Title: Arch Install
Date: 18th April 2021

So I installed Arch on an old Dell Latitude I had lying about. Not without issue it has to be said.The good thing about Arch is that it forces you to learn about all the underlying technology that props up a traditional linux system.

Lets take the boot loader for instance. The very first step in the start-up process for any operating system. This is the step that loads and boots the operating system kernel, potentially allowing you to choose which one if you have multiple installed.

The difficulty I encountered this time around is that there are two versions of the process. The old way, where you set a flag for the Master Boot Record (MBR) on your chosen partition, which goes back to the dawn of IBM computing and the new way, known as UEFI (Unfied something something Inteface).

If you've ever booted into your bios before you might be aware that it gives you the choice of what medium to load your system from (Harddrive, USB stick, CD). Well newer systems also give you the choice between a legacy boot and a UEFI boot. After figuring this out, I decided to go with the UEFI boot as it was new. The key thing here is to know which one you are choosing. I had already done a lot of the install in legacy mode, so I had to enable UEFI booting from the HD in the bios to actually use it.

Following the Arch instructions I partitioned my hard disks, creating a small EFI partition. I decided to go with a single giant partition for the rest of the system. Some people like to have separate partitions for different areas (home, usr, etc), but I didn't bother with that.

I was then presented with a profusion of choices for boot loaders. In the past it used to be just Lilo or Grub, but this seems to have expanded out to 5 different ones. Sticking with what I knew I installed Grub. When I first tried booting into the new OS I got a 'no boot drive selectable' or some such. I had enabled the old fasioned active MBR flag on my EFI partition when messing about and discovering the distinction between MBR and UEFI. Disabling it again got me booting fine and I was able to continue the install.