Arch Linux

BlackMastermind

Member

Registered: 2017-01-17

Posts: 45

[SOLVED] no grub after installing linux-lts

So this just happened on two separate systems:

I wanted to install linux-lts to work around a driver regression in 5.19. So I did

pacman -S linux-lts linux-lts-headers

I rebooted, and linux-lts didn't appear in my boot menu. Then I remembered I forgot to update the grub config, so I ran:

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

It spat out some lines, and seemed to find the newly added linux-lts kernel.

Then I rebooted again and I got no more grub menu. I just got a black screen, and then the system rebooted and I got dumped into the UEFI bios screen.

In both cases, I got it working again by booting from the Arch installation USB and reinstalling Grub with:

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

So the issue is resolved, but I would really like to understand what happened.

In my understanding, the grub installation and grub configuration are two separate things. They reside on separate partitions. Updating the config (assuming it's a valid config) with grub-mkconfig shouldn't break the installation, should it? What am I missing here?

Last edited by BlackMastermind (2022-10-08 20:35:29)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,660

Re: [SOLVED] no grub after installing linux-lts

https://archlinux.org/news/grub-bootloa … ibilities/

A one time regression in the config format that was incompatible with the older GRUB version. Your general understanding is correct, but the GRUB version in question was pushed in order to mitigate a few CVEs/security issues, and it happened to include this unintended side effect. The newer GRUB update packages will have warned you about this on install.

Last edited by V1del (2022-10-08 17:26:58)

BlackMastermind

Member

Registered: 2017-01-17

Posts: 45

Re: [SOLVED] no grub after installing linux-lts

https://archlinux.org/news/grub-bootloa … ibilities/

A one time regression in the config format that was incompatible with the older GRUB version. Your general understanding is correct, but the GRUB version in question was pushed in order to mitigate a few CVEs/security issues, and it happened to include this unintended side effect. The newer GRUB update packages will have warned you about this on install.

That explains it, thanks!