First time installing Arch

[blazing glacier]

I'm installing Arch for the first time and i'm a bit confused about the setup process. I have partitioned my disk while in a zsh shell and now I'm supposed to mount my linux filesystem partition to /mnt which is the part that confuses me. How do I already have the linux filesystem that /mnt exists within? And when if I mount it to /mnt will there be an entire linux filesystem in there starting at root like this /mtn// ?

[wraith ledge]

have you formatted the partition with mkfs?

[blazing glacier]

yeah

[blazing glacier]

I mean it's not that it doesn't work I just don't understand why

[sand burrow]

.aw installation_guide

[cyan apex]

Arch Wiki: Installation guide

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide

[wraith ledge]

the mkfs command formatted the partition with a filesystem, which allows you to mount it and contains things like a journaling system (depending on the filesystem)

[blazing glacier]

Yeah but mount it to what?

[sand burrow]

After you've done this (ext4 may be replaced with another filesystem in this command) you install linux using the iso

[wraith ledge]

.

[sand burrow]

So the partition which will be root should be mounted to /mnt

and that command installs the OS

[blazing glacier]

If I already have a linux filesystem whats the point of mounting another one to it?

[sand burrow]

you're booted into the iso, so you have a directory from the iso called /mnt
that is where you mount your filesystem to

[sand burrow]

your question is unclear, I recommend you show a picture of your lsblk -f and which partitions you're talking about

[blazing glacier]

I mean sda3

[sand burrow]

and that's what you want to be root, right?

my only confusion is that it doesn't seem to be mounted, so you need to run:
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
and then you can install the core parts of the system

if you mount it, you should find that ls -a /mnt shows no output beyond dots (which indicate current and previous directory)

[blazing glacier]

What confuses me is what I am in rn. I guess I don't really understand what an ISO is? I thought it was just the OSs code that had to be fully installed before it could run

Like am I in a bootloader or what

[sand burrow]

okay so the ISO is pretty much a very minimal operating system designed to install a proper operating system, it comes with software like cfdisk, pacman, the arch-install-scripts

[sand burrow]

the bootloader would be the option to select an OS

[blazing glacier]

When I chose what OS I wanted I thought that was UEFI?

[sand burrow]

so in the iso, you can do (as an example) pacman commands, though only in a limited manner as you can't make many changes to the packages in the iso, if you tried to do pacman -Syu in the ISO, it likely wouldn't work

[sand burrow]

UEFI is more related to the BIOS

the names are frankly, more than a little confusing

[blazing glacier]

I thought UEFI is an alternative to BIOS?

[sand burrow]

essentially yes

but uefi / bios are not the same as bootloader

bootloader is where your kernel sits for the OS

@wraith ledge might be better at explaining it?

[blazing glacier]

Ah so rn im in a minimal version of Arch and I have to configure it to install the rest of the stuff?

And by mounting sda3 to /mnt I create the real filesystem?

[wraith ledge]

well, you do that after mounting it

[blazing glacier]

Create the filesystem that is?

[sand burrow]

you already created the file system, we can see it is ext4

[blazing glacier]

Also the actual Linux file system partition that I formatted with ext4, does it have a root with bin, boot, dev etc inside it that is appended to the mnt directory? Or how does mount really work?

[sand burrow]

okay lets take a step back, lets say I have a disc which has these folders in it:
/pictures
/videos
/music

if I go into the iso, and I do ls -a /mnt nothing beyond the dots to signify current and parent directory should come up

if I then mount the disc with those above directories to /mnt, and run ls -a /mnt again, now it should show us pictures videos music

if all you have done is set the filesystem as ext4, when you mount it to /mnt, it should have no entries in ls -a /mnt

[sand burrow]

after mounting it if you do the command I'm quoting from the above image, you will then have a set of directories be created

You would, at this point, have the very basic elements of a functioning operating system

The next two parts to the installation guide are this:

the fstab basically mounts things, so in this case, your root directory (where your OS is installed) would be in there, and you may add secondary drives, it would also contain your SWAP partition, so that that is booted up on start up.

