Arch Linux

praetorxyn

Member

Registered: 2014-05-20

Posts: 7

Trouble installing Arch UEFI / LVM with rEFInd

I've been trying for days to get Arch installed in a VMWare virtual machine for testing purposes and playing around with different desktop environments etc. before I commit to a bare metal install.

Following the Wiki's Beginner's Guide, as well as the articles on EFISTUB, LVM, partitioning, etc. I've redone the install so many times I ended up scripting the steps out in a github project at https://github.com/praetorxyn/vmai.

The partitioning scheme I'm using is as follows to give myself the most room and options:

/dev/sda1 -> 512 MiB FAT32 -> /mnt/boot/efi
/dev/sda2 -> 200 MiB ext4 -> /mnt/boot
/dev/sda3 -> all remaining space lvm2

Volumes:

/dev/vg_amaterasu-lv_root 15 GiB ext4 -> /mnt
/dev/vg_amaterasu-lv_swap 4 GiB swap
/dev/vg_amaterasu-lv_var 5 GiB ext4 -> /mnt/var
/dev/vg_amaterasu-lv_home all remaining space ext4 -> /mnt/home

The steps I'm using to do the install can be viewed in the scripts from git, and can be executed as follows:

git clone git://github.com/praetorxyn/vmai
cd vmai && ./init-fs
arch-root /mnt /bin/zsh
cd vmai && ./initial-config
passwd

This part I'm sure I'm doing correctly. I've left the installation and configuration of rEFInd out of the script as that's the part I'm not getting right.

These are basically the steps I'm using to setup rEFInd.

refind-install
mv /boot/refind_linux.conf /boot/efi/EFI/arch
# The entry added by refind_install will not boot, probably because / is on a LVM volume; therefore it must be removed and added manually
efibootmgr -b 5 -B
efibootmgr -c -g -d /dev/sda -p 1 -w -L "rEFInd Boot Manager" -l '\EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi'

For refind configuration, the only change I'm making in /boot/efi/EFI/refind/refind.conf is to comment out the line:

scan_all_linux_kernels

My /boot/efi/EFI/arch/refind_linux.conf is as follows:

"Boot to X"          "root=/dev/mapper/vg_amaterasu-lv_root ro rootfstype=ext4 systemd.unit=graphical.target"
"Boot to console"    "root=/dev/mapper/vg_amaterasu-lv_root ro rootfstype=ext4 systemd.unit=multi-user.target"

The problem is when I try to boot (I'm using the Boot to console target, but I've tried various others, leaving out different things, etc. and always get the same error), I get the error where rEFInd says it cannot find the root device.

I'm at my wit's end here. At this stage, I'm just trying to get past this point so I can take a VM snapshot, then I can play with different desktop environments etc. to see which one I want and get a setup down after that.

Guides, both written and video, are virtually useless because every single one of them seems to use GRUB.

\hbar

Member

Registered: 2014-03-15

Posts: 165

Re: Trouble installing Arch UEFI / LVM with rEFInd

At the bottom of the wiki page on LVM there's a quick mention of a boot option called 'dolvm'. A quick web search didn't clarify whether that is actually needed in your case (it seems to come up for systems with encrypted drives).