Attempting to boot from a configured USB stick with grub installed. When I boot, I see only GRUB configuration and console, but not the menu screen to move to another distro. I configured the grub file to add more time to the timeout and also set the menu screen to show. I also changed the boot order in Manjaro to the USB stick.
Welcome to the forum! 
But did you run update-grub? Or at the very least⌠
sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Thanks .
Yes, both. I was following a guide from the Arch Wiki. It boots to the default manjaro screen.
I am not quite sure the procedure will be exactly the same if you install on usb instead of hard drive/ssd. At least you have to add --removable, and if you booted from this flash you cannot write to it, so you need another usb. Or i misunderstood what you wroteâŚ
And does mkconfig throw some error?
The guide iâm following states:
âThe end result is a persistent installation identical to that on a normal hard drive along with several performance optimizations aimed at running Linux on removable flash media. It is compatible with both BIOS and UEFI booting modes.â
so i imagine it should be fine for what iâm doing if iâm not mistaken.
Grub configuration seems fine as well:
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found theme: /usr/share/grub/themes/manjaro/theme.txt
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-6.9-x86_64
Found initrd image: /boot/amd-ucode.img /boot/initramfs-6.9-x86_64.img
Found initrd fallback image: /boot/initramfs-6.9-x86_64-fallback.img
Warning: os-prober will be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
Its output will be used to detect bootable binaries on them and create new boot entries.
Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ...
Root filesystem isn't btrfs
If you think an error has occurred, please file a bug report at "https://github.com/Antynea/grub-btrfs"
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+/memtest.bin
/usr/bin/grub-probe: warning: unknown device type nvme0n1.
Found memtest86+ EFI image: /boot/memtest86+/memtest.efi
/usr/bin/grub-probe: warning: unknown device type nvme0n1.
done
So youâre saying you see the contents of /boot/grub/grub.cfg when you should see the grub menu? 
After POST spam Esc and ShiftâŚwhich one you need depends on if itâs UEFI or BIOS, but I canât remember which, so alternate. The grub menu will pop up.
Though it sounds like the âgrub configurationâ may actually be the menuâŚbecause I canât think of anything else it could be.
What are you expecting to see? You should only see an entry for a single install (also memtest and UEFI Firmware), as no others have been detected.
Assuming the guide is this one, it makes no mention of detecting other installs.
Unless Iâm missing something. When you move to another computer any other OS(s) previously detected wonât be there, and there may or may not be other OS(s) from the new computer. AFAIK youâd have to boot up the USB and update grub to detect them each time you move between computers.
Or boot using the grub installed on that machine.
Not sure thatâs trueâŚespecially as the arch wiki says this:
It is possible to install Arch on the same USB drive that you are trying to install it from. However, you cannot shut down your machine or reboot in the middle of the installation process. If you do that, you would need to create the installation media again.
This: mags.zone/help/arch-usb (no link permissions on this forum)
I now realize that I do have the GRUB menu but surely it should say something like:
[Manjaro]
[Arch Linux]
Instead itâs only:
[Manjaro]
[Manjaro /dev/sda3]
The above menu showed up after I configured a menuentry for Arch on grub. Since the BOOT file is on sda1, hd1,1 i chose that as the location for it to boot from.
My mistake. I thought about booting from .iso from ventoy, but if he actually installed a root file system on the usb then i guess yes.
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You can blockquote it to bypass the restriction.
However you said it was from the arch wikiâŚjudging by the bit you quoted, it was, but apparently indirectly.
No, because it didnât detect arch:
If it had, then it would be mentioned in-between âWarning os-prober will be executedâŚâ and âAdding boot entry for UEFI settingsâ.
i guess he means this wiki
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Install_Arch_Linux_on_a_removable_medium
See if the following tutorial by @linux-aarhus can offer any enlightenment. Itâs for Manjaro LXDE â I do not know what desktop environment youâre using, but it shouldnât matter with regard to this issue.
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