Arch Linux

antonio

Member

Registered: 2013-12-17

Posts: 14

Dual boot Windows 10 and Arch

I have a Windows 10 system with an EFI System.
I am going to create a new ext4 partition for dual booting with Arch.

I have read:
Arch Dual boot Windows 10 and
GRUB for UEFI systems

I have some doubts about the actual procedure.

To install GRUB the wiki uses:

# arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=$esp --bootloader-id=grub --recheck

Nothing is told about /mnt variable. I assume that this is the mount point of the root partition where Arch is/will be installed.

It is then unclear to me what the $efi variable contains.

In UEFI systems -> Installation it reads:

Change $esp to your efi partition (usually /boot)

In Check if you have GPT and an ESP it reads:

EFI [is] a small (512 MiB or less) partition with a vfat file system ... On it, there should be a directory named "EFI". If these criteria are met, this is your ESP.

Now it seems that $esp is /boot/EFI.

In Alternative install method it reads:

This puts all GRUB files in $esp/grub, instead of in /boot/grub. When using this method, make sure you have grub-mkconfig put the configuration file in same place:

# grub-mkconfig -o $esp/grub/grub.cfg

and later on in Configuration this appears as:

for UEFI-GPT Mode (As per #Alternative install method):

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/GRUB/grub.cfg

Comparing, it seems that $esp might be /boot/efi/EFI .

Summing up.

Assume that the the EFI partition and root partition are resp. /dev/sda2 and  /dev/sda5, can we recap the whole process like follows?

# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt      # EFI system 
# mkdir -p /mnt/boot
# mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/boot # ext4 root
# esp=/boot                 #  ??
# pacstrap -i /mnt base     # plus desired customisations ...
# genfstab -U -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab# arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
# pacman -S grub
# pacman -S os-prober
# pacman -S efibootmgr
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=$esp  --boot-directory=$esp  --bootloader-id=grub --recheck --debug
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/GRUB/grub.cfg 

Is this right? Can you fix the errors?

Last edited by antonio (2015-09-16 13:01:34)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,778

Website

Re: Dual boot Windows 10 and Arch

# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub --recheck --debug
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Unless you are mounting the $ESP to /boot/efi

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

dcdriving

Member

From: United Kingdom

Registered: 2015-01-20

Posts: 70

Re: Dual boot Windows 10 and Arch

Also be careful with your partitions, sda2 is your ESP according to the above but you are mounting it at /mnt instead of sda5.  Mount the root partition to /mnt.