Chroot gives you preliminary access to your OS through the ISO

by chrooting, you can set your OS up properly, for instance you might want to enable NetworkManager or whatever equivalent you have chosen.

[lyric junco]

Something I thought to mention is if you’re using uefi, make sure to mount your boot partition at /mnt/boot/efi

[sand burrow]

that's optional, some people just do /mnt/boot

[lyric junco]

Is it really? Maybe I was doing something wrong with my install 😂

O well it all worked in the end

[blazing glacier]

This confuses me. Does your disc not have a linux file system starting at root? And if it does why doesn't ls -a /mnt only show /?

[wraith ledge]

What?

[blazing glacier]

Thats how I feel lol. What part of the question is wrong?

[sand burrow]

I made a directory, it's empty, I looked inside of the directory, it shows me current and parent directories (. and ..)

ls just lists what's in a directory

[fluid drum]

ooh

i love these kinds of posts

what difficulty r u facing bud?

ill try my best to resolve it

[sand burrow]

it's turned into mostly a "but how does that work" thread, which is fine, they want to understand as much as possible about the process

[fluid drum]

oh that's cool

[sand burrow]

that's why I'm explaining ls to them

feels like you're taking the thread off topic

[fluid drum]

i think i'm pretty qualified to educate them on the complexities of linux and the installation process

well what would they like to know ?

[sand burrow]

oh of course, just something about your account saying enable video seems, off topic

[fluid drum]

yeah idk what ur trying to articulate

@blazing glacier spit it out private

[wraith ledge]

this is a weird thread

[blazing glacier]

Yeah I know that. This is how I think it works, please explain where im wrong:
Your disc has the "typical" linux filestructure meaning that it starts at / and has all the other typical directories. Inside one of these subdirectories you have /pictures, /videos and /music. When you mount that disc to /mnt doing ls -a inside mount would just show up as ., .. and / since thats the top level directory.

[lyric junco]

Where you’re mistaken here is you aren’t going to mount your ISO, you will mount your other drive because that’s where you will be installing the OS

[sand burrow]

if / is top level, then when you do ls -a /mnt, it's showing the top level of the mounted directly, which is all child directories of /

[sullen apex]

Basically, everything inside of / in that disk goes into /mnt, allowing you to change files in it. A disk has to be mounted in order to change files on it easily

Basically / is /mnt after you copy it, there is no / folder in /mnt

[fluid drum]

/mnt is essentially the root directory /mnt=/

[sullen apex]

Yeah.

[sand burrow]

which means if you do mount /dev/sda3 /mnt and then ls -a /mnt you should only see . .. - current and parent directories

[sullen apex]

And that drive needs to be mounted so you can change the files in it. (To install arch)

Almost always, to change the files in a drive you need to mount it first. And when you do that, everything in the / directory of that drive goes in /mnt

[blazing glacier]

Ah ok so then im basically installing arch into /mnt only?

[wraith ledge]

yes, as your root partition will be mounted there

[proper lodge]

-A is easier to understand (same as -a but w/o the implied . and ..)

[sullen apex]

Yeah, but that is changing the disk, its kindof like the disk is symlinked to that folder, whenever you change that folder its changed on the disk (at least to my knowledge)

[fluid drum]

if you are ever in a pinch and need to recall the functions of a particular function such as "ls" you could always read it's corresponding man page. by typing man<thing you wanna search abt>

[sand burrow]

yes, but that's a mountpoint for when you're in the ISO only, when you boot it up without the ISO, it won't be in /mnt as you won't be using the ISO as an environment

[sullen apex]

Basically, it makes changes to the real disk when you make changes to /mnt

[fluid drum]

@blazing glacier the root directory is the heart of your system think of it as the windows32 folder in windows

or better yet the c:// drive

[wraith ledge]

I think we may be overwhelming them

[fluid drum]

all the other mount points are subordinate to the root directory

[blazing glacier]

I think this is the part that has me confused really. Where does my current mini version of arch exist? In ram?

