Boot partition is located at NVMe SSD (1st partition, EFI, FAT32)
OS is located at SSD (2nd partition, Linux, ext4)
Home folders on HDD (including root, ext4)
Uses Syslinux (GRUB2 instruction have not been covered here)
Only Arch Linux installed
No Windows or any other OSes installed
Various parts of the file system mounted in HDD (/var folder) in order to reduce redundant write operations
/tmp using RAM as a mounting point (total RAM: 16GB)
Swap is a file and is located at /swap/swapfile (Yes, this is against FHS)
For creating a swapfile, consult Arch Linux wiki page
You can create your swapfile on old BIOS/HDD partition, if you find it more comfortable.
NOTE: When you create UEFI-based boot partition, you don't need to run extlinux --install command (unlike on BIOS-based boot partition)
NOTE: You can't run efibootmgr command when you use a non-EFI file system (such as BIOS / HDD), as referred on some websites. You can only do this on EFI file system.
UEFI partition size is 256 MiB in my installation, rest of the SSD (~250 GiB) is for the Arch Linux OS
My method takes advantage of bind mounting feature
Samsung EVO 960 250GB is referred as /dev/nvme0n1
Additional 1TiB HDD is referred as /dev/sda
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 232.9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: B4ED4BFE-7300-4B6E-8DE4-74D91681A89C
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 526335 524288 256M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2 526336 488396799 487870464 232.7G Linux filesystem
Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x70fa94f7
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 1953525167 1953523120 931.5G 83 Linux
. - EFI partition mount point
└── EFI - subfolder
├── BOOT -subfolder with cloned contents from ../syslinux folder (temporarily needed for the first UEFI boot if you initially create EFI partition on BIOS/DOS based Linux OS)
│ ├── bootx64.efi - same than ../syslinux/syslinux.efi
│ ├── cat.c32
│ ├── chain.c32
│ ├── cmd.c32
│ ├── cmenu.c32
│ ├── config.c32
│ ├── cptime.c32
│ ├── cpu.c32
│ ├── cpuid.c32
│ ├── cpuidtest.c32
│ ├── debug.c32
│ ├── dhcp.c32
│ ├── disk.c32
│ ├── dmi.c32
│ ├── dmitest.c32
│ ├── elf.c32
│ ├── ethersel.c32
│ ├── gfxboot.c32
│ ├── gpxecmd.c32
│ ├── hdt.c32
│ ├── hexdump.c32
│ ├── host.c32
│ ├── ifcpu64.c32
│ ├── ifcpu.c32
│ ├── ifmemdsk.c32
│ ├── ifplop.c32
│ ├── kbdmap.c32
│ ├── kontron_wdt.c32
│ ├── ldlinux.e64
│ ├── lfs.c32
│ ├── libcom32.c32
│ ├── libgpl.c32
│ ├── liblua.c32
│ ├── libmenu.c32
│ ├── libutil.c32
│ ├── linux.c32
│ ├── ls.c32
│ ├── lua.c32
│ ├── mboot.c32
│ ├── meminfo.c32
│ ├── menu.c32
│ ├── pci.c32
│ ├── pcitest.c32
│ ├── pmload.c32
│ ├── poweroff.c32
│ ├── prdhcp.c32
│ ├── pwd.c32
│ ├── pxechn.c32
│ ├── reboot.c32
│ ├── rosh.c32
│ ├── sanboot.c32
│ ├── sdi.c32
│ ├── sysdump.c32
│ ├── syslinux.c32
│ ├── syslinux.cfg
│ ├── vesa.c32
│ ├── vesainfo.c32
│ ├── vesamenu.c32
│ ├── vpdtest.c32
│ ├── whichsys.c32
│ └── zzjson.c32
├── initramfs-linux-fallback.img - fallback initramfs image
├── initramfs-linux.img - initramfs image
├── syslinux - subfolder with cloned contents from /usr/lib/syslinux/efi64 folder (you have an existing syslinux installation?)
