Installer tips (calamares)
Our default installer in the live environment is Calamares, so that you can have a smooth and friendly experience installing EndeavourOS on your machine.
Not every product is perfect, so here are some tips to guide you through a smoother install experience by using this information about some main options inside the Installer.
The Calamares installer offers two installation methods – Online and Offline.
The preferred method of installation is Online. This method will allow you to select and install any of the desktop environments we offer; however, a stable internet connection is required. Prior to install, the system will automatically update the repository mirrors to ensure an efficient install, but in some cases, you may need to manually create a mirrorlist from the welcome tool.
The second installation method is Offline. This method will install our default desktop environment, XFCE4. As the installation method name suggests, this option does not require a working internet connection and is a good option for individuals with limited internet connections or issues with repository mirrors. With the Offline installation, you will be using packages that were compiled as of the date the ISO file was created. Once the installation is complete and when the computer is connected to the internet your system will automatically determine which packages need to be updated and suggest that you update them.
If you choose net installer (online) with the choice of the Desktop Environments, you will get this screen:
Please only choose one Desktop Environment and leave the default selections on the next screen as they are if you are not sure what to change!!
But you can unselect packages you do not need, and you could choose more than one DE/WM if you know exactly what you are doing! For example, XFCE4 together with i3 is a common combination (and they are both will come themed and fully working)
The rest of the installer will look the same on both methods (offline and online)
If you choose netinstall it will get all packages freshly from the internet (from Repositories) so the install process can take a bit longer compared to the offline install, depending of your internet connection speed and state of the mirrors in your area.
EndeavourOS Desktop Fixes and Theming:
EndeavorOS has preset small changes to the settings and themes for all desktop installations to fix problems with the default settings and smooth the interfaces. In addition, XFCE4 and i3-WM are heavily modified.
If you want an unchanged installation, you can easily turn off these changes by deselecting the appropriate subgroup:
Installer Log option:
To see the log for the current process you have a toggle button right of the progress bar:
Calamares partitioning scheme
When you want to install EndeavourOS as your only installed system on your disk, then you can use either the manual or automatic partition choices in the Calamares menu.
Manual partition on EFI systems
When creating the fat32 partition for boot, you’ll notice that the flag ‘esp’ isn’t in the options anymore, you can choose the flag ‘boot’ instead, make sure to take a minimum 300MB if not calamares will complain, but if you are sure what you are doing you can proceed with install process without issues.
To avoid problems, you can make a partition scheme by using Gparted before you start Calamares. When you have set the partitions and flags, you can start up Calamares and choose the manual installation. A common workaround if you have special setups.
Partition and Bootloader on MBR Bios (Legacy installs)
On older Systems or if you choose CSM (legacy Bios Boot) the Bootloader (Grub) will per default get installed into the MBR of the target Disk (Harddrive) in both parts (automatic partition and manual partition) you can select how installer should handle this by providing 3 options in a dropdown:
- Install into MBR of the Disk (will show multiple drives if you have such) [overwrites existing MBR]
- Install on the system partition
- or do not install the bootloader to the drive the option to not overwrite the MBR (You may have another OS installed that should handle Grub/Bootloader) [will not overwrite existing MBR]
It is also possible to not use MBR (msdos) scheme and install into the system partition and not the MBR on a GPT scheme drive.
see here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#GUID_Partition_Table_(GPT)_specific_instructions
Dual boot with Windows
This is not a workaround but just an important tip:
The best is to not touch windows at all and create a new ESP (UEFI fat32 partition) used for Linux.
But in most cases installer will offer options to replace a partition or install it alongside, this is convenient to use but does not let you choose details on swap or ESP.
Log files and bug reports
You can actually help us improve the installer by sending us your log file when you encounter a problem during installation. Calamares makes a log file by default and you can retrieve it by copy-paste the following in the terminal:
xed /home/liveuser/endeavour-install.log
Or Pastebin it and show the URL in the forum:
cat /home/liveuser/endeavour-install.log | eos-sendlogs
This will upload the log to ix.io and create a short URL to the log file.
And there is also a GUI to provide logs in many different ways on EndeavourOS:
eos-log-tool:
