Cannot install Manjaro to a persistent USB

Note: I am new to linux - this is my first time switching over from windows 10.

I would like to install Manjaro to a persistent USB, since I want to be able to switch between windows and Manjaro on my laptop, on the fly, until I can get a new computer on which I intend to install Manjaro to disk. I am, however, having issues.

After flashing the .iso file for Manjaro with KDE plasma (downloaded yesterday, from this website) to a USB (hereafter USB1) using rufus, I booted into USB1 from windows 10 (via shift+restart → us a device → EFI USB Device).

When the boot options menu popped up, I configured the live Manjaro session to boot with the nvidia proprietary drivers (as well as the GB keytable and with British English).

When booting completed, I inserted the USB onto which I want to install Manjaro to persistently (hereafter USB2). I connected to the internet, and launched the installer from the on-screen wizard. According to the Sikaris installer that popped up, I am attempting to install Manjaro 22.0.1.

After setting my language, timezone, and selecting the default keyboard layout, I selected USB2 from the drop-down selector for storage device. I selected the erase disk option, without the option of creating a swap partition. According to the wizard, I should have ended up with a 300 MiB FAT32 partition (I assume this is my boot partition), and a 499.7 GiB ext4 (root) partition on which Manjaro is installed (note that USB2 is 512 GB in size).

I then entered my name, named the computer, entered a password, set this same password to the “administrator account”, and started the install.

When unpacking the image files, the installer hangs (typically at 4 to 8% completion, or on file 9041/73916 in this case), and eventually closes without a confirmation that the installation has been completed.

While the partitions have been created (as I can see on the installer when trying again), USB2 cannot boot - the computer just ends up booting to windows 10. I have tried to boot USB2 the same way I have USB1.

Note that I have tried installing to USB2 multiple times, erasing the previous contents during each (failed) attempt.

I have also tried manually creating the boot and root partitions, but the result is the same. I followed the instructions in a youtube video entitled “Linux Tips - Install Full Persistent Manjaro on a USB Drive (2022)”, but omitted the mkdir and grub-install steps, since the boot directory ended up containing different files to the example in the video, and I didn’t want to make a mistake.

When I run lsblk in the terminal, I find the following under sdc:

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO MOUNTPOINTS
sdc1 8:33 1 300M 0 part /tmp/calamares-root-m5w6nfjb/boot/efi
sdc2 8:34 1 499.7G 0 part

In the /boot directory (found under the devices filed in dolphin), I have the following files:
. grub - containing: gurbenv
. memtest86+ - containing: memtest.bin; memtest.efi
. amd-ucode.img
. intel-ucode.img
. linux61-x86_64.kver
. vmlinuz-6.1-x86_64

Reading the comments to the video, I have also found that the manual partitioning technique might not be necessary, and that the automated method I selected first should have worked.

Is it possible that I have downloaded a corrupted .iso, or that I have to run a mkdir, or something else entirely?

Thank you very much

Here are some guides that may be of some assistance:

Seems that this has been abandoned?

I think you need to make sure that your USB drive2 is unmounted before you start the installer - it may be automatically mounted when you insert it.
open the file manager and unmount it - not eject, just unmount

USB2 is not mounted, i’ve checked.

I also tried following the method outlined in the 2nd post the jrichard326 provided. I could install ALMA, but when I got to entering the terminal command:

export ALMA_USER=user ; alma create --presets ./alma/presets/xde.toml

I got an error saying the command was not found.

I hope this helps

What command was not found? export ? alma ? or was a “file not found” ?
Please provide output (!) from

pacman -Ss alma-git 

and

whereis alma

Where I got the error:

sudo su
[manjaro manjaro]# ALMA_USER=user ; alma create --presets ./alma/presets/xde.toml
bash: alma: command not found

Output as requested (1):

[manjaro manjaro]# pacman -Ss alma-git
warning: database file for ‘core’ does not exist (use ‘-Sy’ to download)
warning: database file for ‘extra’ does not exist (use ‘-Sy’ to download)
warning: database file for ‘community’ does not exist (use ‘-Sy’ to download)
warning: database file for ‘multilib’ does not exist (use ‘-Sy’ to download)

Output as requested (2):

[manjaro manjaro]# whereis alma
alma:

That command searches for packages from the repo or from what you have installed - it does not install anything

therefore: alma is not even installed as of yet

alma is available through the AUR
you can build AUR packages using pamac (not pacman!) or yay, for example
or use makepkg
You need to have prerequisites installed as well, to use the AUR, namely all the packages in the base-devel package group
Here you might get away without that - but pacman is certainly not the tool for the job and you didn’t even tell it to install anything …

2 Likes

alma-git is in community !

how it should look like:

pacman -Ss alma-git
community/alma-git r117.ac97608-1 [Installiert]
    Create Arch Linux based live USB

and

whereis alma
alma: /usr/bin/alma

you did not install alma-git yet

You have to follow every step of the instructions exactly, otherwise it won’t work. If you get error messages on the way, don’t just keep going. Ask for help, and provide exact output.

