Arch Linux

shalva

Member

Registered: 2016-04-04

Posts: 8

[SOLVED] installed Arch but cannot boot into it automatically

I have got the Acer Travelmate B115 motherboard (without the case and display), It also has 2GB of RAM.  and of course tried to install Arch, plugged in monitor, USB flash, Keyboard and the installation went okay.

but when i rebooted it always starts PXE boot.
In boot menu there is only 3 options: PXE boot IPv4, PXE boot IPv6 and Arch Linux USB drive. no matter what it doesnot boot into its emmc partition.
In Bios boot order emmc storage is first.

my partitions:

NAME         MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0          7:0    0 556.2M  1 loop /run/archiso/sfs/airootfs
sda            8:0    1   7.3G  0 disk /run/archiso/bootmnt
├─sda1         8:1    1   679M  0 part 
└─sda2         8:2    1    64M  0 part 
mmcblk1      179:0    0  29.1G  0 disk 
├─mmcblk1p1  179:1    0   512M  0 part 
├─mmcblk1p2  179:2    0    25G  0 part 
└─mmcblk1p3  179:3    0   3.6G  0 part 
mmcblk1boot0 179:8    0     4M  1 disk 
mmcblk1boot1 179:16   0     4M  1 disk 

parted -s /dev/mmcblk1:

Model: MMC HBG4e (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/mmcblk1: 31.3GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name  Flags
 1      1049kB  538MB   537MB   fat32                 boot, esp
 2      538MB   27.4GB  26.8GB  ext4
 3      27.4GB  31.3GB  3891MB  linux-swap(v1)        swap

here are UEFi entries, i have added "Arch Linux" manually but it also does not show up in boot menu
efibootmgr -v

BootCurrent: 0002
Timeout: 2 seconds
BootOrder: 2001,2003,2002
Boot0000* Arch Linux	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x17,0x0)/Ctrl(0x0)/HD(1,GPT,a447e69b-d255-994f-95e2-06a79dce2cdd,0x800,0x100000)/File(\EFI\GRUB\grubx64.efi)
Boot0001* Network Boot-IPV6: C4-54-44-96-9F-F6	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1c,0x2)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/MAC(c45444969ff6,0)/IPv6([::]:<->[::]:,0,0)RC
Boot0002* USB HDD: KingstonDataTraveler SE9	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/USB(1,0)/USB(1,0)/HD(1,MBR,0x2fbbe9fe,0x108,0x20000)RC
Boot0003* Network Boot-IPV4: C4-54-44-96-9F-F6	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1c,0x2)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/MAC(c45444969ff6,0)/IPv4(0.0.0.00.0.0.0,0,0)RC
Boot0004* Unknown Device: 	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x17,0x0)/Ctrl(0x0)/HD(1,GPT,a447e69b-d255-994f-95e2-06a79dce2cdd,0x800,0x100000)RC
Boot0005* GRUB	HD(1,GPT,a447e69b-d255-994f-95e2-06a79dce2cdd,0x800,0x100000)/File(\EFI\GRUB\grubx64.efi)
Boot2001* EFI USB Device	RC
Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM	RC
Boot2003* EFI Network	RC

i can boot into existing installation from UEFI shell by \EFI\GRUB\grubx64.efi so the Arch installation is okay i guess...
grub was installed like this: grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB

after lot of hours i have lost hope, cant figure out what is wrong...

Last edited by shalva (2020-09-23 20:53:37)

solskog

Member

Registered: 2020-09-05

Posts: 462

Re: [SOLVED] installed Arch but cannot boot into it automatically

You didn't forget to generate the grub.cfg file?

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,043

Re: [SOLVED] installed Arch but cannot boot into it automatically

Have you tried GRUB#Default/fallback_boot_path?

shalva

Member

Registered: 2016-04-04

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] installed Arch but cannot boot into it automatically

You didn't forget to generate the grub.cfg file?

nope...

Have you tried GRUB#Default/fallback_boot_path?

thanks but still didnot work, both --removable flag and copying .efi file to BOOT have no effect.

one thing i have noticed is that boot order keeps changing. when i reboot it is always 2001,2003,2002

i have decided to install Windows and research more on UEFI. maybe i can find out how windows adds entries to Boot Menu and do same from Linux

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 9,003

Website

Re: [SOLVED] installed Arch but cannot boot into it automatically

Some UEFI implementations are so broken that they will only start $ESP/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi so perhaps try that.

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

solskog

Member

Registered: 2020-09-05

Posts: 462

Re: [SOLVED] installed Arch but cannot boot into it automatically

Could you create boot order like this?

# efibootmgr -o 0,2

If manipulating boot order doesn't help, maybe consider using a spare USB stick acting as a separate boot partition instead EMMC.

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,687

Re: [SOLVED] installed Arch but cannot boot into it automatically

Some motherboard firmware implementations don't work well with efibootmgr.
You can try fixing your EFI boot configuration via the UEFI shell. You can use command like bcfg to see what is really in your NVRAM and not what efibootmgr is able to show.
Refer to this site for UEFI shell commands you can use to add, display, modify and delete entries in your NVRAM.
You might as well clean up some of the entries. For instance the unknown device listed by your efibootmgr if you look closely at the ID is equivalent to your ArchLinux entry.

Last edited by d_fajardo (2020-09-22 05:38:19)

shalva

Member

Registered: 2016-04-04

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] installed Arch but cannot boot into it automatically

Finally i have installed it, right now im writing this from my new Arch install. Everything works fine.

When i installed Windows it added boot entry and worked really well. after a lot of testing, i would say that UEFI is just broken on this notebook.

Some UEFI implementations are so broken that they will only start $ESP/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi so perhaps try that.

exactly! the only way was to put grubx64 in  $ESP/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi and it worked, didnot add anything to UEFI and a boot entry shows up as "Windows Boot Loader".

i guess everything works, EFI shell and efibootmgr are fine. also tried to use bcdedit from windows and it also added the entry, efibootmgr also showed entries added by bcdedit but they still wouldnot show up in Boot Menu.

You might as well clean up some of the entries. For instance the unknown device listed by your efibootmgr

nope, this thing doesnot work like that. it checks if there is anything at $ESP/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi and if it is(even an empty file) it will add a boot entry "Windows Boot Loader" and will try to boot it by default, also changing boot order to it. but if it cannot find that file, it will add Boot0004* Unknown Device. At least it boots correctly from USB drives.... i guess this behavior only happens to its MMC partition, which is soldered directly on the motherboard.

this took me 3 days.... well, at least it works :D