True but completely irrelevant for this thread. Since the MB firmware can't access the NVMe drive it doesn't matter what type of bootloader was installed as it can't be used.

The actual kernel and initramfs for a Linux installation are identical regardless of whether the installation is legacy or EFI. If they copy the kernel and initramfs to another /boot directory and create a grub menu entry they can use a legacy BIOS GRUB to boot into Manjaro. The kernel itself does not care what type of bootloader loads it into memory.

Actually no as if they copy the kernel and initramfs to the main SSD they can use legacy BIOS GRUB to boot into Manjaro for the reasons mentioned above.

It would make more sense to wipe the NVMe drive and re-install Manjaro in legacy mode as it has never been booted and has no data. The main SSD is a working system and holds the OP's /home directory and data.

well, i've actually made a little progress, thanks to the folks here and this post:

https://delightlylinux.wordpress.com...en-using-nvme/

after trying lots of combinations of settings i was finally able to get manjaro to boot from the nvme via a usb stick with the boot files on it. the advice that the usb stick should be set up during install rather than just copying /boot to it seems to have made the difference. that and the info gleaned from the linked post got me through this phase so, thanks!


these are the settings that worked:


next task would be to see if the manjaro nvme and ubuntu studio ssd can be made to co-exist so i don't have to pull the drives to make a switch.

this sounds right, or at least appealing, to me. i have no problem wiping manjaro. i installed and reinstalled it several times today (also garuda linux which also booted in a similar setup) so, to me, wiping it again is just part of testing this whole setup.

the whole process of dealing with uefi vs legacy mode is not something i've ever had to deal with and i find it very confusing. i've always been able to simply load some installation media and follow the defaults pretty much. it's always been AFTER the install that i'd put a lot of time into configuring. dealing with so much configuration right up front is very new to me.

in any event, not sure what it means to 're-install Manjaro in legacy mode.' i assumed that was what i'd been doing all along. i'll investigate the bios settings and post back after with more detail as to how the bios is set up currently. i've not changed it since the successful install of manjaro. though separate, ubuntu studio is still booting normally.

the way things are now, i just have to pull the usb stick during reboot and manjaro becomes invisible, leaving me with my original ubuntu studio grub menu. i've not tried rebooting with both the usb stick and ubuntu studio drives in place. so far, out of an abundance of caution, i've treated the process as either/or.

thanks again,
babag

my mobo bios has a setting labeled: windows 8 features. it is set to 'other os.'

there is a subsection labeled 'boot mode selection.' it is set to 'legacy only.' the options are 'uefi only,' 'legacy only,' and 'uefi and legacy.'

thanks,
babag

You are dual booting so the boot is either / or regardless of which you boot, but it would be easy to set it up for dual boot using the usb with both drives in and eliminate the drive switching.

To dual boot using the usb you should be able to leave both drives connected, set the bios to boot from usb first and the SSD second. Then it should boot manjaro if you insert the usb and ubuntu if you do not insert the usb.

An alternate way, and the one I would use for long term , would be to do a little manipulation of the partitions on the ubuntu drive so the ubuntu grub boot loader could dual boot for you. This can be done using gparted and booting live to gparted so the ssd is not in use while doing this.

1. shrink /dev/sda5 to leave enough space for the manjaro /boot
2. move the smaller /dev/sda5 all the way to the right so the free space is at the beginning of the drive and adjacent to /dev/sda1
3. shrink the extended partition (/dev/sda2) to move the free space outside the extended partition. This would simply mean that the left end would be moved to be at the new left end of /dev/sda5.
4. create a new primary partition in the free space between the end of /dev/sda1 and the beginning of the extended partition.
5. Finally, reinstall manjaro with both drives in place, putting the manjaro /boot on the new partition of the SSD and the OS on the nvme.

This sounds like a lot, but with gparted steps 1 - 4 are really easy and I personally have never seen gparted error in what it does.

Once both systems will boot this way the only thing you need to be cautious of is that when doing updates the grub boot loader can be an issue since the last one updated can take control of the boot loader. There are several fixes for this on this forum so a little care can keep your favorite os in charge of booting.

This is likely the enable/disable switch for CSM - you need it set to 'uefi and legacy' unless you know all of your devices can deal with uefi exclusive (that is, they don't need CSM on boot). It hurts nothing to leave it as uefi/legacy (except adding maybe 1 or so seconds to boot time, which has become (for reasons that I cannot fathom) the almighty metric of 'performance' in recent years). 'other OS' is the correct setting for the Windows 8 mode itself.

thanks for the further replies. i was afraid that the dual boot idea might require partition manipulation. for now, that's not something i want to get into. i'll continue to poke around with manjaro as a separate boot process and leave the ubuntu studio drive as is. i have plenty to keep me busy investigating manjaro for the time being. i'm also not crazy about the idea that system updates could hijack grub or something like that.

i think the more prudent path for me to take, now that i've succeeded in booting the manjaro nvme, is to keep the systems separate and, if after fully investigating my workflow in a manjaro environment, i decide i like it better than ubuntu studio, then i can make a switch. i've been working for quite a while with ubuntu studio as a single system. seems like i could just keep them as fully separate, discreet systems for now and make a choice later as to whether to stick with the existing or switch to manjaro.

thanks again for all the help,
babag

You certainly may keep them separate. Another alternative, since you have Ubuntu on the 1TB drive, would be to create a vm and install manjaro into the vm on ubuntu. Then you would still only have one os for the physical boot but could start and run manjaro in the vm and literally have both running at the same time.

Just something to consider, and the nvme drive is and would be accessible as long as one of the OSes was actually running.

Have you tried F8 or F10 at boot time see the hard drives to choose from to boot with. Try it.
This is why I always install grub to all me drives. if your using eufi-grub same thing.
First time you update either system they will write to /boot/grub/grub.cfg
All the drives that are active and have /boot/vmliniz and a /boot/intrid.gz
that's what grub program does.

Actually partition manipulation is not required for crude dual booting. You can easily copy the Manjaro kernel and initramfs into the Ubuntu /boot directory and insert a custom grub.cfg entry so you wouldn't have to use the usb stick everytime. The grub bootloader doesn't know or care which Linux distro a kernel belongs to. It would be best to create a subdirectory for Manjaro to keep things separate.

This would be a crude short term solution compared to post #19 but it would eliminate the need to have the usb stick plugged in for each boot.