Question about bootloader for EndeavourOS installation

Igneex · November 16, 2024, 11:53am

Hello,

i would like to install EndeavourOS as a second distro. I already have Linux Mint 22 installed which is my main distro right now. What bootloader should i select in the installation process in this case?

Is selecting “no bootloader” the correct way since i already have a bootloader due to my linux mint distro that is already installed? Or would systemd or grub work too ? I am fairly new to linux since i switched from Windows recently and i am in the process of learning how all of that stuff works. I want to make sure i can boot into both Mint and Endeavour without facing any issues.

I appreciate the help. Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,
Igneex

SdW · November 16, 2024, 12:42pm

First of all, welcome to our forum! It’s nice here.

Regarding your question, I can offer this experience: I use two EndeavourOS installs side-by-side, using grub as bootloader. When you choose grub on the new install, specify your existing Mint EFI/BIOS partition to handle the EOS bootloader. Boot into the newer install (EOS), mount the partition containing the other OS (Mint) and use os-prober to find the existing install there. Then they will both appear in your grub menu. That’s what I did. I don’t know about other options.

Please let us know how it goes!

Dinomonster · November 16, 2024, 3:01pm

I am not certain about this, but my guess is that installing systemd alongside Grub can cause problems, but as I said, I am not sure.

Grub is ideal for users with multiple systems, and I think that you don’t need to install it again, simply add entry and parameters for new system.

Welcome to the Purple side!

joekamprad · November 16, 2024, 3:04pm

In case you do install bootloader with EndeavourOS it will replace the bootloader from Mint. If you want to keep Mint managing the bootloader you should go without bootloader install and after install boot into Mint and add EndeavourOS to the Mint bootloader.
In case of EFI UEFI system and not older Bios legacy MBR system installs, you can simply go adding a bootloader by explicitly add a new EFI partition on installing EndeavourOS so it will not mess with the Mint bootloader at all.

Igneex · November 16, 2024, 3:54pm

Thank you for all the replies. I installed EOS without a bootloader, enabled os prober in mint and it worked

I already faced an issue. After a restart EndevaourOS failed to boot with the following error:

Failed to mount sysroot. fsconfig system call failed: structure needs cleaning

Maybe you guys know what caused the issue to happen. I just rebooted again and the issue disappeared and EndevaourOS booted without any issues. But i would like to know why it happened in the first place since this was very odd. Here is what i did after the installation:

I checked for updates which EndeavourOS automatically recommends me in the welcome screen. Everything was up to date already.
I installed nvidia drivers. I used the instructions here for Arch / Nvidia:
Then I installed some wine dependencies so i can play some non-steam games with Lutris. I followed the instructions here:

github.com

lutris/docs/blob/master/WineDependencies.md

Although Lutris provides and uses its own Wine builds, we still recommend you install all of Wine's dependencies to ensure a working experience. The easiest way to get them is to install Wine system-wide through your package manager.

The version of Wine installed should not matter, it is not even required for Wine to be present as long as all dependencies are satisfied. Although, Lutris will display a warning message if it cannot detect an existing installation of Wine.

# Distribution-specific instructions

Below are a list of commands specific to your distribution. Please, follow them before asking for support.

## Ubuntu/Debian/Ubuntu derivatives/Debian derivatives

To get all neccesary dependencies, you need to enable 32 bit architecture (if you haven't already), install Wine packages and other additional dependencies.
To do so in one command, copy and paste this into the terminal

    sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 && sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y wine64 wine32 libasound2-plugins:i386 libsdl2-2.0-0:i386 libdbus-1-3:i386 libsqlite3-0:i386

##  Arch/EndeavourOS/Manjaro/Other Arch derivatives

Enable multilib:

To enable multilib repository, uncomment the `[multilib]` section in `/etc/pacman.conf`

This file has been truncated. show original

I installed Lutris

I did nothing else so i am really confused why the boot failed once after a system restart. Any idea caused this to happen .?

Dinomonster · November 17, 2024, 2:23pm

In my opinion error has nothing to do with Nvidia or Wine/Lutris. If this was something considering GPU drivers, the error would be different. Also Wine and it’s extensions has no significance on boot.

My guess is there went something wrong in the action done by the os prober that however was corrected when booted again. But this is only my guess.