Before I install Manjaro KDE

Andriko

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Hi all,

I am ready to try and install Manjaro KDE on the old PC - I have opted for this one as it has the Nvidia drivers in built and so I am not getting the freeze up problem I had when trying other live distros, but before I do I have a couple of questions:

1) I am going to install to an nvme SSD plugged into the PCIe slot - It's all plugged in, but Windows couldn't find it and my Motherboard/Bios shows it as an unknown device. After some research I was ready to give up on it (my motherboard, a z87-G41, is too old, and I would have to manually edit the BIOS which is one step too far for me), however, the Manjaro install shows it as available to install and recognizes the name of it - would this suggest I would have no problems once I've installed it?

2) Will the install be with the prorietry nvidia drivers as it is in the live OS?

3) I've read that Manjaro just boots straight into itself, but I'd like to dual boot. How would I make sure the GRUB always comes up to give me the option?
3b) I think the bios seems to be a UEFI (it has a graphical interface and stuff), so if the install to the new SSD fails, will this screw up my PC?

The issue with the above is I have read that on UEFI sysytems, the GRUB is installed on the first HDD/SSD it finds, and not necessarily onto the drive I've have chosen to install the distro on (ideally the GRUB thing would just go onto the nvme, and I can just change the boot order in the BIOS).

4) What is the app store/Package manager for Manjaro KDE - it's only got an add/remove thing on it, which doesn't seem to show anything that is not already installed on the distro.

I've tried to find answers to the above, but not much luck!

Thanks for the help,

A
 
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I'm no longer a dual-booter, but last time I was, I had to install MS first, then linux. The problem was that MS took over the whole disk and wouldn't see any other installation, but grub on the other hand did find MS when linux was installed second. No experience with Manjaro though, rather fedora and debian. May or may not be a consideration in your case.
 
Normally I think PCIe devices are controlled by the os so I would guess it works.
I suspect it might be ok, and the fact that Manjaro can identify the nvme is a good sign, my concern is whether the motherboard would let me run an OS from it if it doesn't recognise it. I'd give it a go anyway, but want to know where the GRUB will go first just incase I close off all boot options.

I'm no longer a dual-booter, but last time I was, I had to install MS first, then linux. The problem was that MS took over the whole disk and wouldn't see any other installation, but grub on the other hand did find MS when linux was installed second. No experience with Manjaro though, rather fedora and debian. May or may not be a consideration in your case.

You'll have to forgive my ignorance - but by MS do you mean Microsoft? I am installing Manjaro second on a newly installed nvme SSD, so I think I should be ok here. As I said above, it's more an issue f where the GRUB goes and if it allows me to choose which OS to boot.
 
just a quick one , where is the MS (microsoft ) Windows installed and how much room do you have?
Generally with a clean install if you wanted Windows and Linux , Windows is installed first. You can run defrag of Windows to clean things up so data is not all over the place. Normally you would then if on the same hard drive make room for linux. When you install Linux after Windows grub takes over as boot loader and updating grub after install it should recognise Windows.

From a live linux OS on a usb if you install dmidecode then
Code:
 sudo dmidecode 3.0 | grep ‘UEFI’

would show if your PC is UEFI; if you look with gPArted and see an "EFI" partition, then its definitely UEFI

Also after booting up Windows you can look in system info


pkg manager for Manjaro is pacman I believe same as Arch ; expect i think manjaro gets its packages from its own repo. One thing i did read about manjaro is not to use grub tweak package- can't remember its name.

On the EFI partition grub stores certain files that are used to boot up your computer.
 
just a quick one , where is the MS (microsoft ) Windows installed and how much room do you have?
Generally with a clean install if you wanted Windows and Linux , Windows is installed first. You can run defrag of Windows to clean things up so data is not all over the place. Normally you would then if on the same hard drive make room for linux. When you install Linux after Windows grub takes over as boot loader and updating grub after install it should recognise Windows.

From a live linux OS on a usb if you install dmidecode then
Code:
 sudo dmidecode 3.0 | grep ‘UEFI’

would show if your PC is UEFI; if you look with gPArted and see an "EFI" partition, then its definitely UEFI

Also after booting up Windows you can look in system info


pkg manager for Manjaro is pacman I believe same as Arch ; expect i think manjaro gets its packages from its own repo. One thing i did read about manjaro is not to use grub tweak package- can't remember its name.

On the EFI partition grub stores certain files that are used to boot up your computer.

Thanks, Captain! Win 7 is installed on the SSD, and then there is a HDD just for storage and the nvme SSD I've just added for Manjaro. The Windows SSD is a bursting point, but I can make a bit of room. I will check out the details as you suggest when I get the chance.

