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I've installed Arch several times on "regular" pc, using the EFI system,
using the "manual" way to do it, no ArchInstall. so I have a quite good experience about it.
Now I'm trying to installl Arch Linux on a chromebook, in dual boot, but I'm unsure how to install grub.
I'd like, for now, to use it in dual boot mode, keeping the ChromeOs until I'm sure Arch woks well.
Following the MrChromebox.tech instructions I've successfully installed the RW_LEGACY Firmware,
shrinked the os disk occupation with the CRAP utility, and got so a large (32gb) free space.
The boot with the arch pen drive goes smooth, and I'm able to start the cfdisk program that shows me the
format of the internal emmc drive, containing 12 partitions and the free space available.
The structure of the disk is in gpt partition style.
Now its not clear to me if I need to make a single partion (/) or two (/ and /boot)
or if /boot can be simply a directory of the main partition.
I tried an install with a single partion (without /boot subdir), but
when the system tried to make initramfs it complained about the missing /boot.
So what do I have to do ?
One or two partitions ? /boot as subdir or not ?
Do I have to install grub or not and if I must, where ? (I'd like not to destroy the default boot system of ChromeOs)
Do I need to create a bios boot partition ? (I suppose no)
I suppose the initial boot stage will be handled by coreboot, so how can I tell it to recognize my linux instance ?
Any suggestion ?
Last edited by Maurizio Ferreira (2026-01-28 21:12:51)
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As suggested in the Chrultrabook site:
When choosing where to create the EFI system partition (ESP) for your Linux installation, you can reformat and use ChromeOS' ESP (partition 12) as it is not used by ChromeOS. This also avoids edk2 trying to boot from the ChromeOS ESP by default.
I tried to use partition 12 as boot, mounted under /boot
(part 13 (30 Gb) is mounted as /)
The problem is that such partition is too small (only 30 Mb)
and when the system tries to build the initcpio image it runs out of space.
Any suggestion ?
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After several attempts i solved the problem.
The trick was to have the file in the partition 12 in a directoy called /EFI/boot
and it must be called bootx64.efi
The command grub-install creates a file with a different name in a different directory
I had to move and rename it in the right position.
Currently I have separated efi (part 12) and boot (part 14) partitions,
Almost certainly I could have a single partition.
Summarizing I have the following partitions:
part12 32 Mb type EFI System mounted on /efi
part13 300 Mb type Bios boot not mounted (residue of unsuccessful experiments)
part14 300 Mb type EFI System mounted on /boot (It could almost certainly be of type linux filesystem ext4)
part15 39,5 Gb type Linux FileSystem ext4 mounted on / Containing Arch Linux.The absolute path of the boot file is then:
/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
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