[SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

Sewn_thrytwo · 2023-08-06 09:08:33

Hello world of archlinux32 !

I am posting my first question ever on this forum. I am french, but can manage the language
I have some knowledge in computer in general, but please assume I am a good ol' noob.

I assure you, I make my research (google, phind and websites)

It has been a few weeks since I decided to get into the installation of archlinux, after wanting to have my little laptop hooked on my sound installation.
Why ? It has been a few times I looked into the insides of computers, and to be honest I just like the challenge, I will have a lot of question though, but first I would like to explore the world of 32bit OSes, as I have a mind that likes to go to peculiar and uncharted places.

My computer :
SAMSUNG NC10 ; intel 32-bit processor chip ;

The ISO I use is the latest 32-bit download found on archlinux32

Partition and filesystem table :
BIOS , no efi filesystem to be found, so I must use MBR.

the MSDOS table I mounted
On my 100GB sda : one 30GB root partition; primary (mounted as /mount)
one 20GB swap partition; primary (Activated with the "swapon" command
one extended partition; primary (For the moment I just want to keep the option open for a dual boot, will re-do the experience if I change my mind) (Not mounted, should it be ?)

Anyways, I am currently stuck at the 'grub-install' step, but before will expose the one issues I have had, for my noob friend who are having problems installing a 32-bit archtitecture Archlinux. Please not also, that the answer I give here is from someone searching multiple forums and links in the same time, retrying over and over, and maybe i did a command before the one I think worked, don't ever take my word for granted.

The main issue I had was the key. First trying to follow the installation guide, when running the "pacman-key ... etc" of step 1.2 ; I had an output saying the "tassossah@..." wasn't up to date (or no to be trusted) ; It took me a while before finding this answer on the download page link :

And then following the steps of the Fixing Broken Keyring(s) chapter.

Well, I don't know yet, because now I am stuck at the grub-install ;

I followed the exact order of the installation-guide , thus I shouldn't have to make a separate partition for the grub boot-loader (because it will be written by the grub installer on a free space in the beginning of the root partition)

If I am not mistaken, I should have a terminal connected as chroot, set the configuration files for languages (I love foreign languages so downloaded english and french, plus japanese and canadese)
I ran "man grub-install" ; from what I understand the default settings should run the i386 version of grub ; I tried on the tty that is under chroot but this terminal is'nt able to run any commands, and another "normal" root terminal and it gives me thix exact output :

grub-install: error: failed to get canonical path of 'airootfs'

Has anyone an idea of what went wrong here ? I don't get what this error means.
Also, can't manage to find back a way to exctract screenshots, thought I have seen it somewhere on the web, using some odd command line sending it on a specific website.

Thanks for taking your time reading me, please tell me if I am not following posting rules correctly, I haven't found posts related to this canonical path problem yet.

Cheers!

Last edited by Sewn_thrytwo (2023-08-12 19:08:06)

abaumann · 2023-08-06 10:16:27

Where did you do the grub-install and grub-mkconfig? Inside the arch-chroot? Outside on the ISO will probably not work..

Ah, and I love those early netbooks like the Samsung NC 10, owning an early Asus EEPC on my own. :-)

Sewn_thrytwo · 2023-08-06 16:32:23

I should probably write out what command line I used :

grub-install -v /dev/sda

I must say I haven't dived into what chroot exactly is. In my understanding, where the root "is", is where the important changes are allowed to be made, right ?

I tried the grub-install after doing the "chroot" command, as following the guide, on the same terminal and it told me there was "no such command" to be found (I havent ran any other chroot command though, should I be connected under the new user name in this particular chroot ? )

After that I tried on the other opened terminal, wich was still in normal root (so, still on the ISO if I understand correctly) and gave me the error output.

And I couldn't get until the grub-mkconfig step.

Right!? I love this little fellow, he's following me since 2018 and is pretty easily repaired ! And stuffed easily in the bag for travel !

Last edited by Sewn_thrytwo (2023-08-06 16:57:05)

abaumann · 2023-08-06 17:01:01

I would really recommend you to read the installation documentation from upstream, especially https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB and https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/installation_guide.

`arch-chroot` is a wrapper script which is required to do all installation steps, but the very first `pacstrap` (which sets up your root partition).
With arch-chroot you enter your installed system from the ISO, there you have to do all the rest of the installation steps.

"No such command" means you didn't install grub inside the chroot (you miss `grub-install`). This one you have to install inside the chroot.

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
pacstrap /mnt base linux grub
arch-chroot /mnt
pacman -S grub

You can install grub with pacstrap directly or inside the chroot with `pacman -S grub`.

Sewn_thrytwo · 2023-08-06 18:46:17

Well, there are maybe some subject I must have misunderstood or badly read, since I ate those pages for days now. But I just understood that the installation-guide script was an exact copy of the wiki I could find on my laptop HA !

So you are saying that the base package downloaded with pacstrap are not suficient for full installation ? I think it does ring a bell of somthing I read along the way.

What other packages should I download beside grub to continue the installation correctly? I'm pretty sure nano should be one of them, because now I remember the I had to go back to the ISO terminal to edit the .conf files.
Wait ... this means the .conf files will not be permanently written then, right ? Should I then rewrite them using the arch-chroot ?

