So I just did my own PC for the first time, but I can’t actually get any OS to install. Using different Linux distros and I can boot into them and use them, but I need to actually install them and they’re all giving me partitioning problems.
Just to note, I didn’t actually install any storage devices on the motherboard. I’m using a USB Flash drive, but I don’t think that should be the problem. It works fine on the Raspberry Pi.
I tried this: sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sda and then sudo dd if=/distro.iso of=/dev/sda bs=4M status=progress. That doesn’t work. For some reason, after using dd I get this:
sda 8:0 1 57.3G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 1 2.6G 0 part
└─sda2 8:2 1 162M 0 part
That doesn’t seem right? Is it a BIOS problem?
If someone could help me out that would be great. Thx.
You’ll need hardware storage to install the system onto. Which isn’t the bootable iso image you’re trying to install from. That’s simply the way it’s intended and the usual practice.
Installing onto a USB pen drive… would result in the very same bottleneck an Raspberry Pi is suffering from. And that are slow read / write speeds of microSD cards and very limited longlivity. They’re insufficient nowadays as flash media isn’t well suited for frequent read & write operations. Modern nVME based storage are ten times faster. And thousands of times more durable.
I just turned it off. Still doesn’t work unfortunately.
CSM is disabled. It’s set on UEFI.
I’m using the flash drive with EndeavousOS on it. Right now, but I can’t get the installer to work because it says: There are no partitions to install to
Here’s the lsblk output:
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0 7:0 0 2.5G 1 loop /run/archiso/airootfs
sda 8:0 1 57.3G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 1 2.6G 0 part /run/archiso/bootmnt
└─sda2 8:2 1 162M 0 part
and the fdisk -l output:
Disk /dev/sda: 57.3 GiB, 61530439680 bytes, 120176640 sectors
Disk model: SanDisk 3.2Gen1
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: 0x4a514722
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 64 5466911 5466848 2.6G 0 Empty
/dev/sda2 5466912 5798687 331776 162M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
Ah. Dammit. So I can’t just use a flash drive with the distro installed? It has to be internal? Like an external SSD wouldn’t work as well? Which would be cheaper: SSD or M.2?
You don’t need much space. A 250gb SSD could be bought used for the penny on the dollar. But an Intel Optane M.2 nVME such as the Intel Optane H10 256GB with an 16GB 3D-nand Cache would be in the neighbourhood of $25. And that plenty fast for nowadays boot drives. Enough space for a leightweight linux distribution.
I’m not getting why when I use dd, cd, Gparted or whatever the sda1 is always 2.6G and the sda2 is always 162M. Isn’t the sda2 supposed to be the same size as sda? It is every other time that I remember.
Because DD is a bare metal service. It writes down the format track of the ISO. And if not that, then probably because of limitations in the partitioning table. If you format a 40 GB drive, you end up with 39.4 GB drive (for example).
Seems some misunderstanding around partitions and drives in general. mkfs.vfat /dev/sda is not working at all, plus using dd after this, even if you had chosen a partition to format mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1, would overwrite everything on the drive.
If the command sudo dd if=/distro.iso of=/dev/sda bs=4M status=progress was finishing without error, and you had made sure all data is written (save remove / sync) it would be usable to boot and fine to install the OS.
But I bet it will omit to use the same drive to install, too. Possible it could do that in case you use manual partitioning or load the ISO into RAM …
If you want to install on external drive you should omit bottleneck, by using USB 3 connection and take a real hard drive instead of a flash drive anyway. Installer is able to install to external USB flash or real hard drive… but it comes in with some inconvenience… like booting and slow read writes compared.
Blockquote It writes down the format track of the ISO.
No way to change that?
Blockquote Your computer has RAM?
I have RAM, lol.
Blockquote like booting and slow read writes compared.
Right! Got internal storage coming soon.
Getting another USB drive and putting that one in besides the other and it doesn’t give me the same partition problem. It gives me a new one.
Installation Failed
Could not unmount target system
The device /dev/sdb1 is mounted in the target system. It is mounted at /tmp/calamred-root-rd_xk_8j/efi. This device could not be unmounted.
So close this time.
Just throwing this out here: could I manually copy the contents to a USB drive and get it working? The root contents are in airootfs and the boot ones in bootmnt?
