Two arch installations on two different devices. Grub override problem

lesuwx · 2024-01-14 15:52:12

Hello,
i want to have two different arch installations on seperate nvme ssds. I already have one on my primary ssd and i want another arch installation on my second ssd for home office.

I just tried installing the second installation on my secondary drive. So far almost everything seems to be fine. Just had some issues with the keyring pgp error but got that resolved.

After installing GRUB to the secondary device my primary device is not visible anymore in the uefi boot menu.

When installing grub from live usb again on the main device it reappears but the secondary devicec vanishes.

How can i prevent them from removing each other in my uefi firmware settings?

Thanks for ur help

Last edited by lesuwx (2024-01-14 15:52:31)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2024-01-14 16:13:49

Please share the full grub-install commands along with the output of this command for both situations:

efibootmgr -u

Are you sharing a single EFI system partition for the two systems?

lesuwx · 2024-01-14 16:26:21

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Please share the full grub-install commands along with the output of this command for both situations:
efibootmgr -u
Are you sharing a single EFI system partition for the two systems?

No they do not share the efi system partition. Each device has their own ef00 partition. I set them both up like the example in the arch install wiki

BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 1 seconds
No BootOrder is set; firmware will attempt recovery
Boot0000* GRUB	HD(1,GPT,7d54694f-815a-4ade-b9b7-a20f440f42cc,0x800,0x1dd000)/File(\EFI\GRUB\grubx64.efi)
Boot0004* UEFI: VerbatimSTORE N GO 5.00	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x2)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/USB(7,0)/CDROM(1,0x1b2000,0x1e000)
Boot0005* UEFI: VerbatimSTORE N GO 5.00, Partition 2	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x2)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/USB(7,0)/HD(2,MBR,0x233ea223,0x1b2000,0x7800)

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

i will attach an image of the ouput for the above command

I searched around a bit and i think the efibootmgr command should somehow resolve the issue, but i was not able to to set it up correctly yet. The entries reset after a reboot. Probably because the entries i tried to add were not correct.

Scimmia · 2024-01-14 16:31:35

If they're there after grub-install but are gone after boot, that means you have stupid firmware that tries to 'helpfully' clean up for you. The only option is to use the --removable flag if you really, really need separate bootloaders.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2024-01-14 16:32:47

Perhaps try a different --bootloader-id option for each entry. The firmware might be getting confused by the same paths in both entries.

And why are you using the ESP for /boot/? That's not needed with GRUB and the FAT filesystem breaks very easily so it should probably be avoided as much as possible. Most distributions mount the ESP under /boot/efi/ for GRUB and the grub-install command presumes that.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2024-01-14 16:49:36)

Scimmia · 2024-01-14 16:35:50

Please don't recommend the old, deprecated /boot/efi. There's nothing wrong with using the ESP at /boot, but if you want it elsewhere, use /efi.

You definitely need different IDs, I hadn't considered that wasn't being done.

lesuwx · 2024-01-14 16:46:43

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Perhaps try a different --bootloader-id option for each entry. The firmware might be getting confused by the same paths in both entries. .

This solved the issue, thanks!

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

And why are you using the ESP for /boot/? That's not needed with GRUB and the FAT filesystem breaks very easily so it should probably be avoided as much as possible. Most distributions mount the ESP under /boot/efi/ for GRUB and the grub-install command presumes that.

I do not really understand that. I just followed the wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#Installation . When i install arch again, should i just type /boot/efi for esp? Isn't that just another folder? Also the FAT filesystem was used in the wiki so i took that for the boot partition. I mostly just used this all the time because it seemed to work fine and i somewhat understand whats happening (or so i thought )

Head_on_a_Stick · 2024-01-14 16:49:03

I'm going to defer to Scimmia on this subject so please disregard that section of my post.

Arch Linux

#1 2024-01-14 15:52:12

Two arch installations on two different devices. Grub override problem

#2 2024-01-14 16:13:49

Re: Two arch installations on two different devices. Grub override problem

#3 2024-01-14 16:26:21

Re: Two arch installations on two different devices. Grub override problem

#4 2024-01-14 16:31:35

Re: Two arch installations on two different devices. Grub override problem

#5 2024-01-14 16:32:47

Re: Two arch installations on two different devices. Grub override problem

#6 2024-01-14 16:35:50

Re: Two arch installations on two different devices. Grub override problem

#7 2024-01-14 16:46:43

Re: Two arch installations on two different devices. Grub override problem

#8 2024-01-14 16:49:03

Re: Two arch installations on two different devices. Grub override problem

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