Arch Linux

kevs

Member

Registered: 2020-09-21

Posts: 2

Advises for try dualboot again?

Hi Arch Community.,

I want to install Arch, alongside my w10, for learning purpose, i would like learn how linux works and how a computer works. I think that Arch is a good option for thath purpose.

A few months ago I tried to install linux next to windows, everything was fine so far to finish the linux installation, but after rebooting, W10 did not appear as an option in GRUB. To try to "fix" it and try to have the dualboot, I deleted the Windows partition and installed it along with the linux that I had recently installed. The problem now is that Windows started directly and did not give the possibility to choose linux.
For that reason I decided to give up and leave Windows alone.
but thanks to the Wiki installation guide, now I handle new concepts like UEFI, GPT / MBR /, bootloaders, ESP. and I begin to understand a little what the problem could be.

When creating the partitions for linux, the first time I tried to install linux alongside w10, I created the following partitions:
- /
-/home
- / efi (this was probably my problem, since as I understand it, there should only be one efi partition per disk)

I'm here to find out if you recommend trying dualboot again or not. If there is a lot of risk of losing w10 again, sadly I would quit. But if there is not so much risk, I would appreciate if you could guide me a little about what I was doing wrong previously or what things I must take into account to perform a successful dualboot of w10 and arch (in one SSD disk).

I would also like to know if it is MUCH better to dual boot on different drives, since my laptop has a socket to install an M.2.

I appreciated any guides, links or concepts that I should learn in order to perform a good installation, I read the complete arch installation guide and it was very useful, but I would like to receive some feedback from the community since I may not be ready yet to do a correct dualboot or maybe I am not handling some crucial points that do not allow me to carry out the management.

I read comple

Here I leave some of my computer.
Notebook Huawei Matebook D14 Ryzen 8GB, 480GB SSD.
UEFI / GPT, Windows10.

If anyone needs more information, please comment.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,044

Re: Advises for try dualboot again?

Why not install Arch as a virtualbox guest first?  See if you like Arch before attempting the bare metal installation again.
Edit:
There are many reasons grub had nomenu entry for Windows such as os-prober was not installed or config was generated before installing it,  the Windows files on the ESP were removed or damaged during the Arch installation.

Last edited by loqs (2020-09-21 02:28:22)

kevs

Member

Registered: 2020-09-21

Posts: 2

Re: Advises for try dualboot again?

Why not install Arch as a virtualbox guest first?  See if you like Arch before attempting the bare metal installation again.

Right now im doing that.

How i said, its more for learning purpose, because that i want to install Arch instead another distro. I want to understand why the bootloader is overwriten(im not sure if im right) when i tried install dualboot, if arch dont like me its not a such problem, but if i learn how solve this problem and understand some things, it will probably help me later with any distro.

Thanks a lot for answer.

solskog

Member

Registered: 2020-09-05

Posts: 462

Re: Advises for try dualboot again?

From my own experience, dualboot linux/windows on single disk could soon or later having boot issues. A safer approach is indeed use separate disk with separate EFI/ESP boot partitions, where you can choose which disk's EFI to boot with during BIOS startup. And less chance to overwrite each-other's boot partition during later upgrade or other operations.

If this Notebook is your only computer, I also suggest to install Arch as a virtualbox guest instead. You can still learn UEFI, GPT / MBR /, bootloaders when you create a virtual machine. The principles are the same in a VM versus hardware.

Last edited by solskog (2020-09-22 10:04:39)

jocheem67

Member

Registered: 2009-11-09

Posts: 250

Re: Advises for try dualboot again?

There's some more options: get yourself an old laptop and put linux on it or start with a "friendlier"  distro like ubuntu. Using a virtualized solution is also smart as people above point out.
My experience is that installing Arch alongside Windows has conditions: make sure you can check the Arch wiki for bootloader/manager, how to chroot into your newly installed system, have a day to spare

Just recently I put Windows 10 on a new SSD next to the one that's carrying Arch. To my surprise my bootloader rEfind just recognized Windows. It can be that easy sometimes too.

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,687

Re: Advises for try dualboot again?

You should read Dual Boot with Windows before doing anything.

- / efi (this was probably my problem, since as I understand it, there should only be one efi partition per disk)

Yes, there should only be one EFI partition per disk.
Rodsmith, the author of rEFInd boot manager has some articles about booting that you may find interesting.
There are subtle differences for example between a boot loader like Grub, and a boot manager like rEFInd which he wrote about.

cvong

Member

Registered: 2020-09-22

Posts: 1

Re: Advises for try dualboot again?

I encountered the same problem today. I managed to solve it by running

sudo os-prober

and

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

without having to remove my windows 10.