Arch Linux

spike32

Member

Registered: 2020-04-18

Posts: 8

Arch installed but GRUB is not loading

Hello everyone!
I am new to the Arch Linux world. I have just installed it, everything is fine, except for the grub that is not loading. I have both Arch and Win10. When I start my pc it automatically load Win10, but from my bios I am able to select the "Arch partition" and then the GRUB is loaded, but with the Arch entry only. Once Arch is started, I'm able to do everything and it is working fine! Maybe I did something wrong during installation. How can I solve it?
Actually this is my fstab file:

# Static information about the filesystems.
# See fstab(5) for details.

# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/sda6
UUID=60a44c63-3450-4b95-9925-3a70d23fc842       /               ext4            rw,relatime     0 1

# /dev/sda7
UUID=f126446a-31c2-4fff-a9a5-4d85e1c4fab0       /home           ext4            rw,relatime     0 2

# swapfile
/swapfile       none    swap    sw      0 0

Last edited by spike32 (2020-04-18 16:47:14)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,232

Re: Arch installed but GRUB is not loading

Is this an UEFI or BIOS boot? Either way this should be changeable within your BIOS with little direct relevance to Arch itself. Which motherboard is this? If this is an UEFI boot you might want to post/check

sudo efibootmgr -v

as well

spike32

Member

Registered: 2020-04-18

Posts: 8

Re: Arch installed but GRUB is not loading

Is this an UEFI or BIOS boot? Either way this should be changeable within your BIOS with little direct relevance to Arch itself. Which motherboard is this? If this is an UEFI boot you might want to post/check

sudo efibootmgr -v

as well

sudo efibootmgr -v output:

BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0005,0004,0003,0000,0002,0001
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager  HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...h................
Boot0001* UEFI OS       HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI)..BO
Boot0002* Clover start boot.efi at Hackintosh   HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\CLOVER\CLOVERX64.EFI)Clvr..H.a.c.k.i.n.t.o.s.h...b.o.o.t...e.f.i...
Boot0003* ubuntu        HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI)
Boot0004* gentoo        HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\GENTOO\GRUBX64.EFI)
Boot0005* GRUB  HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\GRUB\GRUBX64.EFI)

Anyway, it is an UEFI boot.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,232

Re: Arch installed but GRUB is not loading

Logical boot order is correct, but it seems to enforce boot from the default loader path. Is this an MSI by chance? Anyway, if you really don't find a way to change this order within the BIOS itself,  reinstall GRUB with the same command as used during installation but add the --removable flag (or just copy the EFI/GRUB/GRUBX64.EFI to EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI)

spike32

Member

Registered: 2020-04-18

Posts: 8

Re: Arch installed but GRUB is not loading

Logical boot order is correct, but it seems to enforce boot from the default loader path. Is this an MSI by chance? Anyway, if you really don't find a way to change this order within the BIOS itself,  reinstall GRUB with the same command as used during installation but add the --removable flag (or just copy the EFI/GRUB/GRUBX64.EFI to EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI)

Actually my "Arch entry" is Boot0001. I know there is a little messy in there.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,232

Re: Arch installed but GRUB is not loading

If you're certain about that then use

sudo efibootmgr -o 1,0 #...distribute the rest in whatever way

to change it, if that doesn't stick check your uefis menu.

spike32

Member

Registered: 2020-04-18

Posts: 8

Re: Arch installed but GRUB is not loading

Do I need to specify the EFI partition in my fstab file?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,232

Re: Arch installed but GRUB is not loading

If you use GRUB, not necessarily no. And in any case, all of this is at the point you are having a problem with completely unrelated to the existing installation. This is a setting in your BIOS/firmware that needs to be fixed. You still didn't disclose what motherboard this is so we cannot check on whether there's a specific handling necessary to make a certain entry the default.

spike32

Member

Registered: 2020-04-18

Posts: 8

Re: Arch installed but GRUB is not loading

If you use GRUB, not necessarily no. And in any case, all of this is at the point you are having a problem with completely unrelated to the existing installation. This is a setting in your BIOS/firmware that needs to be fixed. You still didn't disclose what motherboard this is so we cannot check on whether there's a specific handling necessary to make a certain entry the default.

I don't know which motheboard model is, but my pc is an Asus K550VX-DM406T. Anyway I managed how to change boot order and now it seems to work.

BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,0000,0002,0003,0004,0005
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager  HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...h................
Boot0001* UEFI OS       HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI)..BO
Boot0002  Clover start boot.efi at Hackintosh   HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\CLOVER\CLOVERX64.EFI)Clvr..H.a.c.k.i.n.t.o.s.h...b.o.o.t...e.f.i...
Boot0003  ubuntu        HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI)
Boot0004  gentoo        HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\GENTOO\GRUBX64.EFI)
Boot0005  GRUB  HD(1,GPT,43d688b8-4b17-41e5-9fe2-29b82d2bf68f,0x28,0x64000)/File(\EFI\GRUB\GRUBX64.EFI)

If I will encounter in any other problem I'll let you know. So why the EFI partition doesn't need to be specified in the fstab file?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,232

Re: Arch installed but GRUB is not loading

The only reason the EFI partition exists is to have an entry point for your UEFI firmware to locate binaries (EFI files) , on a filesystem (FAT32) that it understands, to boot up/pass control to. In this case it boots up GRUB, GRUB in turn has file system drivers for accessing the ext4 partition and can boot the kernel that's located in /boot of the actual ext4 root partition.  Unless a new disk standard comes about, or you decide to do disk encryption or so that requires a modification of the installed GRUB binary you won't ever need to have it mounted, and even then in these kinds of events you can just mount it manually.

I suggest you read the following if you actually want to know more:

https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/2 … work-then/
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … _Interface
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_boot_process
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EF … _partition

If the actual issue is fixed, please mark it as such by editing the title in your first post and prepending [SOLVED] or so.