[fluid drum]

no no i think he's doing okay

[blazing glacier]

slightly lol

[fluid drum]

that's the iso

[sand burrow]

yes

your current version is from the iso and is loaded into memory

[fluid drum]

when ur booting into an iso a mini partition is made where the iso is stored in

[proper lodge]

basically
there's a partition, known to the system as /dev/sda3, right
so to access the files there, we first need a system for file paths and whatnot; something to organize the files and their metadata and separate /home/user/test (some file in home directory) from /usr/bin/test (a command)
once we have such a filesystem, we can attach it to a directory like /mnt with the mount command

[proper lodge]

couldnt it be on the usb depending on boot option

[sand burrow]

important to note you set up a filesystem, then you install an OS on top of the filesystem

[proper lodge]

https://wikiless.sethforprivacy.com/wiki/Mount_(Unix)?lang=en
tl;dr: mount is a command that makes the stuff on a device (a drive or partition) accessible

[sullen apex]

Basically on that iso

[proper lodge]

this is the linux equivalent of creating drive letters for your drives
except you get to choose the names now

[sullen apex]

I mean i think its technically in memory, but you can think of it like its on the usb where you have the iso

[proper lodge]

afaik, yes, and the iso tells the computer how to put it there

[sand burrow]

This is my understanding, but I'm always open to being challenged or corrected, but the problem I have is, if I'm wrong, I also don't particularly care at the moment XD

[proper lodge]

it depends on the size of your boot partition

some can handle being at /mnt/boot and some cant

[proper lodge]

note that if there is data inside the directory it gets moved away until the mount is undone

[blazing glacier]

The filesystem you are speaking of, I assume it exists within sda3? And I basically set that filesystem as the "default" for the iso by mounting it?

[sullen apex]

You shouldnt really have important stufd in /mnt anyeay tho lol

[sullen apex]

Not really.

[proper lodge]

not the default; just the one associated with /mnt at the present moment

[proper lodge]

ehh, you can use it as a place to put random crap you dont wanna keep

[sullen apex]

Basically, sda3 has a load of files, ok? You want to change those files, add some new ones to install arch. However, /dev/sda3 isnt a folder right now. Your os doesnt know what you want to do with it. So you mount it, basically telling your os you want access to the files, and to put those files in /mnt. And after that, you can create all the files that are needed for arch to work.

[sullen apex]

i just put that in ~/Downloads ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[wraith ledge]

stay ontopic

[blazing glacier]

Yes but what files are on there rn? Nothing right?

[proper lodge]

yea and thats a thing in windows too

[proper lodge]

in what, exactly?

/dev/sda3?

[blazing glacier]

sda3

[sullen apex]

Yeah i think so. But you mount it so you can put stuff on there.

[wraith ledge]

your root partition is empty as of now

[sullen apex]

Basically / is empty, but you want to put folders (and files) in there, so you mount it

[blazing glacier]

I think this is where I have it wrong. I thought making the partition type for sda3 linux filesystem and then making it ext4 created like a root directory with /dev /mnt /bin etc inside it which im guessing is not correct?

[proper lodge]

no, as far as i know

[wraith ledge]

setting the type doesn't really do anything

[proper lodge]

that is not true

[wraith ledge]

it's just so things can tell what it is

[proper lodge]

yeah

[sullen apex]

No, thats done after, when installing arch iirc

[wraith ledge]

and formatting it as ext4 just allows data to be stored in it

[proper lodge]

pacstrap is what makes those directories

[sullen apex]

Btw, why choose ext4 and not btrfs?

[proper lodge]

at least in the case of arch

[sand burrow]

I think it's very sensible someone who is installing arch for the first time and is asking questions as basic as these sticks to ext4

[sullen apex]

Ah ok

I didnt realize it was more complicated.