Thinking about it logically, I should have no problems if the GRUB goes on the Windows SSD, because it seems to me that if Manjaro can detect the nvme then GRUB should also, allowing me to boot from there, and if it all fails I'll still be able to get windows running anyway. It's more a matter of making sure GRUB goes to the SSD and Manjaro to the nvme.

You might be able to use a grub USB or somthing cheap to detect the nvme and then boot to it?

That's a good suggestion, I wll try it if the above doesn't work.

Thanks for your help, guys!
 
with Arch manual installation i used :

Code:
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --bootloader-id=GRUB --efi-directory=/boot/efi
//gave no errors
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg


As for room I have CodeIgniter4 web dev on Apache localhost , scribus, libreoffice etc etc pkgs and my laptop only has 60gig HD
 
Thanks for the help guys - I am about to give it a go and the install gives me an option to choose where the bootloader goes, I assume that this is the GRUB and that I want this on the Windows SSD?

Thanks!

A
 
if your system is uefi , you will want grub install to go to the efi partition. the way i did it with manual install of Arch was first to confirm which partition was the fat32 EFI. in my case, it was /dev/mmcblkop1 . i manually mounted that partition to /boot .

I think i then manually created a directory within /boot called efi. So that this bit of grub install section
Code:
--efi-directory=/boot/efi

made sense. Can't help much with majaro i'm afraid. What i can tell you is that if you have uefi and don't take into account the efi ,wherever it is, then grub might install old school to the Master Boot Secure (mbr) , now if Windows is using the efi partition via uefi and you install grub old school, if your system is uefi , it will look for efi partition with the needed files there. In a nutshell what will happen is that it will boot to Windows every time.


One thing you might consider before making the jump is to install rEFInd to a usb stick; if you boot from that after installing it should be able to give you the choice of booting up linux or Windows
 
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Ok, I will need some help now. I installed Manjaro to the nvme SSD, and the Bootloader to the Windows SSD and now it just boots to GRUB recovery. I've looked up rEFInd, but was a bit confused, and I tried to directly install GRUB onto the USB flash but it didn't seem to want to let me.

Is there a way to fix the boot up from the live os?
 
Just an update - I've decided to just dump windows and install Manjaro. It works fine from the original SSD, but can't boot when I have it only installed on the nvme/PCIe SSD, which is probably the motherboard's fault. Perhaps I can boot it from grub (with Manjaro installed on both drives), the only issue is that Manjaro goes straight to the log in screen and never gives me the GRUB menu a la Mint.

Anyway, I probably need a new PC soon, so at leats I have a second SSD to install linux to that one (assuming I don't detonate everything again!).
 
Andriko wrote:
the only issue is that Manjaro goes straight to the log in screen and never gives me the GRUB menu a la Mint.
You could have a look at the grub menu configs in /etc/default/grub and check the config: GRUB_TIMEOUT.
It it equals 0, then that means grub doesn't show it's menu, which is the behaviour you describe, but if you change that to 10, then grub will show its menu for 10 seconds before booting. After changing the config, you need to update grub with whatever command you have to do that.
 
In addition to the above, I'd probably look in my settings to see if there's some RST/AHCI going on at the BIOS level, though I suppose we don't call it BIOS anymore unless you're in legacy mode.
 
Ok, I will need some help now. I installed Manjaro to the nvme SSD, and the Bootloader to the Windows SSD and now it just boots to GRUB recovery. I've looked up rEFInd, but was a bit confused, and I tried to directly install GRUB onto the USB flash but it didn't seem to want to let me.

Is there a way to fix the boot up from the live os?
ok for rEFInd basically you just DD a file to a usb stick; after doing so from a cold boot you choose usb stick and it will boot to a basic rEFind menu giving you a section of OS' s it has found( all UEFI only of course) . i've previously tested it for Windows and Slackware found both. i will see if i can find a link to the img , that needs to be DD'd to usb


docs : https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/index.html
 
Thanks again Captain, I tried the rEFInd (possibley imperfectly) but it didn't seem to be able to find any OSs. In the end I've managed to get it all Frankensteined together - Manjaro is now installed on both SSDs and I can boot to the nvme, but with an error saying a device is missing. I press enter, and it works fine. I've lost Windows (but not most of the Data I wanted actually), but that's not a big loss. When I do eventually get a new PC, I willl be a bit more cautious installing Linux to the second drive (which which hopefully just me in the second m.2 slot, and be a smoother install...).

Thanks everyone for the help, I think I've learn something, though I am not sure what!
 
I think I've learn something, though I am not sure what!

Learning curve and that sometimes its just a mystery how i got it to work ? all think we have all been there .

I've got things to work , forgot to take notes so wasn't sure how i did it !
 

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