Triple Boot - Advice before commitment please

Newbie Corner
#1

Hello

I have come over from the 'dark side' dipping my toes into Linux, but intend to jump fully in (up to my neck at least), leaving Windows available for my AAA gaming. After 12 days on Linux I am loving it, but not fully committed to a distro yet. I have Manjaro on a virtual machine alongside openSUSE. I want to get the full feel of Manjaro and have decided to go for a full install.

I need a little advice before committing to an install of Manjaro KDE. I have quite a few drives, but essentially my main boot drive is an NVMe SSD, and I also have 2 other SATA3 SSDs. I am ignoring my HDDs at this point

1/ My NVMe has Windows 10 x64, and a recent partition for Linux Mint 19.1. It has some legacy partitions (like Windows recovery), and a small FAT32 partition which I assume contains the efi gfrub2 bootloader. I am using a UEFI BIOS and GPT partitions.

2/ I have created unallocated space (185 GB) on a Samsung 750 Pro SDD ready for an install of Manjaro.

3/ I am concerned about rebooting after seeing the final summary during the install. As there is no mention of the Windows 10 partition (in light blue in the image below). Linux Mint (in purple) has been spotted, and you can see that Manjaro will be installed on the other SSD (in red)

4/ The installer wants to place the grub menu on the same partition as the existing one (nvme0n1p2), so I am worried that Windows my not be bootable if I continue with the install, and I may end up a with a dual Linux boot rather than a triple boot.

5/ I thought that there might be an option NOT to install a bootloader, and I could use the terminal in Mint to update the grub2 menu to add Manjaro. Knowing that Windows successfully boots with Mint's grub2 menu.

I hope that's enough info for you

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

Manjaro-Install

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#2

5/ I though that there might be an option NOT to install a bootloader, and I could use the terminal in Mint to update the grub2 menu to add Manjaro. Knowing that Windows successfully boots with Mint's grub2 menu.

Does this mean you are currently dualbooting Windows 10 and Linux Mint? Which also means that when you startup your PC, it shows grub before booting into any OS.

1/ My NVMe has Windows 10 x64, and a recent partition for Linux Mint 19.1. It has some legacy partitions (like Windows recovery), and a small FAT32 partition which I assume contains the efi gfrub2 bootloader. I am using a UEFI BIOS and GPT partitions.

Yes, you're right. nvme0n1p1 is Windows recovery, p2 is your bootloader partition.

2/ I have created unallocated space (185 GB) on a Samsung 750 Pro SDD ready for an install of Manjaro.

Did you mount that partition as root? Do it, so that the installer will know that you want to use the partition for Manjaro.

3/ I am concerned about rebooting after seeing the final summary during the install. As there is no mention of the Windows 10 partition (in light blue in the image below). Linux Mint (in purple) has been spotted, and you can see that Manjaro will be installed on the other SSD (in red)

Grub will auto detect the Windows OS, despite not mentioning the Windows during the installation. As for dual Linux issue, see the reply below.

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#3

As far as I know the Mint grub won't boot Manjaro but the Manjaro grub boots Mint and Windows.

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#4

Sorry about that, new to Manjaro and didn't realise it works differently.

Just found out this quoted post from another thread, explaining the reason.

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#5

Thank you all for the quick replies, whilst I've been away cooking :slight_smile:

Yes, that is the case

No. I used Windows to shrink that drive and leave unallocated and unformatted space, assuming (correctly I think), that the Manjaro installer would pick up on that free space and allow me to install there, hence the red partition in the attached image is being shown as 'Manjaro'

Ah ...... thanks, that means I have no choice but to use the Manjaro bootloader

Great, I will give it 'bash' then ......... (pun intended) :point_left:

If all else fails I have a full backup of all partitions on the NVMe drive via Windows 10 (Macrium), for which I have a bootable recovery USB stick.

Thanks one again to everyone for replying.

I am off to install it now, and will report back very soon (if it all boots up) ......

#6

Go for it. You won't regret :sunglasses:.

#7

Famous last words .............. :smile:

Let's say it was an amazingly good, fast, and successful install ...... up to the point where it all went wrong.

