#[Solved] Fresh Arch Install and Live ISO reboots after initramfs EXCEPT with Ventoy

25 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

tall temple
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Hello, I'm trying to get an installed Arch to run on an old Laptop, but the process seems to always lead to a reboot after the "initramfs"

This has a lot of details so please bear with me while I unpack it all

Boting Live ISO burned to a USB

This presents the same or a similar issue, Arch just does not boot, the Live Media ISO goes as far as starting udev hooks and then it's a black screen, regardless of BIOS or UEFI, I have tried both and although unimportant there is no secure boot or tpm enabled, if I let it go on like that it reboots/turns off at some point

Booting Live ISO through Ventoy

Apparently, the Live ISO only boots correctly when running it from Ventoy, I have tried looking at how Ventoy functions and the weird thing is that it seems to just use an older version of GRUB (This is important later) and being more specific it emulates a CDROM for the ISO at runtime to boot from

Installation details

Being able to run the Live ISO from Ventoy I am able to install arch completely normally, all applications are working, my hardware is responsive and working as expected, I complete the installation with minute details on a .txt file I'll attach, then I install GRUB, configure it and reboot

The Problem

Now my laptop boots into GRUB, all seemingly perfect until I select Arch Linux, and it prints loading the kernel, and then the initramfs... and it reboots
So I start troubleshooting, there is apparently an Article that seems to describe this issue but following it's steps made no impact, I try to enable DEBUG log on GRUB but nothing I try seems to have an effect (removing splash and quiet from Kernel Parameter, adding loglevel=7 or ignore_loglevel, trying text based console) it all prints the same, but altering entries in a way that it becomes unbootable does have effect so it's not an error of noticing changes, the parameters seem to do nothing at all

And that's where I'm at, stuck

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This is the .txt I mentioned, I use it to help myself install, I don't think I have missed anything on the process and it's also not the first try for that matter

📎 Install_Arch.txt
vestal belfry
tall temple
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Yes

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This is highly likely irrelevant, but using the Ventoy-loaded Live ISO, and chrooting to the system I can use things apparently fine, I can use labwc, open firefox, sound works, storage works, my DE of preference doesn't (LXQT) but I can fare without it so I would dare say hardware is not at fault

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Right now I'm looking at Ventoy, I'm thinking if maybe I could install it on the hard drive and have it work as my bootloader? It apparently can be installed to hardrive and supports custom GRUB entries but I'm still learning about how-to

tall temple
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Significant development = Using Ventoy (still in USB) "Browse" function and loading up my (boot partition)/efi/grub/grubx64.efi straight up boots my installed system with no issues, unlike with arch-chroot I can use everything available as a completely normal system

Trying to use GRUB command line to Boot without Ventoy I follow this article (Instructions below in the example of Booting Arch Linux)
I load the kernel, the ucode and initramfs then send command "boot" results in the same power-off, my guess is that for some reason my systemd cannot be reached here, it never takes over for some reason and it ends up hanging and rebooting

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Using systemd as the bootloader results in the same problem
bootctl (systemd?) does come up, shows me my Arch Boot entry set-up as instructed on this article but after that it reboots all the same

Looking for downgrading GRUB to the version Ventoy uses (2.04), then if that doesn't work will definitely install Ventoy as my bootloader and call it a day

tall temple
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Okay, downgrading GRUB through AUR batch script "downgrade" worked, now I should probably figure out from what version onwards it's occurring... but I guess this is solved?

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[Solved} Fresh Arch Install and Live ISO reboots after initramfs EXCEPT with Ventoy

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[Solved] Fresh Arch Install and Live ISO reboots after initramfs EXCEPT with Ventoy

vestal belfry
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@tall temple make a bug report

tall temple
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I'm thinking about that but the problem is, like I mentioned, I don't have output from GRUB

vestal belfry
tall temple
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loglevel=X doesnt do anything, and there doesnt seem to be any other way to output debug

vestal belfry
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@tall temple they can help you with that

tall temple
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Oh, okay, i'll give it a look, but first figure out from what version onwards it causes problems, Ventoy's version is the first on the package and there are 5 major releases after that

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Wait a minute, granted it does work when downgrading GRUB, but what about systemd (bootctl)? I did briefly test that too and the same problem popped

tall temple
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Relevant solution: Downgrade GRUB down until 2.06.r499, following versions present the issue (starting from 2.06.r577 up to current version 2.12.r292)

vestal belfry
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@tall temple make the bug report for that

tall temple
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I'm putting it here if anyone else finds this problem, I know this doesnt get publicly indexed but still, worth the message

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I'm awaiting getting signed up to the arch gitlab to report it

vestal belfry
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@tall temple while you wait you can formulate the bug report

tall temple
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Well, I'm actually reinstalling the system at this moment so I can finally have it work cleanly, but of course, I'd have to read the report guidelines (if any) on the gitlab, and look at other confirmed reports to get an idea of a good formulation