[SOLVED]....install Arch, for the first time, am i doing it right?

MrPotato · 2014-01-05 10:19:45

The first try, it failed at grub boot(froze with blank screen), so now I'm going to install for the 2nd time and I need your help to confirm if the grub installation procedure below is correct.. (Thinkpad x61s-64bit machine)

# mkinitcpio -p linux
# pacman -S grub-bios bash-completion os-prober
# grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda
# cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
# exit
# umount -R /mnt
# reboot

..or should i just use Syslinux instead? There won't be any other OS on the disk except there's a partition i made previously(ext 4) that i used for file storage purposes(music,video,docs etc) and the said partition now reside in sda4 and do not want to delete that as ive got so much stuff in it and my external HD is full. so i'll have to install Arch on sda1/2/3.
my partitioning scheme would be 2g swap, 20g root and 30g home.

Thank you

Last edited by MrPotato (2014-01-06 04:46:08)

Lone_Wolf · 2014-01-05 12:08:33

syslinux or grub-bios is a personal choice, i can tell you however why i choose syslinux over grub-bios .

When the original grub became grub-legacy and was dropped to aur i looked into grub2 using a VM (now just called grub).

After starting i noticed my boot screen had very little messages.
I looked into grub.cfg, noticed it was much larger then grub-legacy config.
There were warnings all over the file it was not meant to be edited manually and would be changed automagically by os-prober.
I found the quiet parameter was applied to the kernel by default, and could not find a way to change that without editing grub.cfg .

I then looked into syslinux and found it's configuration was similar to that of grub-legacy and now use syslinux on all bios systems i own or help maintain.

In short, the automation used by Grub makes it hard for me to control what happens on boot, syslinux makes it easy.

Steef435 · 2014-01-05 13:12:05

I think you were looking for /etc/default/grub. It's quite easy to alter the kernel parameters(GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX)

Why don't you make the storage partition your /home partition?

Note that you can just chroot in again if the grub install fails and try again, no need to go through the whole installation procedure again.

tumas · 2014-01-05 15:53:34

MrPotato wrote:

The first try, it failed at grub boot(froze with blank screen), so now I'm going to install for the 2nd time and I need your help to confirm if the grub installation procedure below is correct.. (Thinkpad x61s-64bit machine)
# mkinitcpio -p linux
# pacman -S grub-bios bash-completion os-prober
# grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda
# cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
# exit
# umount -R /mnt
# reboot
..or should i just use Syslinux instead? There won't be any other OS on the disk except there's a partition i made previously(ext 4) that i used for file storage purposes(music,video,docs etc) and the said partition now reside in sda4 and do not want to delete that as ive got so much stuff in it and my external HD is full. so i'll have to install Arch on sda1/2/3.
my partitioning scheme would be 2g swap, 20g root and 30g home.
Thank you

You could just use syslinux, but i guess you just had a bad timing with your installation there are a few bugs present with grub at the moment, which are actually already fixed upstream, but not yet available from the official arch repositories. Did you notice any bug messages when running "grub-mkconfig" ? There were probably some "syntax-errors", but they can be easily fixed (https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/38234?project=1&cat[0]=31&string=grub); the method with "GRUB_DISABLE_SUBMENU=y" works fine and you could fix it by "chrooting" into your system again from the live-installation-cd/usb. Alternatively you could enable the testing-repos for installing grub; this version works without the syntax errors, but there is another bug with multiple kernel-entries So the first way would be probably the best way to fix grub at the moment.

Last edited by tumas (2014-01-05 15:57:54)

Alber · 2014-01-05 18:24:57

I've made few days ago a test install with grub and I had to do the issue that Tumas tell.
But the steps, I think, has been reduced.
(mkinitcpio -p linux is a step before)

pacman -S grub os-prober
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck --debug /dev/sdX
exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot

It works for me.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … Guide#GRUB
grub-bios take now grub.

Edit:
Partition scheme looks fine to me.
Well, see the next link:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/pa … ions_be.3F

Last edited by Alber (2014-01-05 21:32:09)

MrPotato · 2014-01-06 01:15:52

Sorry guys for the late reply been busy with work and stuff. I took your advice and used syslinux instead.. it all working great now
thanks guys for the awesome help

jasonwryan · 2014-01-06 04:06:31

Please remember to mark your thread as [Solved] by editing your first post and prepending it to the title.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-01-05 10:19:45

[SOLVED]....install Arch, for the first time, am i doing it right?

#2 2014-01-05 12:08:33

Re: [SOLVED]....install Arch, for the first time, am i doing it right?

#3 2014-01-05 13:12:05

Re: [SOLVED]....install Arch, for the first time, am i doing it right?

#4 2014-01-05 15:53:34

Re: [SOLVED]....install Arch, for the first time, am i doing it right?

#5 2014-01-05 18:24:57

Re: [SOLVED]....install Arch, for the first time, am i doing it right?

#6 2014-01-06 01:15:52

Re: [SOLVED]....install Arch, for the first time, am i doing it right?

#7 2014-01-06 04:06:31

Re: [SOLVED]....install Arch, for the first time, am i doing it right?

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