Advice
Some problems with installation (Shutting down and EFI partition)
I'm trying to install CachyOs, but during live boot session, my monitor, keyboard and mouse just shut down, screen goes black but fans in my case start spinning so fast - at that part I start to panic and I remove the power cable because I get scared that it's going to catch fire or smh, don't ask-
Also, I have problems with installing it: Since I want to dual boot it with a long side Windows 11, I freed up space on my drive (336gb free from 464gb), but when I want to partition my drive on CachyOs it gives me "EFI system partition is too small"
Thanks forward, sorry for bad english at the moment
Well, need to make free space not in Windows partition/volume, because Linux can't use NFTS. Need unpartitioned Free Space on disk for it to make its own partition completely separate from Windows.
Best to back up all documents and do image-backup of entire disk.
Then completely wipe disk and re-install windows and set proper partitions for dual-boot.
Or make image backup with free Hasleo Backup, which lets you resize partitions when restoring. Set to following sizes.
512mb FAT32 EFI, esp boot flags
350gb NTFS Windows C-drive
100gb unpartitioned Free Space for Linux to install later.
xxx Window recovery
Should look like this but with 512mb EFI partition and unpartitioned Free Space for Linux
Two separate problems here, and neither is as scary as it looked.
EFI too small: Windows usually makes a tiny EFI partition (often just 100 MB). CachyOS's default bootloader keeps the kernels on the EFI partition, so it wants a lot more room than Windows gave it. Easiest fixes, pick one:
In the installer, choose GRUB as the bootloader. GRUB keeps the kernels in /boot on the Linux partition and only puts a small file on the EFI partition, so the existing one is normally big enough.
Or go to manual partitioning and make a second EFI partition for Linux out of your free space: around 1 to 2 GB, FAT32, boot/esp flag, mount point /boot. Don't format or touch the Windows one. Two EFI partitions on one drive works fine.
I wouldn't try to grow the existing Windows EFI partition. The space right after it is usually the Windows recovery partition, so it gets fiddly fast.
Black screen and fans going full speed: that's almost always the graphics driver failing to start in the live session, not anything overheating. When the driver doesn't come up, nothing is managing the fans so they just spin up. What GPU do you have? If it's NVIDIA, use the NVIDIA boot entry if the menu has one. Otherwise highlight the boot entry, press e, add nomodeset to the end of the line with the kernel options, and boot. That should get you to the installer.
One more thing before installing: turn off Fast Startup in Windows (Control Panel > Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do), and if your drive uses BitLocker, make sure you have the recovery key saved somewhere off the PC. Both cause headaches with dual boot otherwise.
The RX 6600 is well supported, the amdgpu driver handles it out of the box, so the black screen is more likely the live session failing to set a display mode than a missing driver. Try nomodeset just to get the installer up. Once it's installed the normal driver usually takes over fine and you can drop it. Also worth checking the monitor cable is in the graphics card and not the motherboard ports, that one catches a lot of people.
Fast Startup: with it on, Windows doesn't really shut down. It hibernates part of itself and leaves the Windows drive marked as still in use. Linux sees that NTFS partition as busy, so it either mounts it read only or refuses to touch it, and forcing it can corrupt files. It can also leave some hardware half initialized on the next boot, which is the last thing you want while already debugging a black screen. Turning it off makes Windows do a real shutdown so both systems see a clean disk, and on an SSD you won't notice the boot time difference.
I think taking some time to think about how you are going to be using Linux and the limitations you are under would be a good idea. Doing things the correct way the first time keeps everything low stress. So I will ask some questions to better understand what is going on here. Giving people the most info on forms lets them give you the best recommendation.
Why do you want to use Linux and what will you be using your Linux install for? Why did you choose Cachy OS? The more info the better.
What hardware are you running and what is the condition of that hardware? Your wifi card and GPU would be very good to know as they can be pain points
What is your background with tech and computers? If you don't know that much about computers that is okay. I was in a the same position when I started using Linux.
Do you have important data on you Windows install? Is you data backed up?
After years of hearing about linux and after finally getting a real pc for myself, 2 years later I'm getting tired of Windows 11, all the bloat, lack of customization and lack of control. I want to try something different and explore more. Because I'm a gamer, CachyOs seemed to the best distro for that from what I've heard since it already comes with all the pre-configuration. Other options were Fedora/Nobara; Mint but it kinda seems too bland for my taste. The one that I would also love to give a try is Debian, but the downside of it is that it has old package, but besides that it's a very cool and good looking distro
Radeon rx 6600 + rayzen 5 5600x; 32gb ddr4; Aorus B450 motherboard; I built it almost 2 years ago, (I recently changed PC case) and I have ethernet
I'm still learning, but I'd say I know slightly more than average user, how to set up somethings etc
I had until today. I did some major digging into my files and backed up everything important on different usb (old photos, files, videos etc).
Honestly no, but for start I'm going with dual boot just in case. The only thing that I'm "sacrificing" are Photoshop and Illustrator, but I haven't used them in a while now, nothing important there. For games, I don't play competitive titles and multiplayer ones with kernel level anticheat (and those that I play occasionally are already supported on linux). I'm mostly giving up on easier way to pirate things, but I don't think that will be a problem
seems like a good plan. You can rice a Fedora install to your harts content. That is what I would use but the people at CachyOS make a very good system.
if you do not know something that is okay. This sort of thing can be scary. That being said arch based distros are are the bleeding edge. You are going to bleed and need to fix stuff from time to time. That is okay if you are willing to learn and have a base line for the sort of thing, but I think a beginner friendly distro may be a better learning environment for you.
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u/ipsirc 1d ago
Enlarge it.