In the past, I had several problems using archinstall for installing Arch Linux in a dual boot with another existing Linux installation. In fact, I gave up using archinstall and created my own script for installing Arch.
In particular, I experienced these two problems:
- Archinstall failed installing Arch if the disk already contained a BTRFS partition
- The “/boot/efi/” mount point could not be used: you had to use “/boot” (since all my other Linux installations use “/boot/efi”, which required a few tweaks that I was not willing to spend time on)
I tried once more with the July 2026 version, and both problems are finally gone (though, for the second one, there are a few things to know, as shown in the rest of this blog post).
Besides experimenting with Archinstall for dual boot with another Linux installation, I’ll also take the chance to quickly review a few parts of the installation procedure.
I experimented with the process on a KVM virtual machine, where I had already installed EndeavourOS, leaving some space for another installation.
Let’s keep an eye on the current state of “/boot/efi” and see later how Archinstall handles it.
And here’s the UEFI entries; the existing EndeavourOS installation is the “UEFI Misc Device”.
Let’s start the installation by booting the Arch Linux July 2026 ISO and running the Archinstall script:
The crucial part is disk partitioning, where we must select “Manual Partitioning”
Select the existing UEFI partition
And assign the “/boot/efi” mount point:
Then, select the empty partition, and create a new BTRFS partition:
Now, the sad part: I’m used to EndeavourOS or other Calamares-based installers that automatically create the default subvolumes when you create a BTRFS partition for the “/” mount point. Instead, in Archinstall, you have to deal with the subvolumes yourself:
Following the same process four times, I created the standard subvolumes (I skipped the ones for “/var/lib/portables” and “machines, which EndeavourOS creates, since I don’t care about them):
This is the final layout:
Now, select GRUB:
Here’s the crucial part: “Install to removable location”, enabled by default. If you press ENTER, you get more details:
The text explains a few things and tells you it is safe to leave it on.
However, if you do leave it on, then Archinstall will overwrite the NVRAM entry for existing Linux installations.
I tried both options in two different virtual machines; let’s see what happens:
Select NO
With this option, Arch will be the default boot option in the UEFI; however, existing entries can still be selected from the UEFI menu.
So, let’s select NO, and here’s what that entry reports:
Let’s conclude the installation and reboot.
Here’s the GRUB from Arch; let’s enter the UEFI settings
“GRUB” is Arch Linux, and “UEFI Misc Device”, if you look at the beginning of the blog post, is the existing EndeavourOS:
In fact, if we select it and press ENTER, we get to the EndeavourOS GRUB menu:
And here’s how “/boot/efi” has been modified:
Select YES
Let’s instead select YES (as I said, this is a parallel experiment on a different virtual machine, with the same existing EndeavourOS installation).
Of course, we have the Arch GRUB:
And the “/boot/efi/” still has the previously existing EndeaavourOS efi file.
However, if we enter the UEFI settings:
We no longer have an entry for EndeavourOS. This time, “UEFI Misc Device” is the Arch entry, not the EndeavourOS anymore.
However, we can manually re-add the EndeavourOS entry, because its EFI file is still there.
The procedure depends on the UEFI Firmware settings; in this case, we use the settings provided by “Virtual Machine Manager” Tiano Firmware settings:
We have to navigate to the EndeavourOS EFI file:
And now we have the EndeavourOS entry back (this time, with its real name):
Final thoughts
Things have improved, and Archinstall is probably usable for dual-booting now. I’ll try that on real hardware.
However, I still find it’s still far from being as useful as Calamares-based installers of EndeavourOS, CachyOS, or Garuda, to name a few.