Arch Linux

sportscliche

Member

From: Albuquerque, NM

Registered: 2010-11-30

Posts: 43

Failed to mount after installing SLIM [Solved]

Hi all, brand new Arch user here.  Using the beginner's guide I was able to install LXDE and start it with xinit.  Added some software without difficulty.  Problem occurred when I got to SLiM:

pacman -S slim

No .xinitrc in the home directory, so followed directions in SLiM wiki and did

cp /etc/skel/.xinitrc ~

and added the line

exec startlxde

Then edited

nano /etc/rc.conf

and added slim as last parameter in DAEMONS=
   
Upon reboot, the system halts and tells me:

ERROR: Failed to mount the real root device.
Bailing out, you are on your own.  Good luck.

/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

I can't do much of anything at this point.  Haven't been able to find home directory to reverse the process.  nano does not work but vi does.

thanks for any help

Last edited by sportscliche (2011-01-04 00:35:23)

Nichollan

Member

From: Stavanger, Norway

Registered: 2010-05-18

Posts: 110

Re: Failed to mount after installing SLIM [Solved]

Somewhat of a newbie myself – so you may want to wait for better advice. I would reinstall, and enable SLiM through /etc/inittab instead as described in the article on Display Managers. You could perhaps alter the /etc/rc.conf file through a live media though. I can't identify the reason for the error message.

Last edited by Nichollan (2010-11-30 21:10:02)

sportscliche

Member

From: Albuquerque, NM

Registered: 2010-11-30

Posts: 43

Re: Failed to mount after installing SLIM [Solved]

Thanks.  Following your suggestion, I reinstalled Arch from scratch and enabled SLiM with inittab instead of the daemon.  I was able to login to the LXDE desktop on reboot -- no crash this time.

sportscliche

Member

From: Albuquerque, NM

Registered: 2010-11-30

Posts: 43

Re: Failed to mount after installing SLIM [Solved]

Follow up: The cause of this problem was eventually traced to a faulty HDD on the laptop. 

I experienced a series of problems while trying to install Arch and random odd noises from the drive.  I simply could not get any DE to install without a catastrophic kernel panic.  I wiped the drive clean and did an install of Ubuntu that went in without a problem.  After adding Thunderbird and copying in some large local mail files, however, I began to experience complete freeze-ups, accompanied by the same unhealthy noise from the HDD. This led me to conclude that my initial problems had nothing to do with Arch.  I replaced the bargain used HDD I bought on ebay with a brand-new unit and all the problems went away. 

I've since learned that hard drives have limited lifetimes.  Building a system on an old one, even if it's free, can be a really bad idea.