(As i used archinstall )

[sand burrow]

if they want to learn about btrfs, zfs, xfs, and things like subvolumes, that's valid, but I do advise one does not run before they can walk

[blazing glacier]

So when I mount sda3 to /mnt im really just giving the ISO access to that part of my harddrive?

[proper lodge]

it already has access
mount lets programs directly see the files themselves

letting ls (list command) show what's on there

letting rm (remove command) delete what's on there

etc

[sullen apex]

Yeah basically.

[sullen apex]

This is overcomplicating it, stick with what you said tbh

[proper lodge]

yea and you can switch later

[blazing glacier]

Ok but I think of this as the sda3 partition only existing inside /mnt and not being available to everything else?

[proper lodge]

i mean alfons asked so im not gonna lie

[proper lodge]

yeah thats a good way of seeing it

its just an interface

[sullen apex]

Yes exactly.

[proper lodge]

again this is the way that windows makes a c drive be called a c drive

and a d drive be called a d drive

[sullen apex]

(And an e drive be called an e drive )

[wraith ledge]

also we don't know if sda3 is your root partition, it may be something else

[sullen apex]

Yeah, e.g. mine is nvme0n1p2

And i have another that is sda1

[blazing glacier]

But so when I save a file inside for example /home/alfons it still stores it in the sda3 partition existing within /dev?

[wraith ledge]

yes

[sullen apex]

Yep!

[sand burrow]

it is according to the screenshot way way up there

[wraith ledge]

oh

[sullen apex]

.

[proper lodge]

right

you dont need to understand this too much

just treat it like assigning drive letters for now

and theres a page on mounting if you wanna check it out later

.aw mount

[cyan apex]

Arch Wiki: Mount

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mount

[blazing glacier]

Ohhh so mounting it to /mnt is really only to know of its existance and therefore to be able to use it?

[proper lodge]

you're probably looking into this too much though; i advise you just move on

[proper lodge]

pretty much

[blazing glacier]

lmfao thats so much simpler than I thought

[sullen apex]

Basically. Mounting it allows you to access and change all the files in it.

[blazing glacier]

ok cool now I understand lol

[sullen apex]

Nice! If this solved, please prepend [Solved] to the title

[sand burrow]

they're trying to install arch linux for the first time...this isn't solved unless whilst typing all this they've also been installing everything

[sullen apex]

Oh i thought they were just asking about what mounting is, carry on then :p

[blazing glacier]

I haven't. Should I not close this and make another one if I encounter more stuff I don't understand? Because I have to go for a while

[sand burrow]

they're asking questions as they go to get a better grasp of how everything works. Some people just plow through, some people want to understand better, which likely sets them up to be better at fixing issues later on 🙂

[sand burrow]

best just to keep it open I think

[proper lodge]

feel free to continue using this one

[sullen apex]

You can keep it open, and ask here later :v)

[proper lodge]

probably more convenient anyway

[blazing glacier]

Alright ty all so much for your help! 🙂

[sullen apex]

Np, happy to help :D

[proper lodge]

yw

[sand burrow]

For when you come back, remember, the big scary guide is the best, if you're stuck on part of it, just ask a question! Big scary guide below:

.aw installtion_guide

[cyan apex]

No results found

[sand burrow]

fuck you

.aw installation_guide

[cyan apex]

Arch Wiki: Installation guide

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide

[sullen apex]

.aw installation_guide

[cyan apex]

Arch Wiki: Installation guide

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide

[proper lodge]

.aw beginners

[cyan apex]

Arch Wiki: Beginners

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners

[proper lodge]

oh

same thing

[blazing glacier]

lol ok sounds good!

[proper lodge]

beginners is faster to type

[wraith ledge]

.aw installation_guide

[cyan apex]

Arch Wiki: Installation guide

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide

[sand burrow]

the same page 4 times, so you can't really miss it!

[proper lodge]

yep!

