Mkinitcpio with systemd-hooks

General system Kernel, boot, graphics & hardware
1

Hi,
I wanted to change the entries of the mkinitcpio.conf from


HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block encrypt lvm2 resume filesystems btrfs keyboard fsck)

to
HOOKS=(base systemd autodetect modconf block sd-encrypt sd-lvm2 filesystems keyboard fsck)

Reason: mostly just for fun, but I also believed it might be better to use systemd whenever possible to not mix too many different approaches.
Unfortunately (after re-generating grub and mkinitcpio of course) system became unbootable. I had to chroot and remove the changes to get bootable system again.
Anyone has any idea what I made wrong?
I followed this list: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mkinitcpio#Common_hooks

Do I need systemdboot for this?

2

What error did you get?

No, you shouldn’t.

Also, what filesystems and disk layout are you using?

3

The error was that “loading initial ramdisk” couldn’t be executed. I mean it showed up long time (a couple of min), after that some message came which I unfortnaetely don’t remember.


lsblk -f
NAME                    FSTYPE      FSVER    LABEL UUID                                   FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
nvme0n1                                                                                                  
├─nvme0n1p1             vfat        FAT32          99A2-3CCA                                             
├─nvme0n1p2             btrfs                      cc69a291-7fe3-4096-80a1-ad51e9edf072    105.1M    51% /boot
└─nvme0n1p3             crypto_LUKS 2              f528ec71-348e-448c-8f69-93ba1092736d                  
  └─volgroup0           LVM2_member LVM2 001       gX1Djy-ng9a-2Knt-ZSCv-IF3w-gdda-LnH1R7                
    ├─volgroup0-lv_root btrfs                      1f3a3e06-061e-4e6a-a9e6-8207be2bb48f     10.3G    65% /
    └─volgroup0-lv_home btrfs                      292f164c-2a7e-4e27-919f-2412ba2354e1    162.8G    46% /home
4

When switching to systemd hooks I used those instructions.

5

I din’t have
sd-vconsole
is it mandatory? Arch-wiki says

Loads the specified keymap(s) from /etc/vconsole.conf during early userspace.

But I don’t have /etc/vconsole.conf.

Moreover “keyboard” is at different position. Does the sequence matter? I couldn’t find this information.

Most probably this was my (only?) problem:

Configuring the boot loader

If using the sd-encrypt hook or dracut, the following need to be set instead:

rd.luks.name= device-UUID =cryptlvm root=/dev/MyVolGroup/root

6

@ csteinforth
May I ask what was your reason to switch to systemd-hooks?

7

You removed the btrfs hook, is it not needed?

8

Acc. to https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mkinitcpio#Common_hooks it is not needed (or available?) form my understanding.
How do you understand the table in the archwiki?

9

Just to try it out :wink:

10

Sequence does matter, sd-vconsole must be set before encrypt. But I guess you do not need sd-vconsole if US keyboard is ok.

11

Yes, I have US keyboard.

12

I guess that you need this in addition when switching to systemd.

13

btrfs is not needed when using systemd.

15

Also my understanding and I missed the first. Will try soon.
Btw: I have 2 kernels, linux and linux-zen. If I do the changes to grub and mkinitcpio and then only do
mkinitcpio -p linux
(and not for linux-zen) as well as
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
(Question again: is sequence important to do mkinitcpio command first?)
Should I then still be able to boot with linux-zen kernel?

16

To my knowledge sequence does not matter here.

I don’t have experience in this, sorry.