Holy Crap am I Confused

[Pretzel]

Hello all,

I have a question regarding the arch linux install i am currently doing but just barely because i only half know what i'm doing because all the linux experience i've had previously was ubuntu and mint.

SO.

I am trying to mount the os from my flash drive, but when i type in

mkdir /mnt

it says it cannot create the directory because the file exists. My only assumption being that i am trying to mount the os where windows is currently on my hard drive. (I am switching from windows) I do not want to dual boot and would like to know a way to just delete the existing files that may be in the way of completing the install (excuse me if i'm completely wrong because of my lack of knowledge)

[CalvinH]

Maybe you should try pressing delete on the windows

[Pretzel]

Just now, CalvinH said:

Maybe you should try pressing delete on the windows

always a big help

[WoctorDho]

Does the os you are installing have the option of writing it to a thumb drive and letting it do the install? That is always how I have done it in the past... 

This will wipe your drive tho if you format it. 

[Pretzel]

1 minute ago, cubli7 said:

Does the os you are installing have the option of writing it to a thumb drive and letting it do the install? That is always how I have done it in the past... 

This will wipe your drive tho if you format it. 

this is ArchLinux, essentially what it gives you is a terminal and you have to do everything yourself.

[Condor]

When you type mkdir /mnt, you're essentially saying to make the directory /mnt, which already exists. I dunno how far you are, but to me it seems like you need to make the boot partition first (mkdir -p /mnt/boot) and then mount your drive in that directory (mount /dev/[drive] /mnt/boot). I'm going based off the incredibly helpful beginner's guide right on the Arch page here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide

 

Jumping into Arch with little experience with linux CLI is cool and interesting, but it's an absolute bear to work with. I tried getting an arch VM up and running this winter just for fun, and it took me like 12 tries even with that guide just to get it to boot properly - only to realize that I had not made a root user account and couldn't log in, and needed to do it all again!

Edited May 3, 2016 by Condor
left out a detail about getting it to boot properly

[Pretzel]

1 minute ago, Condor said:

When you type mkdir /mnt, you're essentially saying to make the directory /mnt, which already exists. I dunno how far you are, but to me it seems like you need to make the boot partition first (mkdir -p /mnt/boot) and then mount your drive in that directory (mount /dev/[drive] /mnt/boot). I'm going based off the incredibly helpful beginner's guide right on the Arch page here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide

 

Jumping into Arch with little experience with linux CLI is cool and interesting, but it's an absolute bear to work with. I tried getting an arch VM up and running this winter just for fun, and it took me like 12 tries even with that guide - only to realize that I had not made a root user account and couldn't log in, and needed to do it all again!

i'm still on the install flash drive and haven't mounted it to the hard drive, but I am trying to get rid of my current partitions of my hard drive with windows on it, not to create a new one, so how would I do that.

I've been going off of here http://lifehacker.com/5680453/build-a-killer-customized-arch-linux-installation-and-learn-all-about-linux-in-the-process

  which has been a good resource so far, but I am finding my unfamiliarity with the commands to be really annoying. Is there a simple way to wipe all current drives and to create a new partition to mount archlinux on?

[Condor]

If you're still relatively new to Linux outside of Ubuntu or Mint, I would *HIGHLY* suggest just running an Arch VM within your current install of Windows, so that you have the opportunity to screw it up as many times as you would like without consequences. Or at least have another computer that you normally use with all your stuff just as a fallback. Even with the in-depth guides and everything I still screwed up my install A LOT before getting it to even boot correctly  

 

That being said, typing lsblk should show you what you have for partitions, and you can go into each partition in parted and type help to get a list of commands, and use "mklabel gpt" to make a partition table and use the mkpart command to create a partition. One of those should erase everything on that disk. It goes into more detail on the beginner's guide page I linked in my first post. Again, I would try this in a way that you'll still have a stable operating system and all your data *somewhere*, and using that beginner's guide too!

[Pretzel]

2 minutes ago, Condor said:

If you're still relatively new to Linux outside of Ubuntu or Mint, I would *HIGHLY* suggest just running an Arch VM within your current install of Windows, so that you have the opportunity to screw it up as many times as you would like without consequences. Or at least have another computer that you normally use with all your stuff just as a fallback. Even with the in-depth guides and everything I still screwed up my install A LOT before getting it to even boot correctly  

 

That being said, typing lsblk should show you what you have for partitions, and you can go into each partition in parted and type help to get a list of commands, and use "mklabel gpt" to make a partition table and use the mkpart command to create a partition. One of those should erase everything on that disk. Again, I would try this in a way that you'll still have a stable operating system and all your data *somewhere*.

yeah i have this on a computer im willing to not have the os on for a while so i'm fine with experimenting.

[Hamosch]

Im guessing you've already partitioned your drives?

When your done partitioning you want to do the following:

# mkdir /mnt (if it says it exists doesnt matter your just trying to make a directory, if it already exists your golden)
# mkdir -p /mnt/boot (make the boot directory and make it bootable)

now you can mount your partitiones to the mount directories you've just created. replace the sdaX with your drive and partition number ie. sda1, sdb1 or sde4 etc....

# mount /dev/sdaX /mnt
# mount /dev/sdaX /mnt/boot (in case you have a seperate boot partition, ie a 512MB UEFI with fat32)

 

now you want to install arch onto the newly mounted system and setup fstab (the file that specifies how to mount the partitions)

# pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel
# genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

 

now you can change root onto your new system

 

arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

 

[iBurley]

I'll save you the hassle, look up Architect Linux. It's an ncurses installer for Arch. Instead of typing in all those commands, it just gives you all of the options for all of those commands with keyboard controls similar to a standard motherboard BIOS. Screw typing in:

echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf

just choose US and English from a damn menu. When you're done you've got the same Arch as everybody else (unlike things like Manjaro or even Antergos) without the hassle of staring at two monitors typing in every command letter for letter.

[Pretzel]

13 hours ago, Hamosch said:

Im guessing you've already partitioned your drives?

When your done partitioning you want to do the following:

# mkdir /mnt (if it says it exists doesnt matter your just trying to make a directory, if it already exists your golden)
# mkdir -p /mnt/boot (make the boot directory and make it bootable)

now you can mount your partitiones to the mount directories you've just created. replace the sdaX with your drive and partition number ie. sda1, sdb1 or sde4 etc....

# mount /dev/sdaX /mnt
# mount /dev/sdaX /mnt/boot (in case you have a seperate boot partition, ie a 512MB UEFI with fat32)

 

now you want to install arch onto the newly mounted system and setup fstab (the file that specifies how to mount the partitions)

# pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel
# genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

 

now you can change root onto your new system

 

arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

 

ok, so i've tried this, and it says that /dev/sdax is write protected, so I can't do anything to it. How can I clear everything on my disk so i can get rid of my existing windows files and the existing sdax folder?

[Hamosch]

53 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

ok, so i've tried this, and it says that /dev/sdax is write protected, so I can't do anything to it.

when does it say that it's write protected? and did you actually put in the correct drive name, ie: /dev/sdb1 ?

 

Have you formatted your drive ie. sdx (sda or sdb, etc) ?

 

I think if your not really familiar to how this stuff works you might be better off installing debian or do what @iBurley suggested.

 

Otherwise I'd suggest looking at the official wiki beginners guide coupled with the installation guide.

The thing with Arch is that you have to be ok with reading through the wiki and documentation and learning things, you can achieve similar user experiences without all the hassle using other distros or following @iBurley suggestion (never used it myself but seems handy for newer people)

 

If you want help I can help out explaining but you'll need to be more specific as to what you have done already and where you're getting errors