I'm not sure if I mess up my arch installation. [GRUB and KDE help]

mean_booty · 2016-09-15 12:57:10

I am trying my hand at an arch install this week for my project.

I installed base packages, drivers for video (working fine by the way), installed grub, installed KDE and sddm. I am using Arch64, but when initializing my EFI boot with this command:

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub

It said it was unable to find directory for boot initializer. That is where all my boot files went. I would give you the exact message, but that brings me to my next problem.

I installed plasma-desktop instead of full featured plasma thinking I could install what I wanted to install and not be too bloated. The only problem is, there is no terminal that I can find. I search through all applications, there is no terminal. I used the search function; no terminal. Under default applications I have Konsole as the terminal application, but there is no Konsole on any program list or search. If I try to launch a file location in Terminal, nothing happens.

I have also tried the konsole default shortcut, but it didn't work. Have I messed up here guys? Is there a way to boot directly into the bash shell again since I have no console or text editor?

poisonby · 2016-09-15 13:07:39

You posted the very same question on Reddit, and yet again you leave out the important detail that you're actually trying to convert from BIOS to UEFI on Windows. Does that mean that your current Arch installation is installed with BIOS in mind? If that's the case, you have to mount the Windows ESP to /boot instead and preferably use systemd-boot to automatically detect the Windows boot manager.

You leave out a lot of information. Can you elaborate on what you're trying to do?

mean_booty · 2016-09-15 13:41:48

Apologies for thinking there could be some different ideas in completely different forums. I was unaware that was against the rules.

Now, my grub issue: I pro ally had a Windows 7 BIOS boot and I installed arch under UEFI. The GRUB loader would not recognize Windows because it does either UEFI or BIOS. Because they were on different disks, I could still manually boot into either disk. Now, I converted Windows to UEFI, so theoretically, a reinstall and reconfigure would pick them up. I need a shell to do this however.

That brings me to my biggest problem. I installed plasma-desktop instead of the full plasma thinking bash would be available within it. No terminal now is available in KDE. No file manager or text editor has been installed either yet. When I use the Ctl+Alt+F2 my screen goes blank and I get no signal from my graphics card. Now, I think I have narrowed down the issue to being an Nvidia driver when both Intel graphics and Nvidia cards are available issue. However, all the fixes require either a terminal or text editor, which I apparently have neither. I think I have gotten myself caught in a position where I can't fix anything.

I am thinking about starting the install from scratch because there doesn't seem to be a way to boot directly into a tty shell.

poisonby · 2016-09-15 14:00:15

mean_booty wrote:

Apologies for thinking there could be some different ideas in completely different forums. I was unaware that was against the rules.

That's not the problem at all. The problem is that you're leaving out information.

mean_booty wrote:

Now, my grub issue: I pro ally had a Windows 7 BIOS boot and I installed arch under UEFI. The GRUB loader would not recognize Windows because it does either UEFI or BIOS. Because they were on different disks, I could still manually boot into either disk. Now, I converted Windows to UEFI, so theoretically, a reinstall and reconfigure would pick them up. I need a shell to do this however.

So which partition does the /boot mount point belong to? The ESP of Arch? The ESP of Windows? I recommend scrapping your Arch boot partition, mount the Windows ESP to /boot (and change fstab), install systemd-boot and install Linux.

mean_booty wrote:

That brings me to my biggest problem. I installed plasma-desktop instead of the full plasma thinking bash would be available within it. No terminal now is available in KDE. No file manager or text editor has been installed either yet. When I use the Ctl+Alt+F2 my screen goes blank and I get no signal from my graphics card. Now, I think I have narrowed down the issue to being an Nvidia driver when both Intel graphics and Nvidia cards are available issue. However, all the fixes require either a terminal or text editor, which I apparently have neither. I think I have gotten myself caught in a position where I can't fix anything.
I am thinking about starting the install from scratch because there doesn't seem to be a way to boot directly into a tty shell.

Is it an optimus machine? Are you using Bumblebee? I don't really have experience with that so I can't help you in this regard. You could always chroot into your Arch partition to get access to a shell without actually booting the system though.

jasonwryan · 2016-09-15 17:58:16

Please edit your first post and choose a title that accurately describes your issue: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … ow_to_post

Moving to NC..

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-09-15 21:25:24

I am confused, how are you running a graphical desktop if you cannot install the GRUB bootloader to the disk?

Notwithstanding this (I'm tired so I've probably missed something obvious), in respect of your black screen problem try https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … odesetting

Arch Linux

#1 2016-09-15 12:57:10

I'm not sure if I mess up my arch installation. [GRUB and KDE help]

#2 2016-09-15 13:07:39

Re: I'm not sure if I mess up my arch installation. [GRUB and KDE help]

#3 2016-09-15 13:41:48

Re: I'm not sure if I mess up my arch installation. [GRUB and KDE help]

#4 2016-09-15 14:00:15

Re: I'm not sure if I mess up my arch installation. [GRUB and KDE help]

#5 2016-09-15 17:58:16

Re: I'm not sure if I mess up my arch installation. [GRUB and KDE help]

#6 2016-09-15 21:25:24

Re: I'm not sure if I mess up my arch installation. [GRUB and KDE help]

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