Issues found when ran on HP dm3-1040us

[off-by-some]

Ran through with a normal install (partitioned using fdisk, formatted to ext4) with Gnome & Mutter. All the internals worked perfectly, (Arch by itself was installed) However i came across a couple of problems with grub as well as vesa

The problem:

Grub failed to install to the device

Steps to fix:

After mounting the partition and attempting to execute "grub-install /dev/sda" i received some lvm warnings, as well as an error that went something along the lines of:

warning: Attempting to install GRUB to a disk with multiple partition labels. This is not supported yet..

after mounting the partition, and running "grub-mkconfig -o" then "grub-install --force /dev/sda" I received the warnings, however grub then installed.

Another problem:

After this, i attempted to boot, however only to be met with a black screen (The computer was hanging, i couldn't even change tty's)

Steps to fix:

Removing "xf86-video-vesa" and installing the appropriate intel driver for my machine removed the hang, and i could then switch tty's and startx

A few other things to note:

• GDM gave me a hard time about getting up and running. it seemed starting the daemon manually fixed the issue (a bit unsure what fixed the issue, i was doing multiple things at once.)
• "wifi-menu" needed an additional package 'display' (i think) to run. I think we should think about implementing that for users who decided not to install any kind of environment (Maybe have a preset packages file to load?) , otherwise they would need to chroot into the partition and install it manually. (I have rebooted at least 20 times in the process of figuring things out, NOT fun)

[mehcode]

Grub failed to install to the device

Guessing what happened here is my naive detection of the root device failed. We're probably better off just asking where to install grub (like ubuntu and debian do).

Removing "xf86-video-vesa" and installing the appropriate intel driver for my machine removed the hang, and i could then switch tty's and startx

We need to improve video adapter detection. I have two laptops to test and get keystone working on this weekend. An ATI one and an Intel one. One of them is UEFI as well. My goal is to get it working on those two 100%.

[off-by-some]

Guessing what happened here is my naive detection of the root device failed. We're probably better off just asking where to install grub (like ubuntu and debian do).

Couldn't we just pop the last didget of the partition mounted (say, sda1) and install to that? (sda) You are supposed to install grub to the device the partition is installed to, unless i am mistaken.

I agree with asking where to install grub, but im thinking for a default answer, maybe we should consider something like that...

I am 100% willing to reinstall Arch as many times as needed, but i would like to get my trackpad working on my laptop so i don't need to edit and push in nothing but vim.. Currently have tried installing synaptics, psmouse, and evdev

[mehcode]

Couldn't we just pop the last didget of the partition mounted (say, sda1) and install to that? (sda) You are supposed to install grub to the device the partition is installed to, unless i am mistaken.

A bootloader can be installed to the MBR of any device (talking normal BIOS here). If you have 4 hard drives and a usb stick you could install arch to an LVM setup spanning all 4 drives and then install grub into the usb stick. Instant "encryption" (an "attacker" would need the usb stick to boot your computer). This could really work if the 4 other hard drives were completely encrypted and the usb stick had the key.

[mehcode]

I agree with asking where to install grub, but im thinking for a default answer, maybe we should consider something like that...

The most appropriate default answer would ideally be whatever hard drive is set to be bootable in the BIOS. I'm not sure if thats possible to detect.

[mehcode]

I am 100% willing to reinstall Arch as many times as needed, but i would like to get my trackpad working on my laptop so i don't need to edit and push in nothing but vim.. Currently have tried installing synaptics, psmouse, and evdev

I'd probably need to look at it. I'm sure I could figure it out. You were running debian on it before (which means it is certainly possible to have your trackpad working.

Did you install https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/psmouse-alps-driver/ and then load the kernel module?

[off-by-some]

I got it to work, unsure what i did but i will take it. something to do with synaptic i'm sure (i know my trackpad is supported). Which brings me to my next question.. Do we just want to install a ton of drivers? Or do manual checking... Not for EVERYTHING, just for essential things like... trackpad support. hah.

[mehcode]

We should ensure that we always install the appropriate drivers for the basics: video, audio, input. I'd prefer detection If we can figure it out.

If you could boot into the ISO and figure out what you did -- install xterm and try using startx and your trackpad (you don't need to wipe and re-install)? We can load additional drivers by device ID or laptop model, etc.