Trying to install Arch on a USB key, I am having trouble getting a bootable
system. I created a basic BTRFS filesystem and mounted it with SSD
optimizations and compression. I didn't create any subvolumes or anything else
that is said to be problematic when booting to a BTRFS filesystem. From that
point, I followed the installation guide for a normal install. However, after
reading the documentation for GRUB and Syslinux, my newly created install
doesn't boot. I looked at the wiki entry for installing to a USB key, but it is
still written for AIF and grub-legacy. However, the main difference I can find
doesn't seem to apply, because although it mentions that the USB key where
grub-legacy is installed is always hd0,0, grub2 is supposed to look for the
UUID of the disk, which matches correctly in /boot/grub/grub.cfg. I also tried
setting up this install to boot using Syslinux, but both bootloaders just drop
me into some kind of shell and refuse to boot. Unfortunately, since I am
visually impaired and use speech to install and use Arch, I am unable to see
whether I am in a "normal shell" or a rescue shell, or even what kind of issue
the bootloaders are having that keeps them from finding a kernel. Should I be
using a different filesystem other than BTRFS, even though both bootloaders are
said to support it? Should I not be using compression on my filesystem? Could
this be a problem that is entirely unrelated to the filesystem I'm using? Any
help is greatly appreciated.
~Kyle
--
Kyle is a droid.
The whole world knows it.
This e-mail shows it.
