How To Install CachyOS & Partition Guide

Caution

Secure boot must be disabled when installing CachyOS. To setup secure boot after install. Check Secure Boot Setup.

Tip

It is highly recommended to restart the ISO after a failed installation attempt.

Otherwise, you may encounter continuous errors during installation.

This happens because the installer doesn’t properly unmount partitions on a failed install.

Erase Disk

The “Erase Disk” Option in Calamares will wipe the selected disk and install then CachyOS to the target.

1. Boot into the ISO and click on Launch Installer.

2. Select a Boot Manager that suits your preferences. Check the Boot Managers section for more information.

3. Set your preferred Language and Region/Timezone.

4. Configure your Keyboard Layout.

5. Select Erase Disk and choose a Filesystem.

6. Pick the Desktop Environment you’d like to use, see Desktop Environments.

7. Select the specific packages you wish to install from the provided list, and deselect any that you do not require.

8. Setup your login credentials.

9. Review the installation summary on the Overview Page carefully. If all the settings look correct for you, proceed with the installation by clicking on Install Now. Otherwise, go back and make any necessary changes.

Manual Partitioning

UEFI/GPT

Depending on what Boot Manager you have decided to use. Please follow the instructions for each.

systemd-boot & rEFInd

1. Boot into the ISO and click the Launch Installer button

2. Set your preferred Language and Region/Timezone.

3. Configure your Keyboard Layout.

4. Select Manual partitioning.

5. Create a new partition with the following:

   • Size: 2048MiB
   • Filesystem: FAT32
   • Mount point: /boot
   • Flags: boot

6. Create another partition for root:

   • Size: At least 20000MiB
   • Filesystem: Any, refer Filesystem
   • Mount point: /
   • Flags:

7. Double check that Install boot loader on: is pointing to /boot

8. Pick the Desktop Environment you’d like to use, see Desktop Environments.

9. Select the specific packages you wish to install from the provided list, and deselect any that you do not require.

10. Setup your login credentials.

11. Review the installation summary on the Overview Page carefully. If all the settings look correct for you, proceed with the installation by clicking on Install Now. Otherwise, go back and make any necessary changes.

GRUB

1. Boot into the ISO and click the Launch Installer button

2. Set your preferred Language and Region/Timezone.

3. Configure your Keyboard Layout.

4. Select Manual partitioning.

5. Create a new partition with the following:

   • Size: At least 100MiB
   • Filesystem: FAT32
   • Mount point: /boot/efi
   • Flags: boot

6. Create another partition for root:

   • Size: At least 20000MiB
   • Filesystem: Any, refer Filesystem
   • Mount point: /
   • Flags:

7. Double check that Install boot loader on: is pointing to /boot/efi

8. Pick the Desktop Environment you’d like to use, see Desktop Environments.

9. Select the specific packages you wish to install from the provided list, and deselect any that you do not require.

10. Setup your login credentials.

11. Review the installation summary on the Overview Page carefully. If all the settings look correct for you, proceed with the installation by clicking Install Now. Otherwise, go back and make any necessary changes.

MBR/BIOS

Note

GRUB is the only boot manager available for a MBR/BIOS system.

1. Boot into the ISO and click the Launch Installer button

2. Set your preferred Language and Region/Timezone.

3. Configure your Keyboard Layout.

4. Select Manual partitioning.

5. Create a new partition with the following:

   • Size: At least 20000MiB
   • Filesystem: Any, refer Filesystem
   • Mount point: /
   • Flags:

6. Double check that Install boot loader on: is pointing to your boot drive e.g: /dev/sda

7. Pick the Desktop Environment you’d like to use, see Desktop Environments.

8. Select the specific packages you wish to install from the provided list, and deselect any that you do not require.

9. Setup your login credentials.

10. Review the installation summary on the Overview Page carefully. If all the settings look correct for you, proceed with the installation by clicking on Install Now. Otherwise, go back and make any necessary changes.

Dual Booting

After manual partitioning, there may be some additional setup needed to achieve a dual boot setup, particularly with systemd-boot and GRUB.

systemd-boot

After doing a manual partition install, we need to copy over Windows’s EFI binaries to Linux’s EFI partition so the boot manager can recognize them.

1. Locate your Windows’s EFI partition with lsblk

   ❯ lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT
   NAME        FSTYPE   SIZE MOUNTPOINT
   zram0               15.3G [SWAP]
   nvme0n1            476.9G
   ├─nvme0n1p1 vfat     100M
   ├─nvme0n1p2           16M
   ├─nvme0n1p3 ntfs   234.4G
   ├─nvme0n1p4 ntfs     830M
   ├─nvme0n1p5 vfat       2G /boot
   └─nvme0n1p6 btrfs  239.6G /var/tmp

   EFI partition are almost always partitioned as FAT32/vfat, and since nvme0n1p1 doesn’t have a Linux mountpoint, we can assume that partition is the Windows’s EFI partition

2. Mount Window’s EFI partition temporarily

   ❯ sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/WinBoot # Replace `nvme0n1p1` with the partition of your Windows's EFI partition

3. Copy the EFI binaries from Windows’s EFI partition to Linux’s EFI partition

   ❯ sudo cp -r /mnt/WinBoot/EFI/* /boot/EFI

4. Unmount the previously mounted partition and Windows should show up in the boot menu on the next boot!

   ❯ sudo umount /mnt/WinBoot

GRUB

GRUB can rely on os-prober to autodetect the Windows EFI partition and add it to the boot menu.

1. Install and run os-prober

   ❯ sudo pacman -S os-prober
   ❯ sudo os-prober

2. Enable os-prober in GRUB’s configuration file

   /etc/default/grub

   ❯ sudo micro /etc/default/grub
   # Probing for other operating systems is disabled for security reasons. Read
   # documentation on GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER, if still want to enable this
   # functionality install os-prober and uncomment to detect and include other
   # operating systems.
   GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false
   
   ❯ sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

3. Windows should be added into the boot menu now.

Common Issues

Key was created in the future

Note

This will be fixed in the September 2024 Release.

The Installation fails with the following error log:

gpg: key B1D99E8932D24EB5 was created 4785 seconds in the future (time warp or clock problem)

This problem is caused by an out-of-sync local time. To be specific, the pacman master key was created when a wrong time set in your OS. This may cause the timestamp of the pacman master key is in the future after you correct the time on your OS (possibly by ntp).

After the installation failed, reboot again to the ISO and run the following commands:

sudo rm -rf /etc/pacman.d/gnupg
timedatectl set-ntp true

Having done that, click on Launch Installer and proceed with the installation.

More Information

• Lord Vexy’s dual boot installation walkthrough with the rEFInd boot manager