How can I dual boot with my Arch Linux installation?

[BluePy_251]

I want to dual boot Gentoo with Arch, how can I dual boot?

Context: I want to install Gentoo and dual boot it with Arch, so I need help to see how can I do it.

[Banana]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

You need a bootloader: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Bootloader and configure it: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Installation/Bootloader
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[BluePy_251]

Thank you for the help

[BluePy_251]

I installed yesterday, today I wake up to see that I couldn't boot it, and to my surprise, I had created /mnt/gentoo on my Arch partition, not on the desired Gentoo one, so I guess Arch auto-deleted all /mnt/gentoo files, because the directory was completely empty, idk if it was the guide I followed or smth, but I'm so confused because I even got a screenshot of a fastfetch done alongside Arch (since you can apparently use any OS to install)

[Hu]

If you used /mnt/gentoo as a mountpoint yesterday, and did not mount it today, then yes, it would be empty today, even if your files are intact. What is the output of blkid? On what partition did you create the root filesystem for Gentoo?

[BluePy_251]

The supposed partition was dev/nvme0n1p5, but /mnt/gentoo was in nvme0n1p3, also blkid won't help because I stupidly removed the partitions.

[BluePy_251]

Now after creating partitions again nvme0n1p5 is mounted to /run/media/<user>/<uuid>, why is that like it?

[Hu]

Are you asking about a behavior observed in the Arch Linux you used for the install, or observed in the resulting Gentoo install? /run/media is typically used by desktop environments that are trying to be "helpful."

[BluePy_251]

Gentoo was removed, so it was Arch after creating with gparted, so I will just unmount it because I mounted it again to /mnt/gentoo, but, does it matter where /mnt/gentoo is?

[BluePy_251]

Installing Gentoo again as I speak, this time reading the Handbook.

[BluePy_251]

Nevermind, installation failed again, this time the initramfs didn't work, and I even enabled the flag in the file it said on the Handbook, and my battery died (unrelated but true), so, should I install it on the official ISO or should I just try again? Because my system started failing aftert removing the Gentoo partitions, even though I fixed it, it wasn't pleasant.

[Hu]

I recommend against running on battery while trying to install Gentoo. The time requirement will vary with your experience level and choices, but if you have many packages build from source, the demand on the battery could be significant.

Installing from Arch should be fine. If it was going to be a problem, it would have been apparent quite early on. Beyond that general bit of commentary, the best I can offer is that if you need help, you need to give us something with which we can work. Right now, your posts are too vague for us to understand what you did or what has gone wrong.

[BluePy_251]

Ok, so one, Arch, whenever I tried to run the dracut command myself, for some reason it would ALWAYS connect it to my Arch system's kernel,.second, my system started failing when I messed up my fstab (fixed by just re-running from emergency mode), and when I deleted the partitions to start again another day(same solution) so, to avoid having those problems, I think installing from Arch won't happen again. Also, where should I put the dracut flag so it can actually run an initramfs while compiling?

[BluePy_251]

What do I do now?

[Hu]

I do not use dracut, and cannot advise you on it. Perhaps someone else will help you.

[sMueggli]

[BluePy_251]

It would use my Arch Linux's kernel instead of the Gentoo one even on a chroot, no, they don't share any partitions (other than the swap), and it was my Arch fstab, and thanks.

Also, I got the LiveGUI to install it from there, so hopefully, it won't actually use any other kernel other than its own. Man, have I had a ride with Gentoo that has taught me a lot.

My mount points:

/mnt - Arch on /dev/nvme0n1p3, boot is nvme0n1p1
/mnt/gentoo - Future Gentoo install on nvme0n1p5, boot is nvme0n1p4

The formats:
0n1p1/4 - fat32
0n1p3 - ext4
0n1p5 - btrfs
0n1p2 - swap

[BluePy_251]

And again... And this time it somehow deleted my whole disk, losing lots of important files in the process ehile trying to delete /mnt/gentoo, man, I am so confused right now

Edit: nvm, thing was still there, but damage was irreversible, so there goes 6 months of hard work.

[Chiitoo]

[BluePy_251]

I deleted nvme0n1p4, then tried unmount nvme0n1p5, fails because mountpoint is busy, then I try removing the directory, fails witha giant error log, then I reboot to find I couldn't boot to anything, then I download Arch and put it into a USB using another machine, then I see my filesystem was intact, so I chroot into it, hoping to restore it, only to find I couldn't run grub-mkconfig, nor pacman -Syu without errors, meaning it was unsaveable.

[Hu]

If you have more details than you have shared, we might be able to fix this. Otherwise, I would refer you to your most recent backup.

What exactly did you do to "delete" nvme0n1p4? I can think of a few interpretations of that statement, with varying degrees of destructiveness.

In general, I would reiterate Chiitoo's hint: make note of, and show us, the exact commands you ran. Summarizing your actions makes it hard for us to understand what you did, and if we do not know what you did, then it is hard for us to identify what you did wrong. I also suggest that, when next you find yourself in a hole, you stop digging and seek help. Making further changes just increases the chance you will do irreparable damage while trying to correct the prior mistake.

[BluePy_251]

Ok, so I used gparted to unmount and delete, because it was the meaningless boot partition for Gentoo, so I try to do the same with the root partition, it fails because it's mountpoint was busy, so I try deleting the directory using the terminal, it fails saying that it couldn't remove the directory with a very verbose output stating all directories which couldn't be removed. Then I reboot to see what I could do with the Arch system, only to see the ominous screen: Please install an operating system on your computer. So I download Arch into a USB, then, I check with chroot after seeing with cfdisk that the partitions were fine, but grub-mkconfig fails saying something I can't quite remember, then I try running pacman -Syu, only to see it had failed due to "insufficient disk space", when it wasn't even close to full, so I gave up because of all the stress the one thing that caused my mistake did.

So, dracut always complained about not finding the modules, and even after minutes of research I still couldn't find how to set those up. So I just had a small mental breakdown and I rage quit the installation, because of dracut complaining.

[BluePy_251]

At this point I think I could have run fsck -a to fix.