Cannot boot into another partition

[sharp fiber]

so I installed xfce on another partition. but when i reboot, the "fedora" partition which have fedora gnome, is nowhere to be seen in the grub menu

[wanton cliff]

you need to mount the fedora gnome partition and update your grub config. so just press ▶️ on all these partitions and run sudo os-prober, then check back with what it output

[sharp fiber]

/dev/sda3:Fedora Linux 42 (Workstation Edition):Fedora:linux:btrfs:UUID=6a1a055b-a5ff-4566-a5c7-6cec34ba6d84:subvol=root

[wanton cliff]

follow the grub2-mkconfig command in #1373672470552379496

[sharp fiber]

Not working

Upon close inspection, my fedora partition are not mounted to boot

Instead it is mounted /run/media/yume/...

[wanton cliff]

that's expected. that's where drives are mounted by the disks app temporarily. still should work. output of lsblk?

[sharp fiber]

i didn't do lsblk yet but does this mean it works?

because before this, i don't get that output at all

[wanton cliff]

should

[sharp fiber]

i'll reboot and then i'll tell you if it works

[wanton cliff]

what'd you do to make it work?

[sharp fiber]

I keep restarting many times.

However, the option for fedora workstation is still not in the grub menu

I'll try shutdown and then turn it on again

It still didn't work. Proceeds to do lsblk to check mounted drive in terminal

[wanton cliff]

it's only showing xfce and uefi settings?

[sharp fiber]

Yes, 2 xfce and uefi

I have logged into both, and it is indeed xfce

[sharp fiber]

after click "play"-like button in disk, and do grub2 mkconfig

[wanton cliff]

you only have 2 partitions for fedora workstation instead of 3.
what does efibootmgr output?

[sharp fiber]

it should be 3? 😱

[wanton cliff]

by default
/
/boot
/boot/efi

still should work. hmmmmm

[sharp fiber]

well, i just want to try fedora xfce. i don't mind deleting the xfce tho. cuz i mainly use gnome

what if i use gparted and delete the xfce partition?

[wanton cliff]

can you boot to fedora gnome via your boot/uefi menu?

[sharp fiber]

how? cuz my fedora gnome is still in the same ssd

just partitioned

wait let me reboot my system again. who knows if the files to boot fedora gnome is in my pendrive

[wanton cliff]

can you open the sda2 and sda3 partitions in your file manager (click the blue link in disks app) and show a screenshot?

[sharp fiber]

Sure, just let me login again 😂

[sharp fiber]

sda3

this one is the 1gb partition ext4 (sda2)

[wanton cliff]

hmm idk why it isn't showing gnome in grub menu even though it's detecting it. try to open the file /boot/grub2/grub.cfg and send it here

[sharp fiber]

which

this is xfce maybe. since from file system

both don't have grub.cfg

the heck, it's not a hidden file either

[wanton cliff]

euh

[sharp fiber]

broken?

reinstall

[wanton cliff]

hmm, thunar may be retared. try to install dolphin and then enter the directory

or do it via terminal. sudo ls /boot/grub2

[sharp fiber]

Oh it is there

Weird, thunar in fedora xfce don't have option to open as root

I'll do nano the config file

[wanton cliff]

I think it doesn't support that anywhere. nemo/dolphin have these option

[sharp fiber]

Mint have 😱

Maybe mint is just being mint

[wanton cliff]

are you sure it isn't Nemo?

[sharp fiber]

I'm downloading dolphin

[sharp fiber]

Nope, thunar

[sharp fiber]

I opened it in nano

Finally can access the grub.cfg

Dolphine and thunar don't have the open as root option

[wanton cliff]

send it here

[wanton cliff]

for dolphin, you may need to enter a directory that you don't have read permissions in, e.g /

[wanton cliff]

hmm idk why it isn't working

you could try to manually boot it via grub2 as last resort

[sharp fiber]

i'm up for the challenges

[sharp fiber]

wait grub2 is the cmd line right?

the place when it can't find boot file

[wanton cliff]

let me finish breakfast and I'll see how to do it on a vm

[sharp fiber]

Oh, have a nice breakfast!

[wanton cliff]

set root=(hd0,gpt2) linux ($root)/vmlinuz-<TAB> root=/dev/sda3 rootflags=subvol=root initrd ($root)/initramfs-<TAB> boot

where it says <TAB>, press TAB key and list the newest kernel/initramfs

it should boot you properly. if it shows like this, then you typed something wrong

[sharp fiber]

Ok

[sharp fiber]

Vmlinuz is really vmlinuz? Not my home directory or something?

