Skip to main content
Topic solved
This topic has been marked as solved and requires no further attention.
Topic: [SOLVED] Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Grub (Read 4751 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.

Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #15
I just tested reinstallation using the ISO you stated:using the "Erase disk" option, and it went without any errors.

You can try to install by opening konsole (maximize it) in LiveISO and entering the following commands:

Code: [Select]
$ su
# calamares -d >calamares.log 2>&1
Use the "Erase disk" on the fourth screen ("Partitions"), then when the installation completes (or not), don't choose "Restart now", but close the installer.

Start KWrite, choose File->Open... navigate to Home, then choose calamares.log and Open. Choose Edit->Select All, then Edit->Copy.

Start Falkon, go to https://paste.artixlinux.org and in the field "Paste your paste here" press Ctrl+V. Then copy the URL of the page you get when clicking Create here.
Nothing worked.

It's OK.
I'll try next release.
Thank you.
System:  Kernel: 6.4.10-artix1-1 , KDE Plasma 5.27.7, HP Spectre x360 Convertible 13-ae0xx
Dual Core  i7-8550U bits: 64
8 GB Ram - SSD:  (250 GiB), BTRFS

Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #16
Please provide the above log file calamares.log, as it is essential to fixing any potential errors or misconfiguration (more likely).

Again, the ISO that you stated in this thread is tested and works without errors.

Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #17
I don't understand the partitioning scheme here, you say it's UEFI so shouldn't there be a UEFI partition somewhere, it isn't shown in your lsblk output?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/EFI_system_partition
Also I think you need to leave at least a 1MB unallocated space before the first partition, but perhaps that's just BIOS boot, not sure.

Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #18
I tried many things, many sizes, many flags.

I tend to think there was an "update" in grub over the past few days that crated a bug somehow. I assume an update because I was installing online.
The same USB I installed Artix, Endeavour (online and selecting KDE) and PcLinuxOs before, same machine. The only thing in common they ar all rolling distros.

But the only distro that went fine was MX Linux (not  a rolling distro)
I don't know if this gives any clue?.. I don't know why it is so.

p.s. I downloaded my Artix again via torrent, checked hash... the live USB is working fine for all distros.
p.p.s. Assuming the already installed MX has all drives properly segmented, trying to install (hopefully to use current partitioning which is working, give same error)
Maybe Grub developers can comment.
On my hard drive, I installed three Linux systems, but I only installed Grub on one system.
After doing an update (which requires a reboot) on one of the systems without GRUB, I restart the system which has GRUB and then run sudo update-grub.
Note: in / etc/default/grub I was led one day to add this line:
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER = "false"

Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #19
Sorry to bother you again, but I thought I should ask/share

I just remembered while installing MX I got a message saying something like my hard disk is like going to fail or it is too old.

Would this be the reason (hard disk going to die)?
Is it trying to write the boot loader (Grub) to a specific sector that is damaged? I need a new hard disk? SSD perhaps? Would it be Ok with my old machine?
System:  Kernel: 6.4.10-artix1-1 , KDE Plasma 5.27.7, HP Spectre x360 Convertible 13-ae0xx
Dual Core  i7-8550U bits: 64
8 GB Ram - SSD:  (250 GiB), BTRFS


Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #21
If you are doing a UEFI install and don't have a UEFI partition as your lsblk output indicates, there's no partition for grub to be installed into, so that's going to be a problem. The UEFI partition can be located anywhere on the drive. It's got to be the right FS type and flagged correctly as described in the linked wiki page. Alternatively switch to BIOS boot and enable that in your BIOS menu too. I don't think there's any advantage to UEFI except stuff that's probably not relevant to most home use.
smartmontools can tell you more about your drive health status if you are concerned about it. That seems unlikely if other distros work though.

Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #22
The installer itself perhaps?
Code: [Select]
$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 465.8G  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0  96.6G  0 part /
├─sda2   8:2    0   5.6G  0 part [SWAP]
└─sda3   8:3    0 363.5G  0 part /home
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom 


Shouldn't their be a Boot Partition. Everytime I've done the vanilla installation, I've had to put in a boot partition of 100M and mount it on to /boot and install grub in there.

