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Manjaro on Alienware 15 r2
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burningserenity Feb 26, 2018
I just want to post this because I tried 5 separate times to user Manjaro but each time got stuck on boot. GRUB hung at loading initial ram disk, and I couldn't figure out what to do.

Finally, after getting frustrated with the otherwise excellent Solus's limited repository, I decided to try my luck with the CLI installer, Manjaro Architect.

Long story short, I finally have a bootable and working Manjaro installation on my laptop! The key points were to use kernel version 4.14 (others would probably work, but 4.16 did not), auto install the proprietary graphics drivers, and use rEFInd, not GRUB, as the bootloader.
lucinos Feb 27, 2018
usually the last kernel does not work with nvidia drivers? is that the case?

also I thought manjaro has the the LTS 4.14 kernel as the default (and you can easily install any other kernel).
burningserenity Feb 27, 2018
Tbh I'm not sure about the first thing you said, but 4.16 is marked as experimental, so I assume it has bugs.

I think either 4.14 or 4.14 rt is the default for Manjaro, judging by my recent failed installations. Architect doesn't make that apparent, though.
flipper Feb 27, 2018
You could try to enter at GRUB boot options of the live installer:
acpi_os=! acpi_osi="Windows 2009"
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/bumblebee-grub-acpi-boot-options/38397
lucinos Feb 27, 2018
Quoting: burningserenityTbh I'm not sure about the first thing you said, but 4.16 is marked as experimental, so I assume it has bugs.

I think either 4.14 or 4.14 rt is the default for Manjaro, judging by my recent failed installations. Architect doesn't make that apparent, though.

At least in my personal experience every time I tried latest kernel (now that would be 4.16) with nvidia it failed miserably. So I just wait for some time and then it is fine. When next experimental is out I install the new kernel. For example I have 4.15 now and I upgrade to 4.16 when I will see 4.17 as available. After quite a lot of failures I do not even try earlier. I suppose the proprietary nvidia drivers do not support the experimental kernels. I am also quite sure it has to do with the nvidia so it is not a "bug" of the kernel it is just some kind of incompatibility with nvidia.
burningserenity Feb 27, 2018
Quoting: lucinos
Quoting: burningserenityTbh I'm not sure about the first thing you said, but 4.16 is marked as experimental, so I assume it has bugs.

I think either 4.14 or 4.14 rt is the default for Manjaro, judging by my recent failed installations. Architect doesn't make that apparent, though.

At least in my personal experience every time I tried latest kernel (now that would be 4.16) with nvidia it failed miserably. So I just wait for some time and then it is fine. When next experimental is out I install the new kernel. For example I have 4.15 now and I upgrade to 4.16 when I will see 4.17 as available. After quite a lot of failures I do not even try earlier. I suppose the proprietary nvidia drivers do not support the experimental kernels. I am also quite sure it has to do with the nvidia so it is not a "bug" of the kernel it is just some kind of incompatibility with nvidia.

That's not surprising at all. I bet it has more to do with the proprietary drivers not being up to date, and by the time the next kernel is released, nvidia finally catches up to the previous.

Between this, Optimus, and the fact that Valve is helping with AMD-mesa, I think I'll switch to team red next time.
lucinos Feb 27, 2018
Quoting: burningserenityBetween this, Optimus, and the fact that Valve is helping with AMD-mesa, I think I'll switch to team red next time.

For laptop (for the moment) I strongly stay with intel only.
For desktop I would still go with nvidia (although mesa is now quite good and amd is starting to be an option.
For a cheap desktop I would really consider an amd ryzen apu, as they are more powerful than intel.
burningserenity Feb 28, 2018
Quoting: lucinos
Quoting: burningserenityTbh I'm not sure about the first thing you said, but 4.16 is marked as experimental, so I assume it has bugs.

I think either 4.14 or 4.14 rt is the default for Manjaro, judging by my recent failed installations. Architect doesn't make that apparent, though.

