Arch Linux

KungPaoChicken

Member

Registered: 2016-09-22

Posts: 6

[SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

Hello everyone,

I am installing Arch Linux on my Asus laptop with an existing Windows 10 installation using a boot USB, and has completed all steps until the Boot loader section.

The laptop is UEFI-capable, so I went ahead and install systemd-boot. However when I run

bootctl install

, I have this error message:

File system "/boot" is not a FAT EFI System Partition (ESP) file system.

This happens inside and outside of arch-chroot.
Following the error message, I did

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1

outside of arch-chroot, which gave me

mkfs.fat 4.0 (2016-05-06)

. I retried the install and it still failed.

Here is an excerpt from fdisk -l: (only the line showing /dev/sda1 since the whole output is quite long to type out, apologies)

Device          Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1        2048    616447    614400   300M EFI System

Googling the error message refers me to the wiki, which didn't help me either. Any help is very much appreciated.
Sorry for my bad English.

Last edited by KungPaoChicken (2016-09-22 08:31:20)

ayekat

Member

Registered: 2011-01-17

Posts: 1,616

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

Following the error message, I did

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1

Uhm... are you sure you haven't just nuked the Windows entries? Does Windows still boot?

Concerning the systemd-boot installation, have you mounted the FAT partition on /boot? Otherwise all the FS formatting in the world won't help.

---

pkgs │ hacks │ cfg │ blag

KungPaoChicken

Member

Registered: 2016-09-22

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

Uhm... I think I nuked the Windows boot loader, oops.

mount /dev/sda1
gave me
mount: can't find /dev/sda1 in /etc/fstab

mount /dev/sda1 /boot
works though, and it goes all the way to 'Created EFI boot entry "Linux Boot Manager"'.
The interesting thing is that wouldn't happen before the reboot.

ayekat

Member

Registered: 2011-01-17

Posts: 1,616

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

mount: can't find /dev/sda1 in /etc/fstab

You might want to add that entry, otherwise you will run into issues later (e.g. at kernel upgrades) if your /boot isn't properly mounted.

---

pkgs │ hacks │ cfg │ blag

KungPaoChicken

Member

Registered: 2016-09-22

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

Well excuse me since I am really new at the booting part of Linux, what should I put in <options>, <dump> and <pass> part of the entry?

Could I just copy and change the device from the example on the wiki?

# <device>                                <dir> <type> <options>                                                                                            <dump> <fsck>
UUID=CBB6-24F2                            /boot vfat   rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro 0      2

Last edited by KungPaoChicken (2016-09-22 07:37:59)

ayekat

Member

Registered: 2011-01-17

Posts: 1,616

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

As I do not personally use UEFI, I guess following the examples in the wiki is probably the best idea, so yes, take that line and adapt your partition's UUID, if necessary.

---

pkgs │ hacks │ cfg │ blag

KungPaoChicken

Member

Registered: 2016-09-22

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

Done. Thanks for the help!

So what is left is to configure systemd, boot to Arch Linux successfully, and then fix the Windows boot loader. Is this order correct?

ayekat

Member

Registered: 2011-01-17

Posts: 1,616

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

Well, there isn't really anything to configure in systemd itself, apart from maybe enabling some services you want to run.
Fixing the Windows boot loader is an entirely different story, though...

But if the systemd-boot installation here is solved, you can mark this thread as solved by editing your first post and prepending '[SOLVED] ' to your thread's title.

---

pkgs │ hacks │ cfg │ blag

KungPaoChicken

Member

Registered: 2016-09-22

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

Well the systemd-boot installation part is solved, and then I have vmlinuz-linux not found...

But I guess I will try some more first. Marked as solved, thank you.

ayekat

Member

Registered: 2011-01-17

Posts: 1,616

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

Well the systemd-boot installation part is solved, and then I have vmlinuz-linux not found...

Ah yes, you're not done yet. But you should open a new thread for that, since it's a separate issue (and since I don't use systemd-boot, I cannot really help you).

---

pkgs │ hacks │ cfg │ blag

Raynman

Member

Registered: 2011-10-22

Posts: 1,539

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

Well the systemd-boot installation part is solved, and then I have vmlinuz-linux not found...

That is just another symptom of the boot partition not having been mounted. Your kernel ended up in the /boot directory on your root partition. You can delete that one and reinstall the linux package with the ESP mounted at /boot.

KungPaoChicken

Member

Registered: 2016-09-22

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot install systemd-boot

It worked. Thanks