A perfect startup, with Windows, Mint, and Manjaro options available in the (let's face it) sexy bootloader (compared to mint).

Load of updates to do, but let's do some tests first ....

1/ While I'm here let 's install the Nvidia graphics driver (390), no re-boot was requested.

2/ Reboot to Mint ..... yup that works

3/ Reboot to Windows 10 .... yup that works

4/ Reboot to Manjaro ..... Nope ..... Nada, You are not welcome here.

I can't remember the error exactly, but it was something to do with unable to load kernel module(s).
Being a little bit of a Windows freak but still sucking on the teat of linux, I was err ■■■■ err ....stuck.

I couldn't find a quick way of undoing the graphics driver install (Terminal virgin), as I am guessing that was the problem. So I have installed Manjaro again, overwriting the original. Awfully drastic I know, but I was in dire straits ..... no Mark Knopfler jokes here please :slight_smile:

So there's 3 things that bother me now

1/ What (if any) Nvidia drivers can I use? (GTX 1080ti)

2/ How can I recover quickly and easily if I hit the same fault again?

3/ Why isn't my Steel Series Arctic Pro Wireless sound card/headset working and showing as stereo (at least) rather than mono? I had this same problem in Mint, and the fix I found ended up with me unable to boot Mint, but once the boot was fixed the soundcard worked correctly.

Perhaps those last 3 point would be better off in another thread after I've done some searching to see if I can find the answer first.

Cheers

#8

non-free, the ones that come with Manjaro by default, just choose them in the boot menu of the live CD.

Yes :slight_smile:

#9

Sorry to ask, but what do you mean?

I am running Manjaro on a SSD now, not the boot USB stick.

I installed the Nvidia driver from this system settings page, by right clicking on the Nvidia 390xx entry and selecting install

nvidia

#10

This put you in a "partial upgrade" state. If you install new software package you must update at the same time otherwise you will risk having software which uses different library versions than those installed.

This is probably fixable but really should go in its own thread. But read this first:

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#11

Thank you Jonathon, that explains a lot, and you are probably on the money there.

I guess it's the ingrained Windows mindset, download the latest video drivers and go. Rollback if you have problems. No real need to consider kernels and libraries.

I'll probably hop back into Windows and backup image the Manjaro partition, as I don't feel like playing with Clonezilla (or similar) right now, that can all come later ..... :slight_smile:

After the backup I'll go for Nvidia driver install, Manjaro is fully updated now AFAIK, as Octopi is green and gone.

Thank you :+1:

#12

I know you've already some answers, but anyways...

  1. Just use the video-nvidia (currently at 418) since you have a recent GPU. Not sure if this was already clear.

  2. Jonathon linked you for the general issue but for graphic driver problems (that hopefully you won't encounter) have this link https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php?title=Configure_Graphics_Cards on hand for the command line instructions (needed from TTY, for example).

  3. Place to start is with pavucontrol (PulseAudio Volume Control) make sure the Output Devices and Configuration tabs are set appropriately, and alsamixer to make sure that nothing is muted.

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#13

All info is gratefully accepted my friend :slight_smile:

I am sending all the info from here, and other (hopefully relevant) pages to my mobile phone's Firefox, as I've (actually unusually) cocked-up the Windows partition which is on the same drive Manjaro is on, which has a ton of games on it. So I've had to recover from a drive image ....... err destroying Manjaro.

Ha ha ....... I love computers, I've been bug**ring them up since 1981 :grin:

3rd time lucky methinks ..... no negative waves here

Thank you :+1:

#14

Use the most recent driver for your card (video-nvidia).

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#15

Done ........ the auto install loads driver v418.56, and it boots no problems this time.

Bonus ...... it's even set the refresh rate correctly for each monitor (144, 120) ..... nice

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#16

Just for the sake of completeness, audio is now fixed and working correctly. The fix was based on this blog article

It would appear that this series of audio devices don't all have the same device ID number. so the PulseAudio config file didn't initialise my device correctly

Default = ID 1038:1260 SteelSeries ApS
Mine = ID 1038:1294 SteelSeries ApS

Cheers

2 Likes
#17

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