Please excuse me. I’m new to using the terminal. I am trying.

I have run the command:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/alma.git

and I do see the folder under:
/home/manjaro

But i think I made another mistake somewhere since the folder only contains PKGBUILD

and the two commands you’ve mentioned still return the same

what about the line in the howto with

pamac ....

you should not skip lines !

Error: target not found: git

Is your system up to date ?
Is pamac functioning ? (No)

You first have to go get a functioning system.

Then after that you can install git and alma-git

I can’t help you with this. That is not my field of expertise. :man_shrugging:

Well, thank you for trying. Your help is greatly appreciated.

I’ve been carrying out all of these steps from the live USB.

And I have been taking a couple of liberties with the howto, since I wanted the KDE plasma version installed, not the XFCE.

That in itself is no problem.

If you are new to linux it may be best to do it 2 times (2xSUB-Stick)

  1. following the HowTo
  2. doing your own thing after 1. has succeeded

You did not mention that you work from live iso.
You may need to

  1. update first (may take some time)
  2. install pamac
  3. install git
  4. install alma-git

what I said:

update
install this package group …

But you don’t need that in your case - just installing git is enough

1 Like

Okay. Starting afresh, now trying to follow the instructions in the howto to the letter.

First, however, I have both the pamac and git exactutables in my /bin/ directory (on the live usb)

whereis pamac
pamac: /usr/bin/pamac /usr/share/man/man8/pamac.8.gz

whereis git
git: /usr/bin/git /usr/share/git /usr/share/man/man1/git.1.gz

is this appropriate?

Running the first command in the howto gives me this output:

pamac install git alma-git
Error: target not found: git

Is the git executable simply in the wrong directory? Do I need the base-devel package from the AUR to continue?

  1. Best is to have base-devel (later on)
  2. where did you get git from, if not by installing it with pamac ?
pacman -Qo git                                                                                                                                                         

Did you update ?

With manjaro you need to have a system that is up to date before you can install anything !

pamac update

or

pacman -Syyu

I have managed to run a successful update now, and have been able to install git and alama.

pamac update                                                                                                                                                ✔
Preparing...
Synchronizing package databases...

The following were updated:

To upgrade (5):
  lib32-libva-mesa-driver  22.3.4-2  (22.3.4-1)  multilib  4.4 MB
  mesa                     22.3.4-2  (22.3.4-1)  extra     27.6 MB
  lib32-mesa               22.3.4-2  (22.3.4-1)  multilib  24.9 MB
  libva-mesa-driver        22.3.4-2  (22.3.4-1)  extra     4.4 MB
  mkinitcpio               34-1.1    (34-1)      core      60.7 kB

Total download size: 61.4 MB
Total installed size: -32.1 MB
pacman -Qo git                                                                                                                                    ✔  4m 9s 
/usr/bin/git is owned by git 2.39.1-1
pamac install git alma-git                                                                                                                                  ✔
Preparing...
Synchronizing package databases...
To install (2):
  arch-install-scripts  28-1            (Required By: alma-git)  extra      16.2 kB
  alma-git              r117.ac97608-1                           community  564.9 kB

Total download size: 581.1 kB
Total installed size: 1.7 MB
git clone https://github.com/philmmanjaro/alma.git                                                                                                  ✔  18s 
Cloning into 'alma'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 655, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (180/180), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (31/31), done.
remote: Total 655 (delta 165), reused 149 (delta 149), pack-reused 475
Receiving objects: 100% (655/655), 154.08 KiB | 1.41 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (416/416), done.

