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#1 2013-03-07 21:04:42

michaels
Member
Registered: 2012-10-17
Posts: 20

[Solved] Arch boot failure after update

Hello everyone,

I didn't change anything else, so this issue should be related to one of the last updates. I'm on a Lenovo X230 booting via UEFI using rEFInd/efistub. Arch won't boot anymore, just the kernel options line is shown without further messages. Changing initrd to arch-fallback doesn't help. Windows is booting flawlessly.

I am able to mount Arch partition with gparted live media (but chrooting is not possible from there, something like "/bin/bash has wrong format"). pacman.log says that last update 2013-03-06 18:28 contained (ask for further version information if needed):

dosfstools
ethtool
file
hwids
lib32-libgpg-error
linux 3.7.10-1
ntfs-3g

and some other unsuspicious things.

What could I do to tackle the problem? Thanks for your help in advance!

Last edited by michaels (2013-03-09 12:50:56)

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#2 2013-03-08 00:26:59

mrunion
Member
From: Jonesborough, TN
Registered: 2007-01-26
Posts: 1,938
Website

Re: [Solved] Arch boot failure after update

I get that on my Acer Aspire with UEFI boot. I had to downgrade the Kernel. Something seems to be wrong with the latest kernel in the repo, but I've seen no solution, nor heard any work-arounds.


Matt

"It is very difficult to educate the educated."

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#3 2013-03-08 03:01:25

cfr
Member
From: Cymru
Registered: 2011-11-27
Posts: 7,130

Re: [Solved] Arch boot failure after update

What's your partition set up?

Was the initramfs generated successfully?

Did you copy the kernel and initramfs to the EFI partition, if required?


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#4 2013-03-08 18:20:25

michaels
Member
Registered: 2012-10-17
Posts: 20

Re: [Solved] Arch boot failure after update

Partition setup is as follows (all on sda):
1) EFI partition
2) ntfs: Win7
3) ext4: /
4) ntfs: Win7 data
5) ext4: /home
6) swap

initramfs generation was successful, as far as I can tell (no error messages in pacman.log). Copying to EFI partition is done automatically via systemd script.

How can I downgrade the kernel (I was never forced to do that before...)? I think I need to chroot, don't I?

PS: Just noted that this issue is already filed as a bug report and should be solved with kernel 3.8.

edit: found downgrading instructions in the wiki... Let's see if it helps!

Last edited by michaels (2013-03-08 19:03:43)

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#5 2013-03-08 19:10:07

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: [Solved] Arch boot failure after update

There have been recent issues with the refind/efistub combination.  There is a thread around here somewhere that addresses the issue, but so far there seems no solution nor consistency among those affected.

As a workaround (or to test if it is refind specifically), you could install and configure gummiboot, add a direct boot entry using efibootmgr, or try using the UEFI shell to boot from there.  If those things work, then it is likely not the efistub that is the problem, but rather the combination of refind.

Personally I really really like gummiboot... it is simple and fits all my needs, though I do keep alternate methods of booting around just in case, including syslinux in bios mode.  The wonderful thing about UEFI is that you are not limited to one bootloader (or some f*cked up string of chainloads), so you can test other boot loader/managers, and keep others around just in case.

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#6 2013-03-08 20:59:32

michaels
Member
Registered: 2012-10-17
Posts: 20

Re: [Solved] Arch boot failure after update

I've tried to downgrade the kernel following the procedure described in https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Downgrade_packages . Just downgraded linux to 3.7.4 (no linux-headers installed; concerning modules I simply don't know which packages I might have to downgrade). But something must have gone wrong with initramfs-generation in chroot environment, because I'm dropped to the kernel emergency shell because my root partition (referenced by /dev/sda6) can't be found. In fact, /dev is not populated with any sdX... Maybe there's something missing in the wiki description?

There were some error messages during image generation, but since I'm in tty and not in a terminal, I can't scroll back to them :-) Are these logged somewhere?

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#7 2013-03-09 00:02:40

mrunion
Member
From: Jonesborough, TN
Registered: 2007-01-26
Posts: 1,938
Website

Re: [Solved] Arch boot failure after update

So Gummiboot and rEFInd can both be installed together? I may try installing gummiboot then!


Matt

"It is very difficult to educate the educated."

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#8 2013-03-09 00:27:08

cfr
Member
From: Cymru
Registered: 2011-11-27
Posts: 7,130

Re: [Solved] Arch boot failure after update

pacman.log? You know you can scroll in the tty, right? Just it is beyond the scrollback saved?

Last edited by cfr (2013-03-09 00:27:47)


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Arch Linux | x86_64 | GPT | EFI boot | refind | stub loader | systemd | LVM2 on LUKS
Lenovo x270 | Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U CPU @ 2.50GHz | Intel Wireless 8265/8275 | US keyboard w/ Euro | 512G NVMe INTEL SSDPEKKF512G7L

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#9 2013-03-09 12:50:16

michaels
Member
Registered: 2012-10-17
Posts: 20

Re: [Solved] Arch boot failure after update

Ah now I know :-)

And: Stupid me, image generation went fine. I just forgot to cp the vmlinuz to efi directory :-( The date output by ls -l for the vmlinuz file was a bit confusing... Finally, I'm now able to boot into my system using 3.7.9-2 kernel package. "Solved" for now, hope that this will be fixed with 3.8! Thanks for your help again.

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