi partiton I have
EFI grubx64.efi shellx64.efi

my boot partition has
efi initramfs-linux-fallback.img lost+found
grub initramfs-linux.img vmlinuz-linux

the efi partition(sda1) is mounted at /boot/efi/

hopefully that helps

Also, make sure you've booted archlinux install with UEFI.

Last edited by tehsu (2012-08-06 11:15:18)

Snostorm · 2012-08-07 02:50:21

Slurp, I jsut bought one of these and had a very similar issue, I chalked it up to in experience with EFI but maybe the wiki does need a little clarification. the bit that is stikking you up is probably that you have to do the modprobe efivars before chrooting in in the instelation instructions. all when you boot from USB mabe sure you have the EFI option there, some how when I was doing mine I had both the generic caard boot and efi boot listed. I am traveling now with spotty internet, so noww that I got it working I am not egar to mess with it.

Good luck

ttill · 2012-08-07 16:12:34

Hey, just got mine yesterday and I was able to get it running following all the different wiki pages. Not sure if it's just a typo that happened while copying to the forum but in the mount partitions step you create and mount to "/mnt/efi" although the wiki says "/mnt/boot/efi". Later on you tell grub-install to use "/boot/efi" (aka "/mnt/boot/efi") though. Looks troublesome to me.
Btw. despite the error "modprobe efivars" and doing grub-install again was not necessary for me.

Last edited by ttill (2012-08-07 16:14:29)

Slurp · 2012-08-07 21:29:20

Hey guys, thank you very much for your time, even more considering that two of you seem to have just registered to answer here. The bad news are that I am going on holidays tomorrow so I will not be able to try anything in two weeks, but as soon as I am back I will do my best and come back with results.

The /boot/efi was a typo, i think. In the meantime, if somebody could explain how can I make my live USB to boot in EFI mode would be awesome, because everybody says it is important but I can't just find where it says how to do that.Or what does it mean "all when you boot from USB mabe sure you have the EFI option there, some how when I was doing mine I had both the generic caard boot and efi boot listed"?

I installed Kubuntu whileresearching and waiting for help and... I need Arch

[edited]
By the way, do you all have the same partition scheme as tehsu?

Last edited by Slurp (2012-08-08 16:14:32)

seanb · 2012-08-10 05:28:02

I just installed Arch on my UX31A. It ended up taking a few more hours than it should have, but it works.

To be honest, I didn't even try following the UX31A-specific wiki page; your posts here sent me off on a hunt to boot from a flash drive in UEFI mode, which led me to the method I'll outline here:

I downloaded the latest archboot iso from:
http://server4.surlyjake.com/archlinux/ … t/2012.06/

Followed (some of) these directions: https://gitorious.org/tianocore_uefi_du … I_boot_USB

I did steps: (I skipped the steps not listed here)
1.1, 1.2, 1.3
3.1.1.1:
oldmachine$ cd ~/flashmnt
oldmachine$ sudo bsdtar --chroot -xf ~/Downloads/archlinux-2012.06-1-archboot-x86_64.iso
> boot/vmlinuz_x86_64_lts: Can't set user=500/group=100 for boot/vmlinuz_x86_64_lts
> bsdtar: Error exit delayed from previous errors.
[Not sure what happened there, but I don't care about the lts kernel]

4.4,4.5,4.6 (I doubt 4.6 is needed, not sure about 4.4 and 4.5)

I then unmounted the flash drive, put it in the Asus, rebooted, pressed ESC, and selected the "UEFI: UFD USB Flash Drive 1100" boot device.

Selected "Arch Linux (x86_64) archboot" from GRUB(2) menu. The screen went black for a while, almost long enough for me to think it had failed.

I then followed the easy setup system, with a custom partition setup:

[1007KB free space due to partition alignment]
200MB EFI
2GB swap
100MB /boot
20GB root
[rest] /home

(I hope 2GB swap is enough for suspend-to-disk; it should be, based on the note here about the default max image size being 40% of RAM: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … partition)

Used vfat for efi and ext4 for the rest, and selected the appropriate mount points. I mounted the EFI partition to /boot/efi (but later removed that entry from /etc/fstab, see below).

I chose the rEFInd boot loader, didn't change any config files, and rebooted. The arch boot process failed with:

:: Checking filesystems
home: clean, [..snip..]
dosfsk 3.0.12, [..snip..]
open: No such file or directory
boot: clean, [..snip..]

REBOOT REQUIRED
The system will be rebooted automatically in 15 seconds.

I let it reboot a couple times, and tried manually fsck'ing all the partitions, to no avail. I then booted from the USB drive again, went to the shell, mounted /dev/sda4 (my root partition), and commented out the line for the EFI partition. Arch then booted successfully, and brought me to the login prompt, which is where it sits now. I'm assuming that mounting the EFI partition at /boot/efi isn't required, except to workaround install media that isn't booted in in UEFI mode (which doesn't apply here).

Note: These instructions might work for a UEFI USB install drive: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 9#p1083439 ; I didn't find them until after installing with archboot as described above.

Hope this helps.

frmi · 2012-08-16 19:26:52

I'm having samme issue as Slurp,

A message said: WARNING. NOT FOUND.

I will keep an eye on this thread

Last edited by frmi (2012-08-16 20:53:08)

frmi · 2012-08-18 11:59:03

I finally made it work, doing as seanb. Though i chose the grub-efi-x86_64 bootloader instead of rEFInd. And as seanb points out it doesn't seem necessary to mount the EFI partition.

Even though i have have the error with pacman when doing "pacman -Syu". Nothing in the guide seems to work..

Last edited by frmi (2012-08-18 12:50:43)

Nimatek · 2012-08-23 15:28:42

Only saw this thread now. The ux31a doesn't require any special install tailored to the model. The whole UEFI business if of course a bit too much work than you'd expect from a step that is supposed to be basic for every install on a modern machine, but the wiki has everything you need already.

1. UEFI bootable image
2. Create UEFI system partition
3. Install GRUB2 for UEFI system
4. Create boot entry using efibootmgr

Apart from this you can simply follow the normal installation process with pacstrap and all that.

Last edited by Nimatek (2012-09-16 19:44:32)

Slurp · 2012-09-03 20:33:13

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that after some more trouble and with your invaluable help I finally managed to install Arch... without systemd but that is another story. Thank you very much. It is fast and beautiful.

I will write instructions for dummies in the wiki ASAP.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-08-05 10:26:22

[SOLVED] Installing Arch in Asus UX31A problems and wiki sketch

#2 2012-08-06 10:16:42

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Arch in Asus UX31A problems and wiki sketch

#3 2012-08-07 02:50:21

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Arch in Asus UX31A problems and wiki sketch

#4 2012-08-07 16:12:34

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Arch in Asus UX31A problems and wiki sketch

#5 2012-08-07 21:29:20

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Arch in Asus UX31A problems and wiki sketch

#6 2012-08-10 05:28:02

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Arch in Asus UX31A problems and wiki sketch

#7 2012-08-16 19:26:52

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Arch in Asus UX31A problems and wiki sketch

#8 2012-08-18 11:59:03

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Arch in Asus UX31A problems and wiki sketch

#9 2012-08-23 15:28:42

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Arch in Asus UX31A problems and wiki sketch

#10 2012-09-03 20:33:13

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Arch in Asus UX31A problems and wiki sketch

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