Layout of plan to migrate my main desktop from Debian 12 to Arch linux

Finalized features

File system: BTRFS

File manager: Thunar

Desktop Environment: Bwpsm

Display Manager: sddm

Terminal emulator: Kitty?

Text editor: Neovim

System clipboard: xclip

Notification Daemon: idk

Sound manager: PulseAudio ?

Font: Ioveska

Requested features

  • LVM , /var, /home, /tmp ?
  • Xorg Display server for now but experiment with Wayland display
  • sddm display manager
  • encrypted nvme disk
  • desktop password manager

Additional packages / software

  • wine 32 & 64 bit
  • ranger
  • git
  • xterm-256color
  • firewalld
  • python3.11
  • rsync
  • openssh
  • docker
  • wikiman
  • tealdeer
  • cifs-utils
  • protonvpn

How will I test this ?

I will setup an arch linux VM which will be my testing ground for installing all the new software.

pacman setup

/etc/pacman.conf

Add multilib for pacman for 32-bit libraries

Partitioning scheme

/: - Type: 8304 “Linux” - Size: 50Gib - File System: Btrfs , zstd compression, COW ,

Subvolumes:

    - /@
    - /@home
    - /@var
    - /@steam -> for steam apps , to not be included in snapshots 
    - /@snapshots

/boot: - Type: ea00 “XBOOTLDR” - Size: 4GiB

Current partitions on Debian host

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS sda 8:0 0 465.7G 0 disk └─sda1 8:1 0 465.7G 0 part /mnt/Todd sdb 8:16 1 14.9G 0 disk ├─sdb1 8:17 1 14.9G 0 part /mnt/usb └─sdb2 8:18 1 1M 0 part nvme0n1 259:0 0 931.5G 0 disk ├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 100M 0 part /boot/efi ├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 16M 0 part ├─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 575.1G 0 part ├─nvme0n1p4 259:4 0 768M 0 part ├─nvme0n1p6 259:5 0 325.3G 0 part / └─nvme0n1p7 259:6 0 977M 0 part [SWAP]

Execution plan

  1. Download Arch image and burn to USB

  2. Backup EFI system partition

  3. Begin arch installation process

  4. Follow installation guide and adhere to partition scheme

  5. Before anything else, create boot part and copy over contents from backup of /boot from earlier

Problems installing arch

I’ve encountered a serious issue while installing arch , the issue is during the initiation which never boots to the root shell. It hangs while performing start jobs for udev init , Network config. In this document I will write out all steps i’ve taken to mend the issue.

Known errors

Host System USB Errors

Anytime during boot I see the following errors during boot for the USB hub 1-5 , which shows a -110 error. This occurs during boot with both debian and Arch. This never interrupts boot with debian , however it has made me suspicious if it’s interfering with the launch.

Actions taken

Installation Medium Actions ( can be skipped )

For my installation medium , i’ve been using two different USB sticks. From all my tests, none except for the most obvious issues ( partition table mismatch with BIOS/UEFI ), have indicated any issues.

  1. San Cruze Glide 16GB , No ventoy

  2. Pny USB 16GB , with Ventoy installed on non EFI partition

USB Actions

I found an article which could offer another attempt at fixing this , the link is below , the error might stem from AMD USB issues , which can allegedly , be turned off in the UEFI menu. See the quote below

”

I had the same error message. If you examine your ports (buses?), you may find that more are indicated than you expect. I found a setting in my UEFI related to AMD that had a USB submenu. I turned off the last one and that solved it for me. I will reboot and report back with some more specifics.

In my UEFI I found it here:

AMD CBS > FCH Common Options > USB Configuration Options

There is a vertical list: USB0 USB1 USB2 etc

I set USB2 to disabled and my system no longer includes the offending bus (bus 12 and bus 11 are gone).

Essentially, it looks like the UEFI is trying to assign ports to a hub that doesn’t exist. If anyone has more info please advise. “

Ventoy Actions

  1. Attempted booting all combinations of installation mediums in memdisk

  2. Attempted booting all combinations of installation mediums in Grub2

  3. Attempted booting all combinations of installation mediums in normal

BIOS/UEFI/Hardware Actions

  1. Disabled Fast Boot

  2. Enabled/Disabled XHCI passthrough

  3. Enabled/Disabled CSM Compatibility mode

  4. Enabled/Disabled PCIe power state settings, ASPM

  5. Updated ASRock UEFI to version 3.20 ( latest ) using Instant Flash

  6. Checked physical connections to TT controller , enabled 4 switches for fans

Kernel Option Actions

  • iommu=soft

  • pcie_aspm=off

  • pci=noaer

  • nomodeset

  • panic=0 ( not tried )

  • loglevel=7 ( not tried )

  • maxcpus=1 ( not tried )

  • bluetooth.blacklist=yes ( not tried )

  • modprobe.blacklist=mt7921e ( not tried )

FIXED

Turns out the modprobe.blacklist=mt7921e option in GRUB2 mode resolved the issue, not sure why , but it works !!

Ricing

Editor: Neovim

Plugin manager:

Compositor: Picom