How to install BTRFS on Arch Linux

[GreyGeek]

It only takes 24 easy steps:
https://www.nishantnadkarni.tech/pos..._installation/
The 24th step is to install plasma-desktop.

On Kubuntu or Neon you
1) Boot the LiveUSB
2) choose install
3) at the HD format step select manual to install on the entire drive
4) create a partition, sdaN on which to install
5) select BTRFS as the root file system and "/" as the path.
6) continue with the install.

Since all the steps except #5 could be done regardless of the file system used, it actually takes only one step to make BTRFS the root file system.

[oldgeek]

No wonder I don't use Arch!

[chimak111]

"How to install BTRFS on Arch Linux" doesn't take 24 steps

Installing Arch up to the point you can install a DE of your choice does take many steps.

I had installed Arch as therapy in the recent past so I know

[GreyGeek]

"How to install BTRFS on Arch Linux" doesn't take 24 steps

Installing Arch up to the point you can install a DE of your choice does take many steps.

I had installed Arch as therapy in the recent past so I know

It did did take 24 steps in the article I linked to, because they are numbered by the author, not me, except for the DE step. And, I've seen several videos of folks demonstrating how to install Arch, and all of them involved many more steps than, say, Manjaro. The Arch Installation Guide lists about that many steps.

However, as an experienced Linux user, and to be fair, none of the steps involve rocket science. I've been looking at Arch since Chris Titus did his video on installing Arch, which is the distro he uses for his daily driver. I am contemplaing shrinking about 60GB off of my BTRFS rootfs subvolume and installing Arch on it, just to check it off my bucket list.

[oldgeek]

I suppose Arch could also be installed on QEMU Virtual Manager, right?

[claydoh]

I suppose Arch could also be installed on QEMU Virtual Manager, right?

Of course it can

[claydoh]

It only takes 24 easy steps:

That is the point of Arch, of course.

[Fred47]

If you really want to try Arch may I suggest some of the distros that make it easier. Note this article is dated and some distros (Chakra and Anarchy) are not available or updated. The big advantage to Arch is the community especially their Wiki https://itsfoss.com/arch-based-linux-distros/ Also do a search for easy Arch linux

[Snowhog]

It is true (IMO) that the Arch Wiki is one of, if not the best, online help pages of any Linux distro around. And it is true, that the core Arch Forum members are very versed in using Arch, but they are also extremely intolerant of 'stupid questions', and asking such will often get you a very terse reply. Just say'n.

[GreyGeek]

I've seen those "terse" replies on Arch's forums.

Well, I decided to give Manjaro a test run since is is built on top of Arch.
First, I resized my btrfs @ subvolume by 60GB. Then I used PartitianManger to partition that 60GB to an 8MB unformated partition, sda1, with biod-grub set. The remainder, sda2, I gave it to BTRFS on /. That was required and I couldn't avoid it.

Manjaro installed easily and I pointed the bootloader to /dev/sda My first surprise came when I expected the grub menu to have both my KDE Neon and Manjaro entries. No joy.. Manjaro apparently took a page from Microsoft's playbook. Manjaro booted nicely into the Plasma 2.53.1 desktop. Except for the cosmetics it could have been Kubuntu or KDE Neon. I use sudo to install muon, and then played around for a while with a few apps. Since I was running Manjaro from the 60GB partition I couldn't expand it to the full 465GB of the drive, like I could if I were in the KDE Neon partition.
So I booted from the KDE Neon ISO on my Ventoy USB disk. Using partitiionmanager I deleted the 60GB partition and expanded the 405GB partition to fill the drive. Then I mounted my /backup ssd and used send & receive to move my last KDE Neon snapshot from yesterday evening onto the sda2 partition. Then I rebooted. My first error was that about the Arch grub being different. And it couldn't find a kernel and dropped me into grub_rescue> Unfortunately, there were NO commands of any kind to do a rescue. So, I decided to repartition sda to sda1 and give everything to /.
Two install attempts died twice trying to install the boot loader. Manjaro had messed up the GPT a/or MBR boot loader. I decided to clean the entire drive with dd and I reinstalled the mbr using "install-mbr". The next attempt to install KDE Neon succeeded and presented me with a Plasma desktop in 5.18 sec. I took my previous snapshot from yesterday and copied what I wanted over to the new install. Nvidia 390.144 installed beautifully and here I am. Quite a trip today! I won't be switching to Arch anytime soon.

[chimak111]

I installed EndeavourOS alongside KDE neon. After the installation and a reboot, no sign of KDE neon. The fix recommended is this:

Run sudo pacman -S --needed os-prober. This checks for the package and its version. It installs/updates the package or tells you that you already have the latest version of os-prober.

Edit /etc/default/grub to have GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false

Regenerate grub.cfg with sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

That worked for me.