Arch Linux

bronco21016

Member

From: Da Zoo, MI

Registered: 2011-09-23

Posts: 41

[SOLVED] Upgrading from 3.11 to 3.13

Maybe this doesn't belong here but best I can tell it's some sort of Kernel/Driver issue.

Today I went to install VirtualBox to get an appliance going for something and noticed it wanted to upgrade to Linux 3.13. I'm currently at 3.11.6. That's fine... I did the standard upgrade of...

sudo pacman -Syu

and away it went. When I went to reboot I was greeted with TTY1 and a login prompt along with large text (no graphics drivers). The prompt also shows me still running kernel 3.11.6. Confused I went ahead and ran

uname -r

and got this...

3.11.6-ARCH

Something is going on but I really don't know where to look. The only error I can find is in journalctl and its about systemd-modules-load.service failing.

Can someone point me in the right place to look?

Thanks!

Last edited by bronco21016 (2014-02-27 17:49:41)

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Upgrading from 3.11 to 3.13

Was your /boot mounted when you upgraded?

Look at pacman's log to make sure the upgrade was uneventful.

You can further drill into the (probably entirely unrelated) systemd-modules-load with systemctl status.

---

Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

Registered Linux User #482438

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: [SOLVED] Upgrading from 3.11 to 3.13

What's the output of 'file /boot/vmlinuz-linux'?
Have you tried using a liveCD / liveUSB and rebuilding kernel image? Make sure /boot is mounted.

bronco21016

Member

From: Da Zoo, MI

Registered: 2011-09-23

Posts: 41

Re: [SOLVED] Upgrading from 3.11 to 3.13

Just to be sure I ran

df -h

Filesystem             Size  Used   Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3              20G   18G    691M  97% /
dev                        3.0G     0      3.0G   0% /dev
run                        3.0G  796K    3.0G   1% /run
tmpfs                    3.0G  7.9M    3.0G   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs                    3.0G     0      3.0G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs                    3.0G  8.0K    3.0G   1% /tmp
/dev/sda1              99M   36M   57M  39% /boot
/dev/sda4              894G  301G  548G  36% /home

showing /boot is definitely mounted.

I then run

sudo pacman -Syu

which gives me this...

:: Synchronizing package databases...
 core is up to date
downloading extra.db...
downloading community.db...
downloading multilib.db...
:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Packages (3): bluez-5.15-1  bluez-libs-5.15-1  linux-3.13.4-1

Total Download Size:    0.41 MiB
Total Installed Size:   68.63 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:       4.15 MiB

:: Retrieving packages ...
downloading bluez-5.15-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz...
downloading bluez-libs-5.15-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz...
checking keyring...

Total Download Size:    0.41 MiB
Total Installed Size:   68.63 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:       4.15 MiB

:: Retrieving packages ...
downloading bluez-5.15-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz...
downloading bluez-libs-5.15-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz...
checking keyring...
checking package integrity...
loading package files...
checking for file conflicts...
checking available disk space...
upgrading bluez...
upgrading bluez-libs...
upgrading linux...
>>> Updating module dependencies. Please wait ...
depmod: ERROR: Module 'hci_vhci' has devname (vhci) but lacks major and minor information. Ignoring.
>>> Generating initial ramdisk, using mkinitcpio.  Please wait...
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'default'
  -> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Starting build: 3.13.4-1-ARCH
  -> Running build hook: [base]
  -> Running build hook: [udev]
  -> Running build hook: [autodetect]
  -> Running build hook: [modconf]
  -> Running build hook: [block]
  -> Running build hook: [filesystems]
  -> Running build hook: [keyboard]
  -> Running build hook: [fsck]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating gzip initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Image generation successful
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'fallback'
  -> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img -S autodetect
==> Starting build: 3.13.4-1-ARCH
  -> Running build hook: [base]
  -> Running build hook: [udev]
  -> Running build hook: [modconf]
  -> Running build hook: [block]
==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: aic94xx
==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: smsmdtv
  -> Running build hook: [filesystems]
  -> Running build hook: [keyboard]
  -> Running build hook: [fsck]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating gzip initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img
==> Image generation successful
>>> WARNING: AT keyboard support is no longer built into the kernel.
>>>          In order to use your keyboard during early init, you MUST
>>>          include the 'keyboard' hook in your mkinitcpio.conf.

