Installing Arch on a MacBook Pro Retina

Question

I've spent many hours trying to install Arch on my macbook pro to no avail (over 14 times I've tried), I've learned a lot through this process, but apparently not enough. I get the system installed and blessed (in OSX), but when I try to boot into it I get stuck on "loading initial ram disk." (Previous errors were a read-only file system, but this one is latest) My hunch tells me it has something to do with the mkinitcpio.conf (I was told to add "ahci" to MODULES and "keyboard" after "autodetect" in "HOOKS") and I know the mkinitcpio -p linux command creates the initial ram disk environment (thanks to the docs).
Here are my steps, the bash scripts I created to do all this. Does anything look out of the ordinary to anyone?
cgdisk /dev/sda #(setup partitions as below, sda1-3 not shown)
#partitions: (sda4 == 128MB Hfs+, sda5 == 256MB Linux (boot), sda6 == 30GB Linux (root), sda7 == 70GB #Linux Home)
#first script
mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda5
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda6
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda7
mount /dev/sda6 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot && mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home && mount /dev/sda7 /mnt/home
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel
genfstab -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
#second script
#install wifi (dmesg | grep firmware still says no firmware tho...)
pacman -S wget b43-fwcutter
wget https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/b4/b … are.tar.gz
tar -zxf b43-firmware.tar.gz
cd b43-firmware
makepkg -si --asroot #kosher?
rmmod b43 && modprobe b43
echo arch > /etc/hostname
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Central /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc --utc
useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash dmj && passwd dmj
sudo pacman -S sudo
nano /etc/sudoers #comment out wheel portion
sudo nano /etc/locale.gen #pick locale
locale-gen
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
mkinitcpio -p linux #someone said i need "ahci" in modules?
#make boot loader, copy to usb
pacman -S grub-efi-x86_64
grub-mkconfig -o boot/grub/grub.cfg
grub-mkstandalone -o boot.efi -d usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi -O x86_64-efi -C xz boot/grub/grub.cfg
mkdir /mnt/usbdisk && mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usbdisk
cp boot.efi /mnt/usbdisk/
umount /mnt/usbdisk/
sudo pacman -S dialog wpa_supplicant iw
exit
umount /mnt/home
umount /mnt/root
umount /mnt/
sudo reboot
I finally got a descriptive error message and am very excited to show everyone.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10021156/arch.jpg
Moderator Edit:  Converted over sized in-line picture to link - ewaller
Last edited by dmj (2013-06-25 02:59:00)

Answer 1

Ok, so I managed to boot into arch. The issue was my fstab. The custom settings I was using were incorrect. Going with the defaults helped. Also, the version of grub I was using was broken. See this link for the fix: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=164101
So after I tar -xvJf xxx.tar.xz the fixed version I was able to generate a boot.efi, copy it onto the 128MB HFS+ on OSX and then bless and boot.
A whole new slew of errors occurred.
First, the video mode error occurs "No suitable video mode" (and something about a font).
I found a fix for it here: (but it didn't work) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … d.22_error
I added
cp /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ${GRUB_PREFIX_DIR}
Then add:
UEFI systems:
insmod efi_gop
insmod efi_uga
After that add the following code (common to both BIOS and UEFI):
insmod font
if loadfont ${prefix}/fonts/unicode.pf2
then
    insmod gfxterm
    set gfxmode=auto
    set gfxpayload=keep
    terminal_output gfxterm
fi
Gist: Add these few lines to your grub.cfg, result: no luck still this error
What I'm not sure is if if this is affecting my ability to start the xorg-server.
Then after that the network became unreachable (which is strange because the ethernet worked ootb on install)
systemctl enable dhcpcd@enp0s10
systemctl start dhcpcd@enp0s10
allows me to ping -c 3 google.com
Lastly, I cannot start the xorg server. Says the nvidia module is bad. I installed bumblebee, and ran startx (not from root) and I get a black screen. This is after installing: xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-server-utils xf86-input-synaptics nvidia acpid
Then running: systemctl enable acpid nvidia-xconfig
My graphics card is a Geforce 650M and I've read I should be using the nvidia module, not the open source noveau module.
startx just boots into a blank screen now and I'm unsure why.
Any speculations, ideas, or thoughts would be gladly welcome.
Thanks ahead of time!
Last edited by dmj (2013-06-26 03:05:26)