Also, in the first post of this topic, you only had 2 partitions which was for root and swap. I think you just need a boot partition and it should be fine though I could be wrong

EDIT: Just realized that is post is about the plasma calameres installer so you can disregard this post as I don't really have much knowledge on how the calamares installer sets up Artix or other distributions.

Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #23
Sorry, I just got busy over the past few days.
Code: [Select]
$ su
# calamares -d >calamares.log 2>&1
gave errors (couldn't be executed)
I  just installed 8 GB Ram - SSD: Samsung model: SSD 870 EVO

Still unable to install Grub on ANY Linux other than MX Linux (PC Linux, Kubuntu, Arch, EndeavourOS, Manjaro).

I hope the following helps.
Code: [Select]
$ sudo efibootmgr -v
EFI variables are not supported on this system.
Code: [Select]
$ sudo dmidecode | more
# dmidecode 3.3
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.7 present.

Release Date: 04/26/2012
        Address: 0xE0000
        Runtime Size: 128 kB
        ROM Size: 4 MB
        Characteristics:
                PCI is supported
                BIOS is upgradeable
                BIOS shadowing is allowed
                Boot from CD is supported
                Selectable boot is supported
                EDD is supported
                Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
                8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
                Serial services are supported (int 14h)
                Printer services are supported (int 17h)
                CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
                NEC PC-98
                ACPI is supported
                USB legacy is supported
                BIOS boot specification is supported
                Function key-initiated network boot is supported
                Targeted content distribution is supported
                UEFI is supported
        BIOS Revision: 1.52
        Firmware Revision: 1.48


Code: [Select]
limo@lenovo:~
$ ls /sys/firmware/efi
ls: cannot access '/sys/firmware/efi': No such file or directory
limo@lenovo:~
Code: [Select]
$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 232.9G  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0  85.5G  0 part /
├─sda2   8:2    0     8G  0 part [SWAP]
└─sda3   8:3    0 139.4G  0 part /home
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom 
limo@lenovo:~

Changing where to install Grub can help? MBR?... ?

The strange thing I previously had all above mentioned distros installed on same machine (with the old HDD), which later with the same old HDD couldn't install Grub! I thought bad sectors on old HDD so I installed SSD and upgraded RAM and couldn't still install anything other than MX. Why MX is the only one going fine? This might give a hint?
System:  Kernel: 6.4.10-artix1-1 , KDE Plasma 5.27.7, HP Spectre x360 Convertible 13-ae0xx
Dual Core  i7-8550U bits: 64
8 GB Ram - SSD:  (250 GiB), BTRFS

Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #24
If you are doing a UEFI install and don't have a UEFI partition as your lsblk output indicates, there's no partition for grub to be installed into, so that's going to be a problem. The UEFI partition can be located anywhere on the drive. It's got to be the right FS type and flagged correctly as described in the linked wiki page. Alternatively switch to BIOS boot and enable that in your BIOS menu too. I don't think there's any advantage to UEFI except stuff that's probably not relevant to most home use.
smartmontools can tell you more about your drive health status if you are concerned about it. That seems unlikely if other distros work though.
Sorry for late reply. I just got busy over the past few days.
Quote
don't have a UEFI partition as your lsblk output indicates
I don't remember I created any UEFI partition when I previously installed any distro.
OK, how to do that? I assume the installer does everything as it did before.
please check my previous post.
I believe some time ago I could access BIOS and disabled the EFI stuff. Unfortunately having hard time get to BIOS again.
This laptop started behaving in a funny way that I don't understand.
Maybe it is time for a new laptop.
System:  Kernel: 6.4.10-artix1-1 , KDE Plasma 5.27.7, HP Spectre x360 Convertible 13-ae0xx
Dual Core  i7-8550U bits: 64
8 GB Ram - SSD:  (250 GiB), BTRFS


Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #26
Give us already the result of:
Code: [Select]
sudo fdisk -l

Code: [Select]
 sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for limo:
Disk /dev/sda: 232.89 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 870
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x4dcde39d

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *         2048 179210239 179208192  85.5G 83 Linux
/dev/sda2       179210240 195987455  16777216     8G 83 Linux
/dev/sda3       195987456 488382463 292395008 139.4G 83 Linux

P.S. I am currently on MX Linux, the only distro I could install.
System:  Kernel: 6.4.10-artix1-1 , KDE Plasma 5.27.7, HP Spectre x360 Convertible 13-ae0xx
Dual Core  i7-8550U bits: 64
8 GB Ram - SSD:  (250 GiB), BTRFS

Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #27
You have a DOS partition table and not a GPT.

If you want to boot in UEFI you need a GPT partition table, activate UEFI mode in the "BIOS", create a "/boot" partition (FAT32, 200MiB with "boot" and "esp" flags).
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/partitioning#Choosing_between_GPT_and_MBR

You can convert MBR to GPT without loss, but it is better to have backed up your data, because an error quickly occurs:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GPT_fdisk#Convert_between_MBR_and_GPT

Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #28
You have a DOS partition table and not a GPT.

If you want to boot in UEFI you need a GPT partition table, activate UEFI mode in the "BIOS", create a "/boot" partition (FAT32, 200MiB with "boot" and "esp" flags).
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/partitioning#Choosing_between_GPT_and_MBR

You can convert MBR to GPT without loss, but it is better to have backed up your data, because an error quickly occurs:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GPT_fdisk#Convert_between_MBR_and_GPT
Quote
If you want to boot in UEFI
I don't care what I boot to, what I care about is to install Artix and boot. (I believe I have UEFI disabled. So, is there a way to install?)
Unable to access BIOS. (been trying many times)
Can I do partitions with  KDE Partition Manager? Why it is not done dy default during installation as it did before?
What if -during installation- I select install Grub to.... (there are 3 options, which option?)
I don't care about any data. It's OK.

EDIT: Looking at https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/partitioning#Choosing_between_GPT_and_MBR I understand MBR is the DOS compatible option. So what if I selected install Grub to MBR?
System:  Kernel: 6.4.10-artix1-1 , KDE Plasma 5.27.7, HP Spectre x360 Convertible 13-ae0xx
Dual Core  i7-8550U bits: 64
8 GB Ram - SSD:  (250 GiB), BTRFS

Re: Installation Goes OK, But Fail Installing Gub

Reply #29
"and it is a UEFI machine."
Sorry, I was going by your earlier statement you were using UEFI.

But with BIOS grub works like this:

grub install places grub stage 1 in MBR at the start of the disk. There should be a small free space before the first partition to give it more space in there. This stage 1 then starts the grub stage 2 in /boot which can be a separate partition, but doesn't have to be. You can have a stage 2 grub for every distro, but there is only 1 stage 1 grub in the MBR. So you only need to do grub install for the distro that you want to use as the controlling grub. Then from that distro, run update-grub and if you have os-prober installed and enabled it will find all the other distros, in fact you may not even need to have grub or any boot loader installed on those. But if you do have grub installed on those then do NOT run grub install from them, unless you want to switch to using that grub as the main controller, but it may sometimes help to run update-grub in them because the controlling grub can read the entries in /boot/grub/grub.cfg and use those.

So if you have MX linux installed and working, all you need to do is install Artix on a free partition, don't install grub to the MBR or anywhere, boot into MX and run update-grub and it should find Artix providing you have os-prober working, which you might need to enable, then you can choose Artix from the grub boot menu, or configure /etc/default/grub in MX to boot Artix as the first option, and run update-grub in MX after.

Alternatively you can install and use the Artix grub to boot MX but given the problems you have had so far it may be best to start out using the known-working MX linux grub as the main boot manager, and multiboot Artix from that.