Arch Linux

rennradler

Member

Registered: 2017-07-09

Posts: 7

Two Arch Installations with systemd-boot

Hi,

I want to have two Arch installations in parallel with systemd-boot. I got a new laptop and want to do a fresh installation of Arch. However I want to keep the installation from the old laptop for some time, because it takes time to install and configure the system. Meanwhile I want to be able to boot into the old installation.

Here is what I did:

1. Installation of Ach with BTRFS.
2. Created as subvolume @old_arch and put the content of the root file system from the old laptop into that subvolume.
3. Created entries for systemd-boot.
Now, all works fine. There is one problem I still have to solve: I need two kernels and two initramfs.  To get things started I did that manually. I renamed the versions from the old installation to vmlinuz-linux-old_arch and initramfs-linux-old_arch.img.

This is not a good long-term solution because I will run into problems with kernel updates. What configuration files do I have to change to make my setup work?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 20,219

Re: Two Arch Installations with systemd-boot

Multiple ways around it, the simplest is probably to make distinct directories on your ESP and then mount those subdirectories to /boot via bind mounts: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/EFI_sy … bind_mount (or more generally that entire subsection contains ways of automating this)

Last edited by V1del (2022-11-16 15:22:00)

rennradler

Member

Registered: 2017-07-09

Posts: 7

Re: Two Arch Installations with systemd-boot

Thanks very much! I used the manual method via bind. Works perfectly.

Last edited by rennradler (2022-11-16 17:16:56)