│ ├── cat.c32
│ ├── chain.c32
│ ├── cmd.c32
│ ├── cmenu.c32
│ ├── config.c32
│ ├── cptime.c32
│ ├── cpu.c32
│ ├── cpuid.c32
│ ├── cpuidtest.c32
│ ├── debug.c32
│ ├── dhcp.c32
│ ├── disk.c32
│ ├── dmi.c32
│ ├── dmitest.c32
│ ├── elf.c32
│ ├── ethersel.c32
│ ├── gfxboot.c32
│ ├── gpxecmd.c32
│ ├── hdt.c32
│ ├── hexdump.c32
│ ├── host.c32
│ ├── ifcpu64.c32
│ ├── ifcpu.c32
│ ├── ifmemdsk.c32
│ ├── ifplop.c32
│ ├── kbdmap.c32
│ ├── kontron_wdt.c32
│ ├── ldlinux.e64
│ ├── lfs.c32
│ ├── libcom32.c32
│ ├── libgpl.c32
│ ├── liblua.c32
│ ├── libmenu.c32
│ ├── libutil.c32
│ ├── linux.c32
│ ├── ls.c32
│ ├── lua.c32
│ ├── mboot.c32
│ ├── meminfo.c32
│ ├── menu.c32
│ ├── pci.c32
│ ├── pcitest.c32
│ ├── pmload.c32
│ ├── poweroff.c32
│ ├── prdhcp.c32
│ ├── pwd.c32
│ ├── pxechn.c32
│ ├── reboot.c32
│ ├── rosh.c32
│ ├── sanboot.c32
│ ├── sdi.c32
│ ├── sysdump.c32
│ ├── syslinux.c32
│ ├── syslinux.cfg
│ ├── syslinux.efi
│ ├── vesa.c32
│ ├── vesainfo.c32
│ ├── vesamenu.c32
│ ├── vpdtest.c32
│ ├── whichsys.c32
│ └── zzjson.c32
└── vmlinuz-linux - kernel image
3 directories, 125 files
Above files have manually been copied from an existing Arch Linux installation (HDD) to newly formatted (FAT32) UEFI partition on SSD
mounted to /mnt/boot_efi in my system (for file accessibility reasons)
mounting point doesn't really matter when you create FAT32 EFI file system. The only thing you need to pay attention to is to keep all necessary boot files/folders as they are presented above
NOTE: EFI partition doesn't need to be mounted unless you want to access EFI partion files once the system has booted up
NOTE: EFI partition must be mounted only when you do file transfer operations or boot configurations (obviously you need to get access to /boot...)
bin
boot - in reality, this is located at /mnt/boot_efi. See below for more. I use bind mounting, see /etc/fstab contents below
dev
etc
home - in reality, this is located at /dev/sda1. See below for more. I use bind mounting, see /etc/fstab contents below
lib
lib64
lost+found
media
mnt
│ ├── boot_efi - mounted /dev/nvme0n1p1 EFI partition, binded to /boot path. Files of this folder have been defined above
│ └── hdd - HDD - mounted /dev/sda1 HDD partition
└── home - user files are located here in reality
└── root - root home folder is located here in reality
└── var - all files written to /var are actually located here, and binded to /var path
opt
proc
root
run
sbin
srv
swap
sys
tmp
usr
var - in reality, this is located at /dev/sda1. See above for more. I use bind mounting, see /etc/fstab contents below
/etc/fstab:
#
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
#
#########################################
# M.2 - SAMSUNG 960 250GB
# Root system
UUID=2d865053-2f72-44b2-926f-114221785595 / ext4 defaults,noatime,discard 0 1
#########################################
# SATA2 - WESTERN DIGITAL 1TB
UUID=058bf9ee-eb9d-47d0-80c9-57ca83b31449 /mnt/hdd ext4 defaults,discard 0 2
# Home folders
/mnt/hdd/home /home none bind 0 0
/mnt/hdd/root /root none bind 0 0
# Swap memory file
/mnt/hdd/swap /swap none bind 0 0
/swap/swapfile none swap defaults 0 0
# var folder
/mnt/hdd/var /var none bind 0 0
#########################################
# Boot files
UUID=C23A-2C5F /mnt/boot_efi vfat defaults,dmask=0022,fmask=0133 0 0
/mnt/boot_efi/EFI /boot none bind 0 0
#########################################
# temporary folders
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs size=10240M,nr_inodes=500k 0 0
/mnt/boot_efi/EFI/syslinux/syslinux.cfg:
