Yashab's Notes

Dual booting Omarchy on Windows - Logs

4 min read

2026-01-04

Vanilla arch install successful

I was able to install vanilla arch using archinstall command.

archinstall notes:

  • Booted into the Arch ISO and launched the installer by running archinstall
  • In the Archinstall main menu, configured the following options:

Disk configuration

  • Selected Disk configuration
  • Chose Manual Partitioning (not Auto)
    • Reason: preserve existing Windows + BitLocker partitions
  • Selected disk: nvme0n1 (953.9 GB NVMe SSD)
  • Reused the existing EFI System Partition:
    • Partition: nvme0n1p1
    • Filesystem: FAT32
    • Mountpoint: /boot
    • Flags: boot, esp
    • Did not format this partition

Don't format the EFI partition

The EFI partition nvme0n1p1 is also the one that Windows uses, don’t partition it! Mount it to /boot is enough

  • Selected partition nvme0n1p4 (~226 GB) as the Arch Linux target
    • Enabled LUKS encryption for this partition (because Omarchy is designed to be installed on an encrypted disk, as mentioned in the Omarchy install docs)
    • Gave it a passphrase (verified later with cryptsetup open)
  • Inside the encrypted container:
    • Selected filesystem: Btrfs
    • Used default Btrfs subvolume layout
    • Volume mountpoints:
      • Subvolume: @ , Mountpoint: / (this is the root subvolume)
      • subvolume: @home, Mountpoint: /
      • Deleted the other two partitions that were there by default (i think they started with var/ ).

Bootloader

  • Selected Limine as the bootloader
    • Reason: modern UEFI bootloader, simpler config than GRUB

Profile / Packages

  • Selected a minimal / base install
  • Kernel: linux
  • Included:
    • linux-firmware
    • amd-ucode

Networking

  • Copied from ISO network settings

Users

  • Created a root password
  • Created a regular user
    • Enabled sudo access

Encryption

  • Confirmed encryption settings when prompted
  • Used LUKS for the root filesystem only

Install

  • Reviewed summary screen carefully to ensure:
    • Windows partitions untouched
    • Correct EFI partition selected
    • Correct encrypted partition selected
  • Confirmed installation
  • archinstall completed without fatal errors

No option to boot into arch on boot menu

I selected limine for boot management and it seems something went wrong, because the Arch installation doesn’t appear on bootmenu.

Troubleshooting methods I have tried so far

Verifying the installation from Arch ISO

  • Booted back into the Arch ISO
  • Confirmed disk layout using:lsblk
  • Verified:
    • EFI partition nvme0n1p1 exists
    • Arch partition nvme0n1p4 exists

Verifying encryption

  • Manually unlocked the encrypted partition: cryptsetup open /dev/nvme0n1p4 cryptroot
  • Confirmed /dev/mapper/cryptroot appears in lsblk

Mounting the installed system manually

  • Mounted the Btrfs root subvolume: mount -o subvol=@ /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt
  • Mounted the EFI partition: mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot
  • Verified contents of /mnt/boot:
    • vmlinuz-linux
    • initramfs-linux.img
    • amd-ucode.img
    • limine/limine.conf

Checking Limine installation

  • Searched EFI partition for Limine EFI binaries: find /mnt/boot -iname "*.efi"
  • Found only:
    • Windows EFI binaries
    • systemd EFI binary
  • No Limine EFI binary present initially

Attempted Limine repair

  • Entered the installed system: arch-chroot /mnt
  • Reinstalled Limine: pacman -S limine
  • Discovered:
    • limine-uefi-cd.bin exists (ISO-only binary)
    • No disk-boot EFI binary installed automatically
  • Manually created EFI directories: mkdir -p /boot/EFI/limine mkdir -p /boot/EFI/BOOT
  • Manually copied Limine EFI binary into:
    • /boot/EFI/limine/limine-uefi-x86_64.efi
    • /boot/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI

Firmware (BIOS) actions

  • Entered ASUS UEFI firmware (ROG Zephyrus G14)
  • Added a custom boot entry pointing to the Limine EFI binary
  • Result:
    • Boot entry appears in BIOS
    • Selecting it produces no output / returns immediately
  • Windows Boot Manager remains fully functional

Current understanding

  • Arch installation itself is intact
  • Kernel, initramfs, and encrypted root are valid
  • Failure is isolated to Limine EFI execution
  • Likely causes:
    • Incorrect Limine EFI binary type
    • ASUS firmware restrictions (Secure Boot / Fast Boot / EFI execution rules)

2026-01-03

Zephyrus G14 boot menu key:

Press Escrepeatedly after pressing the power button.

Graph View