The only error I note is

depmod: ERROR: Module 'hci_vhci' has devname (vhci) but lacks major and minor information. Ignoring.

which seems to be related to bluetooth which I don't have on my system. Hardware-wise anyway. I do have bluez as a dependency on gnome-control-center because of gnome-bluetooth. In short I don't see this causing any issues? Is that a good assumption?

After all of that I ran

file /boot/vmlinuz-linux

as requested by karol which returns

/boot/vmlinuz-linux: Linux kernel x86 boot executable bzImage, version 3.13.4-1-ARCH (nobody@var-lib-archbuild-extra-x86_64-thomas) #1, RO-rootFS, swap_dev 0x3, Normal VGA

I then did a reboot and got the same result. A prompt with seemingly no graphics drivers as the text is large and low resolution.

After the reboot I also ran the following again...

uname -r

file /boot/vmlinuz-linux

and received the same outputs as before...

3.11.6-ARCH

and

/boot/vmlinuz-linux: Linux kernel x86 boot executable bzImage, version 3.13.4-1-ARCH (nobody@var-lib-archbuild-extra-x86_64-thomas) #1, RO-rootFS, swap_dev 0x3, Normal VGA

I'm at a loss. Based on this stuff the kernel image is being created and put in the right location but the system still boots to 3.11.6. Should I be looking in my grub configuration? It seems like it's pointing to the wrong (old) image or something. If that was the case though it seems like it would still properly boot.

Last edited by bronco21016 (2014-02-22 22:06:34)

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: [SOLVED] Upgrading from 3.11 to 3.13

Yes, check your grub.
I've seen a few similar threads recently, you might want to read them, if you're out of ideas.

bronco21016

Member

From: Da Zoo, MI

Registered: 2011-09-23

Posts: 41

Re: [SOLVED] Upgrading from 3.11 to 3.13

I'm really trying my best to wrap my head around this but I can't seem to figure it out.

If the system is still somehow booting kernel 3.11.6 why doesn't it boot as normal? When I downgrade to package linux 3.11.6 the system boots up to my login manager and everything works fine. If grub really is calling the wrong image (3.11.6) then it should still boot as if it's using 3.11.6 right?

If I upgrade to Linux 3.13 and the system drops to 3.11.6 where is it finding that kernel image? I already showed that I have the 3.13.4 kernel in /boot/vmlinuz-linux.

I guess I don't understand how this is a grub issue. I feel like somehow the install of linux 3.14 is going wrong. I looked through the pacman log but can't find anything at all out of the ordinary.

I've tried searching for "a few similar threads recently" and can't find anything at all related to GRUB and kernel upgrades.

I've also tried installing the linux-3.13.4 package again and then rebuilding my grub configuration and I get nowhere. GRUB isn't showing any errors when I rebuild the configuration file.

Anybody have any other pointers?

skanky

Member

From: WAIS

Registered: 2009-10-23

Posts: 1,847

Re: [SOLVED] Upgrading from 3.11 to 3.13

I don't think this will be connected, but as you're at a loss it may be worth looking into, if only to confirm it's not related.

Does your system need the linux-firmware package? My wireless needs it, and updating to kernel 3.13 without also updating to the linux-firmware version that's in Testing (and not yet in core) results in a permanently hardblocked device.

I'm not sure if the firmware package includes stuff like graphics, drivers. My tty looks different (I've not looked at exactly what, but it's not what you're seeing) with or without the firmware. It's not an issue so it's way down on my list of things to do at the moment.

Just a shot in the dark.

---

"...one cannot be angry when one looks at a penguin."  - John Ruskin
"Life in general is a bit shit, and so too is the internet. And that's all there is." - scepticisle

bronco21016

Member

From: Da Zoo, MI

Registered: 2011-09-23

Posts: 41

Re: [SOLVED] Upgrading from 3.11 to 3.13

Finally got around to fixing it this week.

On boot I noticed GRUB was spitting out an error...

error: file '/boot/grub/locale/en.gmo' not found

A little Googling led me to find some threads that suggested re-installing GRUB to the MBR. Per the wiki I ran...

grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck --debug /dev/sdX

where /dev/sdX is your boot drive.

Then run...

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Reboot and all is well again. It's important to also note that this procedure is done after first updating the system with...

sudo pacman -Syu

I know most here that were helping me probably think this was completely obvious but I just wanted to post my procedure in case anyone else down the road has an issue. Marking as solved. Thanks for the help guys! Especially karol for pushing me down the GRUB path.