@blazing glacier id recommend you get used to reading the archwiki

and if you cant do that

theres a page for that too somehow

.aw reading

[cyan apex]

No results found

[proper lodge]

wait

.aw help:reading

[cyan apex]

Arch Wiki: Help:Reading

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Help:Reading

[proper lodge]

there

[blazing glacier]

Yeah iv'e been reading it a bit

[proper lodge]

good

[blazing glacier]

Is there a reason the colour disappears and the prefix(root@archiso) format changes?

[sand burrow]

to signify that you're chrooted

[blazing glacier]

And what does that mean exactly? That i'm no longer in the root directory?

[wraith ledge]

Basically, you're telling the system to act like the root is at /mnt (where your actual root partition is mounted) instead of / (the ISO's root partition)

[blazing glacier]

And its now grey because im in the ISOs root partition?

[sand burrow]

to put it even more simply
If you ran pacman -S sl when it was red, you would be trying to install the sl package into the iso
now that you're chrooted, if you run pacman -S sl, it will try to install the sl package onto the system you're installing onto the computer

[wraith ledge]

No, you're in your install's root partition

[blazing glacier]

So it being grey means that im in the actual root that I will be using when I've fully installed the system?

[sand burrow]

what Me Derp and I are saying is all the same thing.

You have:

USB STICK:
Arch ISO

Which has the tools for you to build arch on it.
You also have:

SDA:
SDA 1: bootmanager partition
SDA 2: SWAP
SDA 3: Where you are installing arch onto your computer

When you're red you're using the arch ISO to do things.

When you chroot and stop being red you're now using your system.

Pacstrap is an extension of pacman to install the system, but once you are chrooted and you use pacman, you're not using pacman from the arch ISO, you're using pacman from SDA3

(drive and partitions based on your above screenshot)

[sand burrow]

yes

[blazing glacier]

ooh I see. It's quite counterintuitive for it to have color in the temporary version and not in the permanent one no?

[sand burrow]

I don't agree, but I also have no say in that, I'm not a contributor to the code

[blazing glacier]

Ah very well now I understand. Thanks!

[wraith ledge]

well it's a different shell

the ISO uses zsh well the actual system uses bash (of course you can change that, but that's just the default)

[blazing glacier]

one thing that confuses me, why does it still say root@archiso and not just root@arch if I'm now using the system?

[wraith ledge]

chroot just inherits the hostname from the ISO, it will be different once you boot into the system

[blazing glacier]

ah kk

[sand burrow]

@blazing glacier which part of the install guide are you up to?

[blazing glacier]

3.3 in the installation guide. Trying to understand why I have to do everything rather than just do it so it takes a while lol

[sand burrow]

don't forget to have installed something for the internet (like networkmanager), or you'll need to remount and rechroot and install it, presuming you want the machine to be online

[blazing glacier]

It's a vm if that matters and the ping command works even though I haven't installed something for the internet?

[sand burrow]

if it's a VM that's good, as it's just for learning

[blazing glacier]

Does it only have internet connectivity because its a vm?

[sand burrow]

you're in chroot right?

[blazing glacier]

if by chroot you mean the system installed in sda3 yes I thinks so

[sand burrow]

???

no I mean are you loaded live or via the chroot command from the iso

arch-chroot /mnt remember that?

[sand burrow]

^

[blazing glacier]

wdym by loaded live?

[sand burrow]

not using the iso

[blazing glacier]

I thought it was either using the ISO or using what I installed on sda3. Is there another possibility?

[sand burrow]

Okay so:
I installed the ISO on my usb
I used that to install arch, in part via chrooting
I shut down, removed the ISO, and then boot up without the ISO and thus without needing to use arch-chroot

[blazing glacier]

The system you are referring to here is installed on sda3 no?

[sand burrow]

you can access SDA3 by booting up normally (presuming you have a bootloader installed) or via the ISO

think of the ISO as bringing the components to build a ship
chrooting as dry dock
and booting your system as being on the open waters

[blazing glacier]

When you say "in chroot" do you mean that I've chrooted /mnt in which I pacstrapped?

[sand burrow]

yes

that's why I reference the command above

[blazing glacier]

wdym by "dry dock"? An environment in which I assemble the pieces brought by the ISO?

[sand burrow]

I was making an analogy to a ship...

[blazing glacier]

Yes, is the second part of my chat an apt way to describe it?

[sand burrow]

I still don't know where you are

have you booted into sda3 without using arch-chroot? or have you done it via the iso using arch-chroot?

[blazing glacier]

I used arch-chroot

[sand burrow]

then you have internet through the iso

so make sure you install networkmanager or the equivilant

[blazing glacier]

ok but still, I just think of chroot as a command to change where my system thinks root is. I don't understand how I can be "in" chroot

[sand burrow]

you're thinking too hard about the grammar, you are chrooted, that's all I mean

[blazing glacier]

so all I need to know is that the ISO has networktools to connect to the internet while the real install doesn't yet?

[sand burrow]

yes

the iso comes with...I think currently systemd-networkd? or something similar name wise, though I think they're planning to move to NetworkManager at some point in the future

[blazing glacier]

Why would I have to remount and rechroot it? Couldn't I just install it after the fact?

oh nvm because then I won't have the ISO so I cant use those network functions?

[sand burrow]

speaking from very personal experience, whilst it is technically possible to install a networkmanager offline (by getting it from an online machine on a usb stick), it's easier to install it online

pacman -S networkmanager
will result in a 404 error

[lyric junco]

I remember my first arch install, forgot to install network manager and I was so lost for a bit 😂

[sand burrow]

Same

[blazing glacier]

Ok so I have restarted my install on an old pc instead of in virtualbox because virtualbox sucks. Now i'm stuck on the partition step. I have partitioned the disc correctly but now that I want to format it I can't find the swap partition anymore

[fluid drum]

lsblk send output here

[sand burrow]

all you need to do is mount and chroot

[blazing glacier]

I don't need to format them?

[sand burrow]

why would you?

mount something, reboot, it's no longer mounted

it's pretty much that simple

mount something, make changes to it, reboot, the changes are made, it just isn't mounted anymore

why would it be mounted?

it's like if I open firefox, then reboot, firefox isn't open

if I open firefox, bookmark a page, and reboot, again firefox isn't open, but the bookmark exists

[blazing glacier]

Uh what why would the installation guide tell me to format them then?

[sand burrow]

huh?

show me

[blazing glacier]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide#Format_the_partitions

[sand burrow]

yeah...but why would you think you're there?

[blazing glacier]

Did u see this?

[sand burrow]

last you told me you were chrooted, so, you've gone back in the guide, but you haven't said why?

oh are you starting again on a new VM?

[blazing glacier]

no my old laptop cuz virtualbox is really glitchy

[sand burrow]

you are confusing me...

it's really simple

you started installing arch on a VM instance,are you still using that instance?

if no, if you are using a new one, then yeah, restart from the top of the guide

[blazing glacier]

No, instead of a VM on my current pc im doing a real install on an old laptop

[blazing glacier]

Which is what im doing, and i'm running into the problem of not being able to find the swap partition

[sand burrow]

Ahhh I see, what commands did you do to make swap?

[blazing glacier]

I used cfdisk

It looks like this in that environment:

idk if u can see all that much

[sand burrow]

okay, so I see you do have a swap partition, I'm not really understanding your issue

mkswap /dev/swap_partition ?

[blazing glacier]

Yeah but when I look in the dev folder the swap partition isnt there. The other 2 are but not that one

It aint even there when I try to autocomplete it

[sand burrow]

it'd be /dev/ first

mkswap /dev/mmcblk0p2

[blazing glacier]

no like i am in /dev

im doing mkswap mmcblk0 inside /dev. Idk why it doesn't append a / to it

[sand burrow]

hmmm, I don't know

I guess go back a step and try it again

just like, delete the partitions you made completely, and then make them all again

Just make sure if you're writing using cfdisk you type 'yes', not 'y' for example:

[blazing glacier]

Same outcome following your instructions :/

[sand burrow]

lsblk still isn't showing the swap partition?

[blazing glacier]

nope

[sand burrow]

and if you look at that disk in cfdisk it shows swap?

[blazing glacier]

yeap

[sand burrow]

don't know what to say about that, I've just done it in a vm and I've got no issues...

I guess you could try with fdisk instead if you wanted, but I don't know what it's happening

and I doubt it's a cfdisk error so that probably won't help

so for fdisk I think you'd do:

g
n
enter
enter
+512M
t
1
n
enter
enter
+4g
t
19
n
enter
enter
enter
w

g = gpt label
n for new partition
t for I don't know, but it sets the partition type
1 == efi
19 == swap
and default I think is just linux filesystem

[blazing glacier]

What are all these other things fdisk sees? Like mmcblk0boot thats just 4MiB.

[sand burrow]

I mean I don't know what mm device is

sda tends to be a solid state drive

[blazing glacier]

Think sda is the USB

[sand burrow]

do you have a phone connected to your laptop?

[blazing glacier]

nope

just the usb and a powercable

[sand burrow]

how big is the usb?

[blazing glacier]

16gb

[sand burrow]

is the usb /dev/sda?

[blazing glacier]

yeah I think so

[sand burrow]

lol

pretty sure you've partitioned /sda instead of the hard drive whilst you did all this

[blazing glacier]

no

when I do cfdisk with no arguments it defaults to sda

[sand burrow]

no?

[blazing glacier]

But I did cfdisk /dev/mmclk0

[sand burrow]

why does your usb have efi and swap?

[blazing glacier]

Hm I might have partitioned both

Cuz mmcblk0 is also partitioned that way

Have I messed up the ISO?

[sand burrow]

yes, but you can just repartition and mkfs the usb and flash it again

[blazing glacier]

Is there a guide somewhere for how I should repartition it?

[sand burrow]

it's the same process

[blazing glacier]

No like in what way should I partition the USB?

[sand burrow]

exfat maybe?

depends what computers you're going to use it on

if it's only for the iso, I'd go for ext4

[blazing glacier]

eh im loosing my patience ima use rufus lol

[sand burrow]

I mean worst comes to the worst you could setup a swap file instead I guess

[blazing glacier]

alright back to step one now lol

[sand burrow]

making mistakes is how you learn 🙂

[blazing glacier]

For sure, soon ill know how to do it with closed eyes lmao

ah now I can see the swap file! Ty

[sand burrow]

I wonder if you formatted your usb and that caused issues to stop you seeing it, it's hard to know when you did that 😛

[blazing glacier]

yeah that probably was it

[sand burrow]

how is it going now?

[blazing glacier]

This about sums it up

[wraith ledge]

can you mount it?

[sand burrow]

should be able to

I don't understand though

why do you keep cding into /dev

[blazing glacier]

the error never stops printing if I try to mount it even after I do ctrl + c

[wraith ledge]

ah

[blazing glacier]

idk I think I did it to see if mmcblk0p2 was there and then I didn't bother doing cd ..
Is it a problem?

[sand burrow]

I assume not but I've never done it

you can literally just do an ls command

but lsblk is the thing most people do

if mkfs is causing issues it could be either a dying or dead drive, or maybe so old ext4 is too modern

[blazing glacier]

I mean it's a low-end laptop but I bought it like a year ago ish

How can I solve this?

[sand burrow]

have you tried googling the errors?

[blazing glacier]

Can't find anything that has the same error code

So I tried to download smartmontools to diagnose my harddrive which didn't work. Even though I installed smartmontools with pacman it says it wont execute and completion _smartmontools exists but I can't use that either

[sand burrow]

there are some suggestions in #tech-general right now

[proper lodge]

@blazing glacier can you try using smaller partitions and running mkfs again

[blazing glacier]

Yeah I gave up

[tired vigil]

oh great heavens man

[proper lodge]

tbh i forgor what was happening

just add [SOLVED] to the start of the title

[fluid drum]

well that was a journey and a half