# Config file for Syslinux -
# /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
#
# Comboot modules:
# * menu.c32 - provides a text menu
# * vesamenu.c32 - provides a graphical menu
# * chain.c32 - chainload MBRs, partition boot sectors, Windows bootloaders
# * hdt.c32 - hardware detection tool
# * reboot.c32 - reboots the system
#
# To Use: Copy the respective files from /usr/lib/syslinux to /boot/syslinux.
# If /usr and /boot are on the same file system, symlink the files instead
# of copying them.
#
# If you do not use a menu, a 'boot:' prompt will be shown and the system
# will boot automatically after 5 seconds.
#
# Please review the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Syslinux
# The wiki provides further configuration examples
DEFAULT arch
PROMPT 0 # Set to 1 if you always want to display the boot: prompt
TIMEOUT 50
# You can create syslinux keymaps with the keytab-lilo tool
#KBDMAP de.ktl
# Menu Configuration
# Either menu.c32 or vesamenu32.c32 must be copied to /boot/syslinux
UI menu.c32
#UI vesamenu.c32
# Refer to http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Doc/menu
MENU TITLE Boot Menu
#MENU BACKGROUND splash.jpg
MENU COLOR border 30;44 #40ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR title 1;36;44 #9033ccff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR sel 7;37;40 #e0ffffff #20ffffff all
MENU COLOR unsel 37;44 #50ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR help 37;40 #c0ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout_msg 37;40 #80ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout 1;37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR msg07 37;40 #90ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR tabmsg 31;40 #30ffffff #00000000 std
#MENU RESOLUTION 1920 1080
#Clear the screen when exiting the menu
MENU CLEAR
# boot sections follow
#
# TIP: If you want a 1024x768 framebuffer, add "vga=773" to your kernel line.
# 895 = 1920x1080x32 framebuffer
#-*
LABEL arch
MENU LABEL Arch Linux
LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
APPEND init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd root=UUID=2d865053-2f72-44b2-926f-114221785595 rw vga=895 acpi_osi="!Windows 2015" acpi_osi=Linux vm.swappiness=10 net.ifnames=0 biosdevname=0
INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img
LABEL archshell
MENU LABEL Arch Linux (shell)
LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
APPEND init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd root=UUID=2d865053-2f72-44b2-926f-114221785595 rw vga=895 systemd.unit=multi-user.target vm.swappiness=10 net.ifnames=0 biosdevname=0
INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img
LABEL archfallback
MENU LABEL Arch Linux Fallback
LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
APPEND init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd root=UUID=2d865053-2f72-44b2-926f-114221785595 rw vga=895 acpi_osi="!Windows 2015" acpi_osi=Linux vm.swappiness=10 net.ifnames=0 biosdevname=0
INITRD ../initramfs-linux-fallback.img
LABEL archfallback-rescue
MENU LABEL Arch Linux Fallback (rescue mode)
LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
APPEND init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd root=UUID=2d865053-2f72-44b2-926f-114221785595 vga=895 systemd.unit=multi-user.target vm.swappiness=10 net.ifnames=0 biosdevname=0
INITRD ../initramfs-linux-fallback.img
#LABEL windows
# MENU LABEL Windows
# COM32 chain.c32
# APPEND hd0 1
LABEL hdt
MENU LABEL HDT (Hardware Detection Tool)
COM32 hdt.c32
LABEL reboot
MENU LABEL Reboot
COM32 reboot.c32
LABEL poweroff
MENU LABEL Poweroff
COM32 poweroff.c32