However, I was still unable to complete the installation detailed in the howto due to the following error:

sudo su                                                                                                                                                     ✔
[manjaro manjaro]# export ALMA_USER=user ; alma create --presets ./alma/presets/xfce-manjaro
✔ Select a removable device · VendorCo Disk 3.0 (500.00 GiB)
 2023-02-07T10:47:32.364Z INFO  alma > Partitioning the block device
GPT data structures destroyed! You may now partition the disk using fdisk or
other utilities.
The operation has completed successfully.
 2023-02-07T10:47:38.512Z INFO  alma > Formatting filesystems
mkfs.fat 4.2 (2021-01-31)
mke2fs 1.46.5 (30-Dec-2021)
/dev/sdd3 contains a ext4 file system
        created on Mon Feb  6 23:54:30 2023
Creating filesystem with 131007483 4k blocks and 32759808 inodes
Filesystem UUID: e78da2dc-d909-4072-a654-259544661259
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
        4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
        102400000

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (262144 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

 2023-02-07T10:50:41.346Z INFO  alma::tool::mount > Mounting filesystems to /tmp/.tmpEfrpTD
 2023-02-07T10:50:41.514Z INFO  alma              > Bootstrapping system
==> Creating install root at /tmp/.tmpEfrpTD
==> Installing packages to /tmp/.tmpEfrpTD
:: Synchronising package databases...
 core                                                                      163.5 KiB  52.5 KiB/s 00:03 [#############################################################] 100%
 extra                                                                    1857.9 KiB   112 KiB/s 00:17 [#############################################################] 100%
 community                                                                   7.5 MiB   109 KiB/s 01:11 [#############################################################] 100%
 multilib                                                                  169.4 KiB  82.5 KiB/s 00:02 [#############################################################] 100%
error: failed retrieving file 'core.db' from manjaro.barata.pt : Could not resolve host: manjaro.barata.pt
warning: too many errors from manjaro.barata.pt, skipping for the remainder of this transaction
error: failed retrieving file 'core.db' from manjaro.dcc.uchile.cl : The requested URL returned error: 404
error: failed retrieving file 'core.db' from mirror.philpot.de : Could not resolve host: mirror.philpot.de
warning: too many errors from mirror.philpot.de, skipping for the remainder of this transaction
error: failed retrieving file 'core.db' from manjaro.cu.be : The requested URL returned error: 404
error: failed retrieving file 'extra.db' from manjaro.dcc.uchile.cl : The requested URL returned error: 404
error: failed retrieving file 'extra.db' from manjaro.cu.be : The requested URL returned error: 404
error: failed retrieving file 'community.db' from manjaro.dcc.uchile.cl : The requested URL returned error: 404
warning: too many errors from manjaro.dcc.uchile.cl, skipping for the remainder of this transaction
error: failed retrieving file 'community.db' from manjaro.cu.be : The requested URL returned error: 404
warning: too many errors from manjaro.cu.be, skipping for the remainder of this transaction
:: There are 36 members in group xfce4-goodies:
:: Repository extra
   1) mousepad  2) ristretto  3) thunar-archive-plugin  4) thunar-media-tags-plugin  5) xfburn  6) xfce4-artwork  7) xfce4-battery-plugin  8) xfce4-clipman-plugin
   9) xfce4-cpufreq-plugin  10) xfce4-cpugraph-plugin  11) xfce4-dict  12) xfce4-diskperf-plugin  13) xfce4-eyes-plugin  14) xfce4-fsguard-plugin  15) xfce4-genmon-plugin
   16) xfce4-mailwatch-plugin  17) xfce4-mount-plugin  18) xfce4-mpc-plugin  19) xfce4-netload-plugin  20) xfce4-notes-plugin  21) xfce4-notifyd
   22) xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin  23) xfce4-screensaver  24) xfce4-screenshooter  25) xfce4-sensors-plugin  26) xfce4-smartbookmark-plugin  27) xfce4-systemload-plugin
   28) xfce4-taskmanager  29) xfce4-time-out-plugin  30) xfce4-timer-plugin  31) xfce4-verve-plugin  32) xfce4-wavelan-plugin  33) xfce4-weather-plugin
   34) xfce4-xkb-plugin
:: Repository community
   35) parole  36) xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin

Enter a selection (default=all):
error: target not found: manjaro-documentation-en
error: target not found: manjaro-firmware
==> ERROR: Failed to install packages to new root
Error: Pacstrap error

Caused by:
    Bad exit code: exit status: 1

You make good progress !

The creation of the Filesystem did succeed.
Then the script would try to install a lot of packages (download, then install).

Downloading did not work !
This suggests, that the mirrorlist may have been not up to date !

Are you able to ping manjaro.barata.pt ? Or is this mirror down ?

At this point i am out of my expertise :man_shrugging:

Without downloading the packages the script can not continue !

You could try updating the mirrorlist just before starting the script.

To be honest, it didn’t work out the same for me every time. Sometimes I had to do it twice. But the result is worth the effort. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

1 Like