Multi-Boot Grub Issues

Hi,

I’ve installed Manjaro in a dual-boot system several times before with no real problems. I am trying to install a multi-boot but am having some issues. I am ultimately trying to install W10, Manjaro, Kubuntu and Kali (in that order).

It is strange that after installing Manjaro there seems to be no Grub install. I can select Windows or Manjaro by pressing F12 and selecting either from the EFI menu but Grub seems to not be operating. After installing Windows I installed Manjaro with the following partitions:

  • 1: 512MB, FAT32, mount: /boot/EFI, Boot flag set
  • 2: 8192MB, swap
  • 3: 80GB, EXT4, mount: /
  • 4: 150GB, EXT4, mount: /home

As mentioned, I can install Manjaro after Windows and boot fine from the EFI boot menu but no Grub menu is displayed.

Anyway, I continued on with the install, installing Kubuntu and Kali with the partitions below

Kubuntu

  • 1: 512MB, EFI System Partition (Bootloader selected to be installed here)
  • 2: 8192MB, swap
  • 3: 80GB, EXT4, mount: /
  • Set Manjaro’s existing swap partition to not be used

Kali

  • 1: 512MB, EFI System Partition, Boot flag set
  • 2: 8192MB, swap
  • 3: 80GB, EXT4, mount: /
  • Set Manjaro’s existing swap partition to not be used
  • Set Kubuntu’s existing swap partition to not be used

Only after installing Kali does does the Grub screen appear (Kubuntu doesn’t present Grub splash screen when booted) and all four operating systems are displayed in Grub. All four operating systems listed in Grub can be selected and booted except Manjaro, it just hangs on the “Lenovo” screen once selected.

If I reboot the system and press F12 I can see Windows, Manjaro, Kubuntu and Kali all listed and I can boot all of them directly (including Manjaro) from this menu. I would like though to have all of them bootable from within Grub and I need some help in trying to fix this.

Can anyone assist with this?

The entry for Manjaro from efibootmgr (which seems to work fine) is

Boot0003* Manjaro HD(5,GPT,75567735-a9e4-cf47-93d8-1b932e9c4895,0x88b8000,0x100000)/File(\EFI\Manjaro\grubx64.efi)

The entry for Manjaro in Grub (which doesn’t work) is

insmod part_gpt
insmod ext2
set root=‘hd0,gpt7’
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt7 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt7 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt7 66fd118c-2c3c-4721-b8bd-2bd0cb326cc7
else
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 66fd118c-2c3c-4721-b8bd-2bd0cb326cc7
fi
linux /boot/vmlinuz-5.9-x86_64 root=UUID=66fd118c-2c3c-4721-b8bd-2bd0cb326cc7 rw quiet apparmor=1 security=apparmor resume=UUID=c0ba8bd0-6398-4b13-ad66-14a604401414 udev.log_priority=3
initrd /boot/intel-ucode.img

If there is asome additional information that would help let me know.

Thanks

Only Manjaro GRUB can boot other systems/distributions, hence has to be installed last and use Manjaro boot loader.

1 Like

I am not sure if I understood your statement properly. I am sure non-Manjaro Grub deployments can boot other distros. The Kali GRUB version is doing it now on my laptop for Windows and Kubuntu perfectly fine.

After installing Manjaro, at which point only Windows and Manjaro were on the disk, so it was installed last, there was still no GRUB splash screen when I booted Manjaro.

After reinstalling Windows, Kali, Kubuntu and then Manjaro (in that order) I can confirm this made no difference. The only distro that installed Grub was Kali (as before). What am I missing to have Manjaro install Grub?