Experimental way to install fedora via rootfs archive / the arch way. GRUB kind of work.

Fedora_via_rootfs_installation.md

Experimental way to install fedora via rootfs archive / the arch way.

Don't ever try this if you don't know what you're doing !

Prerequisites.

• Any live usb bootable.
• Fedora rootfs archive, we can get it here. It's better to choose the most update / latest archive.
• Some partitions, for root system (/), efi (if you have uefi machine) and swap (optional).
• Basic commandline knowledge.

Steps.

We need to do some steps here, It's not hard at all.

1. Format and mount partitions.

   $ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/vda1
   $ sudo mkswap /dev/vda2
   $ sudo mount /dev/vda1 /mnt/
   $ sudo swapon /dev/vda2
   

   PS : I only use 2 partitions here, you can adjust as you wish.

   
   

2. Download and extract rootfs archive.

   $ cd /mnt
   $ sudo wget -c https://images.linuxcontainers.org/images/fedora/40/amd64/default/20240724_20%3A33/rootfs.tar.xz
   $ sudo tar -xf rootfs.tar.xz
   

   PS : You need to adjust the rootfs link download !

   
   

3. Mount some filesystems and do chroot.

   $ sudo mount -t proc proc proc
   $ sudo mount -o bind /dev dev/
   $ sudo mount -o bind /sys sys/
   $ sudo mount -o bind /run run/
   $ sudo chroot /mnt /bin/bash
   

   
   

4. Edit dnf configuration.

   # vi /etc/dnf/dnf.conf
   

   We need to remove tsflags=nodocs part and add install_weak_deps=False option. It's optional, but if we don't edit the default config, we will end up not having any documentation / docs / manual files and get weak dependencies installed.

   
   

5. Update packages.

   # dnf update
   

   
   

6. Edit fstab.

   # vi /etc/fstab
   

   Example :

   UUID=YOUR_PARTITION_UUID /     ext4    errors=remount-ro       0 1
   UUID=YOUR_PARTITION_UUID swap swap defaults 0 0
   

   
   

7. Set time zone.

   Incorrect time zone sometimes leads to network errors, we need to set it. Adjust it for your local time, for me it's Asia/Jakarta.

   $ timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Jakarta
   

   
   

8. Install grub and dracut package.

   # dnf install grub2-pc dracut
   

   after grub package is installed, we need to disable blscfg feature. After wondering for days, I just found that blscfg was the culprit that causes kernel and initramfs not automatically copied to /boot directory. We can disable blscfg using grub2-editenv command.

   # grub2-editenv - set grub_enable_blscfg=false 
   

   
   

9. Install Kernel.

   Kernel is needed here, obviously .

   # dnf install kernel-core kernel-modules
   

   After kernel and its modules are installed, dracut will automatically generate initramfs file. The kernel files (vmlinuz, config, System.map) also will be copied to /boot directory automatically.

   
   

10. Update and install grub to disk.

    We need to update grub, so our kernel will be listed on grub menu. We also install the grub to /dev/vda disk.

    # grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
    # grub2-install /dev/vda
    

    
    

11. Set password (root user).

    We need to set password for our main user / root.

    # passwd
    

    
    

12. Exit chroot and unmount some filesystems.

    We need to exit chroot and unmount some filesystems we mount before.

    # exit
    # umount proc
    # umount dev/
    # umount sys/
    # umount run/
    # cd /
    # umount /mnt
    

    
    

13. Reboot.

    After everything are done, let's reboot !

    # systemctl reboot
    

Update ! Finally, Grub works fortunatelly ! We just need to run kernel-install before update grub and install grub to disk.

Need to rewrite the steps, also somehow disable blscfg can fix our main problem.

It's Confirmed !
Disable blscfg will make kernel, dracut and grub behave normally.

Updated !