Mini How To UEFI aka Systemd Boot

Was trying to install ArchBang on an old thin client and was not having any luck getting it to boot. Tried to mount ESP partition to /boot, /boot/efi with no luck. To make matters worse I had a kernel update install and that meant system was not booting into correct kernel despite having updated (mkinitcpio -p linux). In the end I manually created loader.conf, and added entries (arch.conf) in entries folder. Finally got boot menu to come up…

This worried me that there might be an issue in abinstall. So fired up a Virtual Machine and started to test installation. Could see an error during install of bootctl and on rebooting into new install it of course failed. All the key files were missing kernel and initramfs not to mention intel-ucode.

Note the following will make changes to drives on local system, please back up any data you wish to save before proceeding!

Open Gparted either by running the following in a terminal or using Rofi [Super + d]:

sudo gparted

Create partition table [Devices menu], in my case GPT. Then create a boot partition (512Mb in my case), filesystem set to FAT32. Add rest of partitions as you wish. Then once drives are set up change flags on boot partition (right click on it) and add boot and esp. Fire up abinstall and proceed as normal, select systemd from bootloader menu and you should be fine.

Dual booting with Windows maybe be more complicated in that case I would visit Arch Wiki for more help.

Still very surprised at number of downloads near 900 this week, have had no support for project this week. Will add my Dogecoin address to support page, just curious to see if it works….

Stay safe everyone and Luke Smith 😉