At least in my personal experience every time I tried latest kernel (now that would be 4.16) with nvidia it failed miserably. So I just wait for some time and then it is fine. When next experimental is out I install the new kernel. For example I have 4.15 now and I upgrade to 4.16 when I will see 4.17 as available. After quite a lot of failures I do not even try earlier. I suppose the proprietary nvidia drivers do not support the experimental kernels. I am also quite sure it has to do with the nvidia so it is not a "bug" of the kernel it is just some kind of incompatibility with nvidia.

So this is a bit odd: it seems kernel 4.15 has trouble dual booting with Windows. If I boot straight from Windows, systemd doesn't start and I get dropped into the rootfs shell with an error that NTFS is an unknown file system. I can boot into 4.14 after forcing a shut down, then reboot into 4.15 just fine.
wolfyrion Feb 28, 2018
What are you talking about????

I am using Manjaro with 4.16 kernel and NVIDIA Drinvers are working fine , however NOT all the drivers are implemented yet on 4.16 because my AQUANTIA 10GB network card is not working at all but intel network card is working just fine.
However with all previous stable kernels everything is working fine. 4.16 is still beta so be careful when you are using it.

I am using Grub and with Grub Customizer you can modify whatever you want and it will automatically detect every OS you have and add the entries automatically. (I have never used rEFInd)

Manjaro and Antergos are easy to install and use but I find Manjaro a bit much more stable.
Also if you are using f2fs as root you may have problems booting but with EXT4 you shouldn't have any problems.

I still dont understand your problem and how you are getting a not bootable Manjaro.
That means you are doing something wrong with your installation.

You need :

1. Boot Prtition /MBR/boot/grub
2. Root partition
3. Home Parition
4. Swap Partition

Or if you have a good pc you can use:
1. Boot Partition
2 . Root/home Partition

in f2fs file systems you must modify the entries to boot with UUID instead of /dev/xxxx otherwise you will have a non bootable installation.

Thats all for now
burningserenity Feb 28, 2018
Quoting: wolfyrionWhat are you talking about????

I am using Manjaro with 4.16 kernel and NVIDIA Drinvers are working fine , however NOT all the drivers are implemented yet on 4.16 because my AQUANTIA 10GB network card is not working at all but intel network card is working just fine.
However with all previous stable kernels everything is working fine. 4.16 is still beta so be careful when you are using it.

I am using Grub and with Grub Customizer you can modify whatever you want and it will automatically detect every OS you have and add the entries automatically. (I have never used rEFInd)

Manjaro and Antergos are easy to install and use but I find Manjaro a bit much more stable.
Also if you are using f2fs as root you may have problems booting but with EXT4 you shouldn't have any problems.

I still dont understand your problem and how you are getting a not bootable Manjaro.
That means you are doing something wrong with your installation.

You need :

1. Boot Prtition /MBR/boot/grub
2. Root partition
3. Home Parition
4. Swap Partition

Or if you have a good pc you can use:
1. Boot Partition
2 . Root/home Partition

in f2fs file systems you must modify the entries to boot with UUID instead of /dev/xxxx otherwise you will have a non bootable installation.

Thats all for now

I have the second configuration you specified, with BTRFS as my root file system. rEFInd works flawlessly with kernel 4.14, other things have problems for me. I'm aware that the Windows bootloader has some peculiarities and they might be messing with rEFInd. I could try to reinstall with GRUB as you and @flipper mentioned, but at this point I don't care to.

My first post was in fact to mention that I did get this install bootable and I wanted to post about it in case anyone else had similar trouble. Now we're just talking about practical differences we've noticed between kernels. What is so hard to understand?
Avehicle7887 Feb 28, 2018
Quoting: wolfyrionAQUANTIA 10GB

Uuuh, 10GB/bit as in 1GB/sec Max transfer speed? I must be behind on network tech. ;)
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