Pacman Hooks in View of Recent Changes to GRUB

[anon11595408]

Artemis Nova is here

[ENDY-SCREEN-2] After our Artemis Neo 22.8 release that only addressed the Grub issue for the offline installer, we are proud to present, Artemis Nova, a release that next to the regular upstream refreshes also ships with some additional changes under the hood. The improvements and system refresh described in this announcement are for the benefit of the ISO live environment and the installation process, so existing EndeavourOS users don’t have to reinstall since we are a rolling distro. We do …

@Bryanpwo in post linked above

• When you install or remove kernels, the Grub menu will no longer be updated. You will need to run sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg. Alternatively, you can install grub-hook from AUR if you are comfortable with automating this on your own install.
• When Grub is updated, you will need to run grub-install. There is a message that will inform you of this as part of the update process.

To reflect on these two quoted sentences, I have played around today on my EnOS Bios (legacy) installation, and created two pacman-hooks, that some here might find helpful…

Note to Newbies, ready to experiment:
Pacman hooks are simple text-files, placed inside the folder /etc/pacman.d/hooks/ .
The suffix (filename-extension) must always be “.hook” for each file, to be carried out automtically by the system (not by the user).

See my grub-mkconfig.hook:

Summary

[Trigger]
Operation = Install
Operation = Remove
Type = File
Target = usr/lib/modules/*/vmlinuz

[Action]
Description = Updating GRUB-configuration after changes to kernels installed…
Depends = grub
When = PostTransaction
Exec = /usr/bin/grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

See my grub-install.hook
(works only for bios/legacy-systems with
/dev/sda as main system drive):

Summary

[Trigger]
Operation = Install
Operation = Upgrade
Type = File
Target = usr/lib/grub//.mod

[Action]
Description = Installing GRUB after grub-update…
Depends = grub
When = PostTransaction
Exec = /usr/bin/grub-install --target=i386 /dev/sda

As I am not in possession of any EFI (UEFI) -enabled computer, I cannot test possible solutions on my own for this. Also, there probably will be a lot of different solutions necessary for these systems, depending on their individual setup.

Perhaps, some here like to share their pacman-hooks to re-install GRUB on an EFI system, alongside presenting their individual solutions, as needed?

[dalto]

I just want to point out that as far as I know, there is no generic way to call grub-install that will work for all UEFI installs. Just calling grub-install --no-nvram with no additional arguments will probably work for most installs. The problem is that it also has the ability break your install depending on your specific configuration.

For hooks for grub-mkconfig there is a package in AUR called grub-hook which provides the hooks you need for that.

[anon11595408]

@dalto

I just want to point out that as far as I know, there is no generic way to call grub-install that will work for all UEFI installs.

I am aware of that, and I mentioned it in my OP. Also, the AUR-package for grub-mkconfig is in the quote of @Bryanpwo which I gave in full.

My intentions for this OP were to get more folks to start getting more self-sufficient by experimenting with such things on their own,…

…and the second reason is, I asked for users’ individual solutions, because we all could learn from each other this way.

[dalto]

In that case, I might point out that I am not sure you need to run grub-mkconfig on Upgrade. In theory you should only need to run it on Install and Remove

[anon11595408]

@dalto

I am not sure…

Me neither. It is why I left it in, just to be sure to omit nothing potentially necessary.

[jonathon]

@dalto

In theory you should only need to run it on Install and Remove

Correct.

[anon11595408]

@jonathon

Correct.

Is that afffirmative? - It couldn’t hurt to leave it in, or?!

[dalto]

If you leave it in, it will run grub-mkconfig more than you need to.

[anon11595408]

Ok, so I’ll take it out then. You two convinced me!

Done!

[anon11595408]

Ok. So today I learned the hard way…

After installing the hooks I provided above, an EnOS kernel-update shot my dual-boot with Arch Linux to death.

What happened? - Well, I wasn’t really aware, that EnOs, other than Arch Linux, has another - very important hook installed:
90-mkinitcpio-install.hook

So everyone, please all disregard my OP as a potentially good suggestion!!!

When copying those files I gave above to /etc/pacman.d/hooks/ it will lead to a situation that 90-mkinitcpio-install.hook will not be carried out on kernel updates and thus render the system un-bootable.

Just saying…