As usual, started the day with yay, I am seeing something I never saw before. It is taking ages, doing lots of things as if downloading and reinstalling the whole systems.
The strange thing I saw lots of lines saying Grub, though I am on systemd-boot and NEVER had Grub on this machine!
Anybody has a clue what is going on?
These are a few lines I could copy → https://pastebin.com/xx0CBQhP
What is the command?!
I just did yay
I broke the execution (CTL-C), did yay again, broke, rebooted… etc. I noticed the first thing it is trying to update was ventoy several times.
Inner gut gave me a hint and uninstalled ventoy.
Tried update again but this time:
[limo@asus ~]$ yay -Syyu
:: Synchronizing package databases...
endeavouros 27.6 KiB 72.7 KiB/s 00:00 [-----------------------] 100%
core 132.2 KiB 357 KiB/s 00:00 [-----------------------] 100%
extra 8.3 MiB 3.07 MiB/s 00:03 [-----------------------] 100%
community 45.0 B 175 B/s 00:00 [-----------------------] 100%
multilib 140.7 KiB 364 KiB/s 00:00 [-----------------------] 100%
:: Searching AUR for updates...
:: Searching databases for updates...
-> Flagged Out Of Date AUR Packages: python-coloredlogs
there is nothing to do
[limo@asus ~]$
Everything went as expected. I do not know what was ventoy trying to do!
Why using yay -Syyu ?
Just doing yay is enough, I guess…
I know, this is what I usually do, but I just thought to do it in addition to yay. Just to be sure everything is running fine.
Just rebooted now and did yay again. everything is working as expected.
As I was seeing lots of lines with the Grub word, I did:
yay grub
and found:
1 core/grub 2:2.06.r566.g857af0e17-1 (6.8 MiB 33.2 MiB) (Installed)
GNU GRand Unified Bootloader (2)
==> Packages to install (eg: 1 2 3, 1-3 or ^4)
==>
I am sure when I made a fresh install on this new laptop ( a bit less than a year) I never installed Grub and selected the default systemd-boot.
May be it came in during that ventoy mess?
I do not need anything Grub as I am happy with the default systemd-boot.
Should I uninstall it? Is it safe to just uninstall it?
Run cat /var/log/pacman.log | grep grub to see when it was installed on your system.
If you are using systemd-boot, you could remove Grub.
I got this https://pastebin.com/NHGzUQnd
But I am not sure how to interpret the dates, but I am sure that while I was installing, at least the latest install I never selected Grub, I followed the defaults which was systemd-boot.
* 11-18T06:52:52+0200] [ALPM] running 'zz-snap-pac-grub-post.hook'...
* [2022-11-18T06:52:52+0200] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] Generating grub configuration file ...
* [2022-11-18T06:52:52+0200] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] Found background: /boot/grub/coralsoceanunderwater.png
* [2022-11-18T06:52:54+0200] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] Found snapshot: 2022-11-17 10:46:29 | @/.snapshots/1556/snapshot | post | grub libnghttp2 perl-clone perl-http-message python-mako python-setuptoo |
A few lines at the top of the log you have posted indicates that at some point in time you have had some Grub in one form or another (grub-btrfs ?).
I can’t tell more since I think you should keep track of what gets installed on your system, when and why.
You have been doing “stuff” with Grub?
The bottom lines of the log:
* [2022-12-28T09:14:53+0200] [ALPM] removed grub (2:2.06.r403.g7259d55ff-1)
* [2023-06-09T10:30:48+0300] [ALPM] installed grub (2:2.06.r499.ge67a551a4-1)
* [2023-06-09T10:30:48+0300] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] $ grub-install ...
* [2023-06-09T10:30:48+0300] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] $ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
* [2023-06-09T10:30:50+0300] [ALPM] running 'grub_update.hook'...
* [2023-06-09T10:30:50+0300] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] /usr/bin/grub-install: error: cannot find EFI directory.