[wanton cliff]

yes

these instructions are fitted to your system exactly

[sharp fiber]

vmlinuz-

Or vmlinuz tab

[wanton cliff]

write vmlinuz- and press tab, it should auto-complete or list possible entries

[sharp fiber]

Alright

[wanton cliff]

select the same as you selected the kernel

[sharp fiber]

I should typed in the kernel i want to boot into right?

[wanton cliff]

yes

[sharp fiber]

There's three,

1. vmlinuz-6.14.0-63...
2. i know this one is xfce rescue something
3. vmlinuz-6.14.9-300...

Fedora 42 gnome is the latest kernel right

So should be 6.14.9

I saw fedora workstation!

Oh?? Almost there

[wanton cliff]

ye

[sharp fiber]

Wrong people mentioned

[viscid belfry]

why am i being pinged

[wanton cliff]

xD

[sharp fiber]

LMAO, SORRY

[viscid belfry]

lmao its alr

[sharp fiber]

Ty so much man

I want to delete xfce

[viscid belfry]

glad it worked or whatever i didnt really get to read the message

[wanton cliff]

not sure how to make it permanent now though. maybe try the sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg now?

[sharp fiber]

I'll try

[sharp fiber]

Nooo, i reboot and fedora workstation is nowhere to be seen

That's it, I'm deleting xfce

[wanton cliff]

@solemn turret?

[sharp fiber]

Is the system going idiot cuz one is wayland and other's x11?

[wanton cliff]

呐喊哈特色哦他和哦 我人

[wanton cliff]

？？？

[sharp fiber]

Bruh

Even your computer stressed out of my laptop

Now this is interesting, suddenly typing in chinese 😂

[wanton cliff]

the keyboard is set as polish but for whatever reason it's typing in Chinese. idk what happened there. I am typing from my phone now

[wanton cliff]

this shouldn't be the reason

[sharp fiber]

Anyhow, I'll redo all the stuff you told me earlier

And I'll tell you if it works

[wanton cliff]

i don't understand why it doesn't work

[sharp fiber]

If you don't understand then I don't even know anymore

I don't think anyone have the same problem as me LOL

[sharp fiber]

The problem cannot be solved.

Problem

Cannot boot into another partition to change DE

How to recreate

1. Installing other DE through Fedora Media Writer
2. Shrink Fedora workstation partition to make way for the DE downloaded
3. Finish installing, reboot
4. Unable to find Fedora Workstation option in Grub menu

How to solve ✅

**Easy way: **

Reinstall, if the data inside doesn't matter to you.

Long way:

1. Open Disk app
2. Mount original partition by clicking the play-like button. (Mount all of them)
3. Go to terminal and type
   sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

It should add your previous DE or OS into the boot entry

4. Reboot

If the problem still persists ⚠️

1. Check where is your previous partition by typing in the terminal
   lsblk
2. Let's say the partition is named
   /dev/sda3
   located at
   (hd0,gpt2)
3. Go to grub, either by clicking ESC (If using UEFI) or SHIFT (BIOS) when boooting
4. Then type the following
   set root=(hd0,gpt2)
   Hit enter, then
   linux ($root)vmlinuz-
   Hit TAB, then type in the latest kernel version

On the same line after entering kernel version:
rootflags=subvol=root initrd ($root)/initramfs-

Hit TAB, and enter latest initramfs image

On the same line, type
boot

5. Enter

If it's not booting, type boot again

You are now will be greeted with your previous DE, or any OS in the partition

After that:

1. Updating the grub entry in the terminal after login to Fedora Workstation
2. Reboot
3. The option for Fedora workstation is nowhere to be seen

Trying to do the solution again

The grub now is stucked and not booting

[sharp fiber]

.

This thread is now marked as abandoned.
However, if anyone are able to recreate the problem and successfully fixed the problem, feel free to share in this thread

[solemn turret]

the underlying issue is that you were trying to boot TWO Fedora OS from the same drive. That in itself is kind of crazy right there.

so naturally it got confused. or one bootloader code mistook the other

[sharp fiber]

LOL, this mean if i want to to try another de, i should just download the meta pacakage

Or whatever it's called in fedora

[solemn turret]

of course

[sharp fiber]

Lesson learned, ty for your time. @wanton cliff thx to you too

[solemn turret]

that or try it live

and if u like it live, then reinstall fresh overtop the old

[wanton cliff]

stunner but why does it matter? it has one /boot/efi partition and one bootloader. one bootloader can boot up multiple distros just fine

it even detected fedora gnome with os-prober

[solemn turret]

welp it still caused issues overall right?

[sharp fiber]

But, mint don't have that kind of issue. This is fedora's issue it seems

[wanton cliff]

I dont know. i run it like that (albeit from a 2nd drive) and it's just listed as a 2nd entry in grub