I will give this a go in a day or two when I have some time again. I am currently not often home.

Thank you a lot, I will keep you posted on this.

Last edited by Sewn_thrytwo (2023-08-06 21:34:31)

abaumann · 2023-08-07 07:13:09

A kernel is handy (linux or linux-lst package). :-)

As mentioned in https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/installation_guide (chapter 2.2), chapter 3.8
tells you you have to choose a bootloader (e.g. grub). Not sure if nano is part of base, but
https://archlinux.org/packages/core/any/base/ doesn't list it. So a basic editor like 'vi' or
'nano is also handy. I also recommend to install 'dhclient' along to 'dhcpd' as in some
networks dhcpd can fail (so this way you can do a manual 'dhclient' if systemd-network,
netctl or so fail).

Sewn_thrytwo · 2023-08-09 18:48:28

Perfect !

Indeed i had to instal the necessary packages inside the chroot script.

It wasn't anywhere in my mind because I already had so much trouble with the broken keyrings and all before changing the root that i didn't think the trouble would be the same afterwards ( I had to refresh again the key-rings)

Anyways, grub boot loader is present and running, thank you !

I have now to figure out where exactly I am, and what to do.

I think I'll have to read the general recommendations for continuing the installation, is there another useful page to read?

I'll mark this thread as solved.

abaumann · 2023-08-10 06:35:56

There are pointers to various sections in https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/installation_guide, those points you
have to go through (all of them) to get the base system.

Afterwards there are those main topics:
- graphical interface or not (text terminal)
- Xorg or Wayland: Wayland may work, I personally don't use Wayland at all, so I cannot really say if it
actually works on Arch32, especially with older GPUs: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/xorg, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/wayland
- Display Manager: lightdm, sdm, gdm, etc. (for graphical login): https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/display_manager
- Window Manager: things like Xfce, Lxqt, Fvwm, Icewm usually are easier on the resources and also more likely to work than the
big ones, especially KDE/Plasma or Gnome: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/window_manager

The rest really depends on what you want to do: programming, word/text editors, graphical stuff.

BTW, you could also use 'archinstall' for the whole process, but on Arch32 is is more experimental than
the standard manual installation method. Archinstall alson gives you an idea, of what you could choose
from.

Sewn_thrytwo · 2023-08-10 07:38:24

Allright, that a good summary for me, thanks. I'll have it go, my family is coing to visit me for a few days. I'll have to put on hold.

I've got a short time plan with archlinux. That is to hook it up on my speakers, and have access in the first time to youtube on terminal, and in a second time if I have a hard drive with my own music on it. So for now let's say I don't really need graphical or windows manager. I would be able to define a desktop evironnement later if I'm not mistaken.

On the long go, I'm actually very curious on how is built a computer, from the starting point. It has been years I wanted to get inside the process from the start (systemd seems to be the one that goes and extract the kernel, and then all the stuff that makes a computer alive) . Actually I have looked at your website, and It gave me some inspirations. I'll send you a personal message when I've finished all this, for the sake of my personnal time ^^

I have one last question, even though I haven't hardly looked for it yet : I am now on the grub text terminal, and am unfortunately not able to choose from a kernel to load ; I should have the particular command line somwhere when I invoke all availables one in grub but cannot scroll up to read the whole output (weirdly enough my keyboard layout didn't load I think) : would you know wich command I need in grub to load the kernel so I can go on with the installation ?

Anyways, I will look at it from the next week.

Sheers !

PS. How do I set the issue as resolved ? Does someone else do it ?

Last edited by Sewn_thrytwo (2023-08-10 07:40:56)

abaumann · 2023-08-11 06:59:18

You should have a line with "Moderate topic Move topic Close topic Unstick topic" at the bottom. Not sure, if Closing is the same as Solved..

Grub has command like 'e' (edit) or 'c' (command line). The keyboard driver should be part of grub..

Sewn_thrytwo · 2023-08-12 12:26:37

Sorry but I didn't see a line with "moderate,close, unstick" even logged in, i test by using the "post reply" rather than the "quick reply" I used instead.

Let's see.

Edit : Nope, even logged in and accessing the conversation via my posted topics, all I have is this view

Last edited by Sewn_thrytwo (2023-08-12 12:34:30)

abaumann · 2023-08-12 13:42:56

Maybe yout can edit your own posts and just add a [Solved] there in the titleby hand?

Sewn_thrytwo · 2023-08-12 19:11:35

That's the one ! I also changed the title for better search query.

Arch Linux

#1 2023-08-06 09:08:33

[SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#2 2023-08-06 10:16:27

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#3 2023-08-06 16:32:23

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#4 2023-08-06 17:01:01

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#5 2023-08-06 18:46:17

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#6 2023-08-07 07:13:09

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#7 2023-08-09 18:48:28

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#8 2023-08-10 06:35:56

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#9 2023-08-10 07:38:24

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#10 2023-08-11 06:59:18

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#11 2023-08-12 12:26:37

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#12 2023-08-12 13:42:56

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

#13 2023-08-12 19:11:35

Re: [SOLVED] I686 installation ; grub-install not present ;

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