* [2023-06-12T20:17:11+0300] [ALPM] removed grub (2:2.06.r499.ge67a551a4-1)
* [2023-06-26T10:24:06+0300] [ALPM] installed grub (2:2.06.r566.g857af0e17-1)
* [2023-06-26T10:24:06+0300] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] $ grub-install ...
* [2023-06-26T10:24:06+0300] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] $ grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
* [2023-06-26T10:24:08+0300] [ALPM] running 'grub_update.hook'...
* [2023-06-26T10:24:08+0300] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] /usr/bin/grub-install: error: cannot find EFI director
Maybe something I installed got a trace or installed Grub. Recoll, Some BTRFS software? Snapper… I do not know, what I am 10000% sure of is that I did not install it on purpose!
Update: The last lines I can say it was because of ventoy somehow! (Ah, maybe ventoy did it somehow when I installed it some time ago to play with different distros from a USB flash disk,)
Would be safe to uninstall and remove eanything and everything Grub? (I uninstalled ventoy as it seems to be the cause of this endless update I encounters this morning… and I am suspicious it was what brought Grub though I never did!)
What command should I do to be sure I completely remove both Grub and ventoy?
[ALPM] running 'grub_update.hook'..
Do you have a pacman hook for updating Grub? You don’t need these stuff if you use systemd-boot.
You can remove it.
I remember I had a Grub hook some time ago (a hook to automatically manage the Grub stuff so it won’t break), maybe it was copied along with the files I had as backup on an external drive then I copied /home/limo/ from that external drive after I installed EndeavourOS on this new laptop.
UPDATE:
I checked an old thread Grub Hook to grub-install and grub-mkconfig? and found I have grub_update.hook at /etc/pacman.d/hooks/
Now, I think I should delete it, right?
What commands to do to completely get rid of Grub and ventoy and any of their traces?
You could uninstall Grub and remove the hook.
What commands to do to completely get rid of Grub and ventoy and any of their traces? Just to be sure I won’t break my system, this is not just an app, it is related to boot loader so it is serious for me. I do not want to do something wrong and end up with a non bootable system, so I better ask the experts.
Just did
[limo@asus hooks]$ sudo rm *.*
[sudo] password for limo:
[limo@asus hooks]$
deleted the hook
sudo pacman -Rs grub ventoy should do it.
[limo@asus ~]$ sudo pacman -Rs grub ventoy
[sudo] password for limo:
error: target not found: ventoy
[limo@asus ~]$ sudo pacman -Rs grub
checking dependencies...
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: removing grub breaks dependency 'grub' required by libguestfs
[limo@asus ~]$
Dependency?!!
Is it related to VirtualBox?
Seems to have been removed previously.
libguestfs is a dependency of guestfs-tools, which is a tool “for accessing and modifying guest disk images”
Repository : extra
Name : guestfs-tools
Version : 1.48.3-1
Description : Tools for accessing and modifying guest disk images
Architecture : x86_64
URL : http://libguestfs.org/
Licenses : GPL2 LGPL2.1
Groups : None
Provides : None
Depends On : gcc-libs glibc jansson openssl perl-libintl-perl libguestfs libguestfs.so=0-64 libvirt libvirt.so=0-64 libxml2 libxml2.so=2-64 ncurses libncursesw.so=6-64 pcre2 libpcre2-8.so=0-64 xz liblzma.so=5-64
Optional Deps : None
Conflicts With : None
Replaces : None
Download Size : 3.37 MiB
Installed Size : 28.05 MiB
Packager : David Runge <dvzrv@archlinux.org>
Build Date : Wed 11 Jan 2023 04:55:39 PM CET
Validated By : MD5 Sum SHA-256 Sum Signature
If you use guestfs-tools then you would need to keep around grub since it is a dependency for its dependency. Grub won’t be interfering with your boot process.
If you don’t use guestfs-tools then you could remove it:
sudo pacman -Rs guestfs-tools
I believe it is required by VirtualBox. Right?
If so, I just have to leave it
