Installer seems Utterly Broken When Trying to Install without Certain Applications

General system EndeavourOS installation
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I started using this distro about 2 months ago and have had a hell of a time getting it installed properly. I tried almost a dozen times to get this thing installed on 2 different machines (one laptop, one desktop). I’ve been using Arch since 2008 and Linux in general since 2000 so I’m not a newbie. I have a pretty decent idea about what I’m doing. That said, however, I’ve had no end of issues trying to get this thing installed.

I can consistently replicate the installer giving me an error then flaming out and not allowing you to re-start the install unless you actually re-boot the damn machine too. It’s very frustrating. I did save 3 error logs, and I’m hoping all or one (at least) may be of some help.

The machine’s specifications are here:

[https://0x0.st/XWHL.txt](https://Desktop specs)

The installation logs with the errors are here:

[https://0x0.st/XWHf.txt](https://Log 1 July 22)

Log 2 July 27

Log 3 also July 27 an hour after Log 2

I was originally attempting to install the system with a custom list of packages I wished pre-installed so I didn’t have to mess with it post-installation. However, that failed every time. The list itself had nothing exotic in it. That list can be found here.

I also told the installer NOT to install a bunch of packages (IE, nss, mdraid, some specific X11 packages and the Noto font series). After failing the install numerous times I worked out that unless I leave almost all the packages that are checked by default in-place the install will fail. The exception to this is that I could remove certain ‘cosmetic’ applications from the installation routine, IE a few fonts like Terminus and other unnecessary apps that allow the system to run without tripping over its own feet). If needed I can do yet another run and mark exactly which apps I removed to show you why it’s failing with those ones de-selected in Calamares.

I did eventually get both computers running with EoS but I’m not overly happy about the fact that the only way I could do so was to let the installer do whatever it wanted then uninstall things later that I don’t want/need. I also could, after KDE and other apps were up, begin the prcess of installing the apps I did want installed in the first place.

I don’t know if any of this information will help but I hope it does. This is a nice little distro overall but these issues are very frustrating to an old-timer like myself.

  • Old Linux Girl Raine
2

My 2 cents, what I personally do is I just go with defaults, then after installation I install/uninstall what I need to.

Try it this way and let us know how it goes.

2 Likes
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grub-btrfs will be the issue, may other packages to…
But log shows there is an issue with this one.

The add packages option is to add some applications not massive package lists.

The installed default packages is not that huge that you will have hard time to remove a lot of packages later.

…
/etc/grub.d/41_snapshots-btrfs: line 571: /boot/grub/grub-btrfs.new: No such file or directory
2024-07-27 - 20:27:18 [1]: virtual Calamares::JobResult Calamares::Python::Job::exec()
2024-07-27 - 20:27:18 [1]: ERROR: Error while running: CalledProcessError: Command ‘grub-mkconfig’ returned non-zero exit status 1.

Best way will be to create this after first boot and same for the massive package list.

1 Like
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I thought this might be it when I had a look (didn’t comment as I didn’t want to lead them the wrong way incase I was wrong), getting a bit better at spotting this stuff.

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In the end that’s precisely what I did and it did work just fine. However, the point still stands that there’s a user package list file available to use to install other applications alongside the OS. There’s also a file to customise which applications can or can’t be installed and other nice things. Unfortunately, thus far, those tools don’t seem to work properly or I’m doing something stupidly wrong (always a good possibility).

1 Like
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Create what exactly? Just install the OS, reboot then install everything else? And if Grub is the issue I have to wonder what I can do to ameliorate that.

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You can create a package list and install it after using pacman. Information is in 2.6 on page
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Tips_and_tricks

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If I am in your place, I would manually install them one by one. Reboot, update then reboot, then install the next and repeat.

I am not sure I know what your installation is. But if it is somehow related to Grub, maybe you can reinstall the system with the defaults, EXT4, systemd boot and install each package individually as above paragraph.

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I suppose this list is the most interesting info needed :person_shrugging:

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The installer allows you to literally uncheck everything and the install will still complete.

However, if you add packages, there are many ways this can break the installer. We can’t make the installer work with every combination of packages you could possibly install.

The easiest fix for this is to simply install the packages after installation.

3 Likes
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Thank you for that answer. In the future that’s likely the advice I will take as you (and others in this thread) have indicated it seems to be the best solution.

I am left to wonder, though, how much customization one can do with the other script file provided by the installer that allows you to do pre-/post-installation instructions. I’ll have to experiment some more.

Regardless, I quite enjoy this distro apart from the learning pains I’ve gone through.

2 Likes
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