Arch Linux

kayegui

Member

Registered: 2022-12-20

Posts: 17

[SOLVED] Newbie trouble with USB flash installation medium

Hello Friends!

I'm following the steps in:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/USB_fl … ion_medium

in the section:

2.1.1 In GNU/Linux

It says,

Unmount the FAT file system, install the syslinux and mtools packages and run the following commands to make the partition bootable:
# umount /mnt
# syslinux --directory syslinux --install /dev/sdXn
# dd bs=440 count=1 conv=notrunc if=/usr/lib/syslinux/bios/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdX

First of all, it seems syslinux and mtools are already installed in my system (?), as I have found out via the apt install command:

syslinux is already the newest version (3:6.04~git20190206.bf6db5b4+dfsg1-3+b1)
mtools is already the newest version (4.0.26-1)

Secondly, I do not have the directory
/usr/lib/syslinux/bios/

but I do have this directory
/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr
in which there is a mbr.bin file

How should I proceed? 

Thank you for your time!

Last edited by kayegui (2023-01-08 19:32:40)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,480

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Newbie trouble with USB flash installation medium

So the only question is whether debian's /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr/mbr.bin is the same as archlinux's /usr/lib/syslinux/bios/mbr.bin?  I'm pretty sure that's a safe bet, but if you really want to know you'd need to compare checksums and / or look at how the respective packages are installed*.  We can't really know what debian does.

But on the bigger picture - why are you even trying to use that "manual" method?

* for arch see lines 98/99 here and if I'm reading it right (which is far from a sure thing) line 13 here for debian which confirms these are the same file.

Last edited by Trilby (2022-12-25 19:08:13)

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

kayegui

Member

Registered: 2022-12-20

Posts: 17

Re: [SOLVED] Newbie trouble with USB flash installation medium

But on the bigger picture - why are you even trying to use that "manual" method?

Because I read this:

This method is more complicated than writing the image directly with dd, but it does keep the flash drive usable for data storage

I want to be able to use the flash drive as a storage device as well.

But anyway, there's another method? Are you referring to something called "arch install"? I've seen a video on youtube where the guy was saying that installing archlinux nowadays is no longer difficult due to the fact that "arch install" is in the archlinus iso.  However when I mounted the iso, I did not find any such file.

Going back to installing, it looks like I've finally created the archlinux live USB.  I will now attempt to use the USB flash drive to install archlinux onto my laptop hard drive.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,480

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Newbie trouble with USB flash installation medium

But anyway, there's another method?

Just using `dd` or similar which has the downside that any data on the flash drive would be lost.  I'm just surprised that this would be a concern anymore: flash drives are a dime a dozen.  I have a junk drawer full of them - it seems odd to me to not have access to one that you wouldn't mind - at least temporarily - being unusable for other data storage.

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

kayegui

Member

Registered: 2022-12-20

Posts: 17

Re: [SOLVED] Newbie trouble with USB flash installation medium

Hey I don't know what's wrong with my archlinux live usb:

Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)...ok
:: running early hook [udev]
Starting systemd-udevd version 252.2-2-arch
:: running early hook [archiso_pxe_nbd]
:: running hook [udev]
:: Triggering uevents...
:: running hook [memdisk]
:: running hook [archiso]
:: running hook [archiso_loop_mnt]
:: running hook [archiso_pxe_common]
:: running hook [archiso_pxe_nbd]
:: running hook [archiso_pxe_http]
:: running hook [archiso_pxe_nfs]
:: Mounting '/dev/disk/by-label/ARCH_202212' to '/run/archiso/bootmnt'
Waiting 30 seconds for device /dev/disk/by-label/ARCH_202212 ...
ERROR: '/dev/disk/by-label/ARCH_202212' device did not show up after 30 seconds...
  Falling back to interactive prompt
  You can try to fix the problem manually, log out when you are finished
sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
[rootfs ]#

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,480

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Newbie trouble with USB flash installation medium

There's a troubleshooting section on the wiki page you are following:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/USB_fl … leshooting

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

d.ALT

Member

Registered: 2019-05-10

Posts: 959

Re: [SOLVED] Newbie trouble with USB flash installation medium

Ehm... You'd maybe better simply using Ventoy, if you still need your USB to have left space to be available.

---

<49,17,III,I>    Fama di loro il mondo esser non lassa;
<50,17,III,I>    misericordia e giustizia li sdegna:
<51,17,III,I>    non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa.