Installed Arch but Grub doesn't show on boot, the SSD with Arch on it does not show as a boot option

[vagrant coral]

So I Installed Arch but Grub doesn't show on boot, the SSD with Arch on it does not show as a boot option either, could someone help me fix i t?

[hoary smelt]

do you know how to chroot? @vagrant coral

[vagrant coral]

I'm going through archinstall for the third time but I can be In choot in around 2 mins, bear with

Also I've never seen it before, should Unified Kernel Images be on or off?

[hoary smelt]

do you know if you need unified kernel images?

[vagrant coral]

That's gonna be a no,

Tbh have no idea what there for

[hoary smelt]

some mobo manufacturers are aholes and use their own UEFI that doesn't recognize certain kernels, only solution is the one mentioned

there's other uses for them but typically no, not something you use

[vagrant coral]

I'll leave it off for now then and go from there, what do I do in Choot now btw?

[hoary smelt]

did you mount root and boot

unexpected Dr. Seuss

[vagrant coral]

Gonna be honest I feel like fred Flintstone rn

How do I mount em

[solar rain]

it's not kernel related, but, it could be they need to do grub-install with the --removable flag at the end

[hoary smelt]

wiki makes mention of Lenovo and Dell for the use of it if I recall correctly it's not useful info for this case I think anyways

[vagrant coral]

This is where I'm at rn

[solar rain]

lsblk -f
tell us which is your root and which is your esp (for grub)

.aw grub

[sacred talon]

Grub

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Grub

[hoary smelt]

that looks mounted to me

[vagrant coral]

Unsure if that's clear enough

[hoary smelt]

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

[solar rain]

what mount command did you use for root?

[wanton solar]

https://discord.com/channels/399812551963049995/1193289348813176842 old thread

[hoary smelt]

it's also btrfs

[vagrant coral]

Fixed the windows portion of it

[wanton solar]

how?

[vagrant coral]

I used the archinstall setup

[vagrant coral]

Ended up pulling out a 256gb sata ssd I had and used that

[solar rain]

oh this is you selecting to be chrooted into it post archinstall but before you reboot?

[vagrant coral]

Yep

[solar rain]

can you edit your tags for this to say it's archinstall?

[vagrant coral]

Oh yeah mb

[hoary smelt]

it looks chrooted to me but then that prompt is deceiving

[solar rain]

they just said they selected the chroot action post install

it's at the end of the archinstall script, last TUI option

[hoary smelt]

@solar rain this means they rebooted

[solar rain]

can you show us ls /boot/

[solar rain]

yeah I think they ended up just reinstalling arch again when it didn't work though, otherwise they'd be able to provide the mount command they would've used to mount the system

[hoary smelt]

if that's the case we are looking at something else, the install script does the grub-mkconfig part too

[solar rain]

I don't know if the archinstall script will install grub with the --removable
but we could also look at boot options using efibootmgr

[vagrant coral]

EFI amd-ucode.img grub initramfs-linux-fallback.img initramfs-linux-zen.img initramfs-linux.img vmlinuz-linux.img vmlinuz-linux-zen

[solar rain]

and ls /boot/EFI

[vagrant coral]

"BOOT"

[solar rain]

it's interesting that there isn't a grub.cfg in /boot/ actually

wait no it's not

it'll be inside of /boot/grub

I'm silly

[hoary smelt]

https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/blob/f107104103b74ac065a56bd94a0878f0d263e177/archinstall/lib/installer.py#L950C8-L950C8

[vagrant coral]

fonts grub.cfg grubenv locale themes x86_64-efi

[solar rain]

hmmm

fair enough

.s ix

[sacred talon]

<command to print output> |& curl -F 'f:1=<-' ix.io

[hoary smelt]

.s rs

[sacred talon]

<command to print output> |& curl --data-binary @- https://paste.rs

[solar rain]

nah that's down

yeah rs

[hoary smelt]

we lost the best one lol

[solar rain]

efibootmgr |& curl --data-binary @- https://paste.rs
cam you give is the output of that please @vagrant coral

[vagrant coral]

Yeah can do, bear with

[solar rain]

I wonder if it's just a matter of changing your boot order, which, can be done with efibootmgr anyway

[solar rain]

hmm, can you show me: ping archlinux.org

oh wait

there's a space

@-<SPACE>https://paste.rs

you've done it without a space

just do up arrow to get last command, and then you can edit it

[vagrant coral]

https://paste.rs/A5E09

[hoary smelt]

it's not even there

[solar rain]

which is, well, weird

[solar rain]

sda1 is what you're using as boot, so, maybe lets rerun the grub install commands

[vagrant coral]

So go back to installer?

[solar rain]

do this one:
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB --recheck

[vagrant coral]

Oh aight

[solar rain]

I mean I think manual installation is the way to go anyway

And then:
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

[hoary smelt]

do we still want --removable

[solar rain]

and then this one again

[solar rain]

if it doesn't work I think efibootmgr should tell us, in which case we can just do it with --removable and see what happens

[hoary smelt]

we can also just add the entry with efibootmgr that will do the trick

grub already uses it to make the entry

[solar rain]

efibootmgr |& curl --data-binary @- https://paste.rs

[hoary smelt]

efibootmgr output?

[solar rain]

lets see what's there

[hoary smelt]

you beat me to it

[vagrant coral]

https://paste.rs/0SPuo

[solar rain]

now we're cooking with gas

it's even set as the top boot order position

unless Legend see's a problem

[hoary smelt]

no I see no issue, the boot order does and doesn't matter if the other items are not plugged in

it should boot if it's the only bootable device in use

[vagrant coral]

So should I try boot and see what happens?

[solar rain]

exit, umount -a /mnt shutdown -0 remove the iso and boot up

[vagrant coral]

So 2 issues,

And the other windows drive doesn't show up as a bootable option

[solar rain]

hmmm, odd, go back into the iso, and mount root and boot again?

[hoary smelt]

this part is an easy solve from within Arch no need to chroot

but since we are going to chroot, might as well take care of it there

[vagrant coral]

So turn it off, and load back up the iso right

[hoary smelt]

any reason for the zen kernel?

[vagrant coral]

Got recommended it over the base one due to apparently better performance in certain things

[hoary smelt]

hmm, @solar rain any knowledge on that one?

[vagrant coral]

Was something like "The normal kernel is designed for servers while the zen kernel is designed more so for home and game performance."

[hoary smelt]

I need a wiki source for that one

[vagrant coral]

My install guide was this tbh 💀

https://youtu.be/Y2-j12jU8IU?si=pXujrKL0-V1HX25z

It worked before aswell on my old laptop

But yeah

[solar rain]

marginal and not worth having installed for most people, but not a problem, once root and boot are remounted, hopefully just a matter of reinstalling the kernel

.aw installation_guide

[sacred talon]

Installation guide

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

[solar rain]

this is now your installation guide

[vagrant coral]

Understood

[hoary smelt]

Master Chief can't do anything without Cortana, we can't trust him

[vagrant coral]

Just to be sure though this is correct right

[hoary smelt]

everything that was suggested previously we are doing again

[solar rain]

yes but without doing the archinstall script

the problem of windows isn't a problem, it's just not setup yet, the problem of not being able to boot IS a problem

[vagrant coral]

Connect to WiFi yet or nah aswell

[solar rain]

a problem that we will try to fix by mounting root, mounting boot, chrooting in, and THEN doing pacman -S linux-zen linux-zen-headers
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

[solar rain]

yes

[wanton solar]

why the zen kernel?

[hoary smelt]

already asked and answered above

[solar rain]

because that's what the user has chosen to use

[wanton solar]

this?

[solar rain]

mount -o subvol=@ /dev/sda2> /mnt
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

[solar rain]

this is not a debate thread

[hoary smelt]

I may know nothing on zen but it's officially supported so we go with that

[solar rain]

these commands will mount your root subvolume and your esp (for your bootloader)

can you not? This is a support thread, user has made a choice, they can revise that later if they wish, you're just adding noise for them to read and that's NOT helpful. They want a bootable system first and foremost.

in fact, lets delete that.

#tech-general for debating the pros and cons of linux vs inux-zen.

[wanton solar]

fair

[vagrant coral]

If your wanting them as separate commands, this is the first command reply.

[hoary smelt]

we never chrooted, you missed a step

[wanton solar]

@vagrant coral it's pacman -Sy for the iso

[hoary smelt]

@vagrant coral

[solar rain]

you're jumping ahead

I want to make sure you've mounted the two partitions first, if you've done that, let me know

you don't bake the cake ingredients and then mix them, you mix them then bake them, the process has an order to it, right now you're not in your system you're in the ISO, let me know when you've mounted the partitions as I suggested above

[vagrant coral]

I do apologize if I'm just being a dunce about this, but how do I know what ones root and boot?

[hoary smelt]

which drive is it again?

[solar rain]

sda 1 is boot and 2 is root

[solar rain]

^^^

I gave the commands that I think should work, I'm assuming / is called subvol @, unless you or archinstall is being weird about it

[hoary smelt]

umm

[wanton solar]

@vagrant coral you put a space between sda2 and >

[hoary smelt]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/chroot#Running_on_Btrfs

[vagrant coral]

Removed space and redid, still same message

[hoary smelt]

@vagrant coral

[wanton solar]

@vagrant coral that command should ™️ be ran all at once

[hoary smelt]

please read the wiki

[solar rain]

oh sirry

no >

that's a typo

mount -o subvol=@ /dev/sda2 /mnt

and they should be run seperately

once root is mounted to /mnt then /mnt/boot exists, meaning sda1 can then be mounted there

[vagrant coral]

And just to be sure, how can I confirm there mounted

[solar rain]

lsblk -f

[solar rain]

try arch-chroot /mnt

and then re-run lsblk -f

[solar rain]

see now you're in your system and not the iso, how the mountpoint changes?

have a think on that 🙂

now pacman -S linux-zen linux-zen-headers and see if there are any errors

[wanton solar]

shouldn't it be sy?

[hoary smelt]

no

[vagrant coral]

It's finished running, it downloaded a few things and ended with "image generation successful"

[hoary smelt]

we can now fix the dual boot issue

pacman -S osprober

then osprober

[solar rain]

no, they're chrooted

[solar rain]

nope, that's wrong

edit /etc/default/grub so that os-prober is enabled

[hoary smelt]

I noticed that

it's os-prober

[solar rain]

won't do shit though

grub-mkconfig needs to call it

[solar rain]

^^^

[hoary smelt]

it should find the Win install, we are probably going to have to mount it anyways

[solar rain]

it may or may not, mounting it makes it less likely to err, and if it still doesn't we need to boot into windows and disable fast start up, though that hopefully won't be needed

[hoary smelt]

my solution has always been mount the boot Win partition and os-prober confirms it's available for grub

that's how I did it

[vagrant coral]

So am I editing the file or

[hoary smelt]

yes, it's the last line

[vagrant coral]

It's already set to false for being disabled

[hoary smelt]

remove the comment

the #

then save, then rerun grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

[solar rain]

At some point you want to add the windows partition to /etc/fstab

[wanton solar]

we can do that with a gui later

[solar rain]

Why do we want to use a gui for something like that?

[hoary smelt]

mkdir /mnt/win

we just need grub to see the .efi

[wanton solar]

for nothing to go wrong?

[hoary smelt]

that's all that's required

[solar rain]

You advocate for things for the weirdest reasons

[vagrant coral]

Done

[hoary smelt]

I think they prefer gui more than terminal

lsblk again please

is the win install on the nvme?

[vagrant coral]

Yeah it's an NVME

[hoary smelt]

mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/win

rerun grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

during that output it should like the Win .efi file, I can't recall what it's called, something along the lines of BOOTX64.efi

[vagrant coral]

Permission denied, tried as sudo but says command isn't found

[hoary smelt]

screenshot?

[wanton solar]

@vagrant coral you forgot the mount command

[vagrant coral]

Oh my god my bad

💀

[hoary smelt]

pacman -S os-prober

then run os-prober

[solar rain]

oh I thought this had already been done, whoops

[hoary smelt]

no I made the mistake earlier

osprober != os-prober

[solar rain]

been bouncing around between cooking, eating, feeding the dog, and this tread 😛

[hoary smelt]

living the good life

[hoary smelt]

boot into arch for now, that's where I've always done it

when you login, do we need to mount the win boot partition like we did above

re run the os-prober command with sudo this time

[wanton solar]

after that, I highly recommended installing a grub theme

[solar rain]

No

[hoary smelt]

that's not important at all

[solar rain]

No

Just rerun grub-mkconfig command above

That will trigger os-prober

[vagrant coral]

Now it's booting into windows instead of grub

[hoary smelt]

just select it from UEFI

it's there

[wanton solar]

save this for the very last step

[hoary smelt]

how is this important?

[solar rain]

That’s not functional though is it?

Just how it looks

[wanton solar]

it's optional

[hoary smelt]

that was not requested

if so, sure

[hoary smelt]

booting into their two OS' seems to be priority

[hoary smelt]

oh boy

[solar rain]

@hoary smelt with grub you never run os-prober as a command, you just install os-prober, enable it in /etc/default/grub and then rerun the mkconfig command

[vagrant coral]

Is my install just botched?

[hoary smelt]

you can

I check first with it make sure it's being found

[solar rain]

Nope, just go into the iso, remount, chroot, and then check in efibootmgr to see which one is being selected and then put grub at the top

[solar rain]

You see it in the output anyway- totally redundant

[hoary smelt]

it's how I've always done it, dual booting for a long time now, you're probably right though

[vagrant coral]

So I've done all the steps apart from efibootmgr, how could I check it?

[hoary smelt]

rerun grub-mkconfig again

it's gone again

@vagrant coral

[vagrant coral]

Spat out a bunch of code and finished with "done"

[hoary smelt]

efibootmgr

we'll set boot order this time

[hoary smelt]

there's no way I think it is what I think it is

open /etc/default/grub and add the # back to the last line

[solar rain]

what..

[hoary smelt]

it's gone again

[solar rain]

yeah that's not related to os-prober

that makes 0 sense

[hoary smelt]

it was just working that was the only change

[solar rain]

now we have an actual problem

is can't be os-prober, but sure, try that if you want...

[hoary smelt]

I mean that was the only change, hence my there's no way

just backtracking here that's all

[solar rain]

the other change is that we've had a reboot

[hoary smelt]

did the last grub-mkconfig look like this?

[vagrant coral]

Yeah

[solar rain]

that shouldn't be an issue, because that's just making the config

[solar rain]

grub-install is the relevant command...

[vagrant coral]

That's after I commented the thing again, re ran the command and did the efibootmgr

[solar rain]

nothing you've done explains why it's disappeared

[hoary smelt]

I guess we do --removable this time around

or do this

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#Default/fallback_boot_path

the mv part, we know it's installed

[solar rain]

in bios is secureboot enabled?

[vagrant coral]

If I remember right no. The ISO would refuse to boot with secure boot turned on.

Cause it wasn't signed or something like that

[solar rain]

okay it isn't that then

I’m out of ideas now as to why it would and then wouldn’t show up seemingly just from rebooting

@opaque ruin boot manager shows up when installed according to efibootmgr- and then when the computer restarts it might show it once, but then after that not again…

[vagrant coral]

I've also tried the removable thing and no luck either.

[hoary smelt]

the directory is wrong

[opaque ruin]

You need to replace esp with the location of your EFI partition

[solar rain]

That’s not really the issue though, even when done correctly it’s found grub, and then forgotten the partition exists from a bootable partition perspective

[opaque ruin]

Yeah I know, I was just saying what was wrong with that part

[hoary smelt]

@vagrant coral not an MSI motherboard is it?

[vagrant coral]

Nah, it's an Asus board

A b550

[hoary smelt]

I think we try this and reboot a few times makes sure it sticks

[hoary smelt]

@vagrant coral sorry

[vagrant coral]

Nah it's all good :)

[opaque ruin]

You could try and see if another bootloader like systemd-boot works, although I doubt it's a bootloader issue

[vagrant coral]

If worst comes to worst I might just wipe the drive completely and try do a manual install instead of using the archlinux installer

[solar rain]

I don’t think it’s an issue with arch-install as we manually did grub-install