Arch Linux

mrkapqa

Member

Registered: 2015-08-07

Posts: 7

error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory

Hello ,

i am trying to install arch linux on my laptop because i got little bit tired of so many unwanted issues with debian.

after making live-usb stick (which i booted from)

-changing locale to DE
-doing cfdisk (deleting one partition)
-activating swap  via mkswap /dev/sda2
-mounting /dev/sda5 /mnt

when doing

pacstrap /mnt base i get

error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory
error: could not determine filesystem mount points
error: failed to commit transaction (unexpected error)
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

>>Error: Failed to install packages to new root

i see that /etc/fstab is empty . is it because of that?

have also debian sid and windows 7 on this laptop.

please show me the way here.

Last edited by mrkapqa (2015-08-16 18:25:16)

mrkapqa

Member

Registered: 2015-08-07

Posts: 7

Re: error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory

added /etc/fstab

/dev/sda5    /  ext4             defaults,noatime              0 1
/dev/sda6  none swap        defaults                            0 0

but the error remains then doing
pacstrap /mnt base

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,774

Re: error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory

Glancing over what you wrote, you did not format the partitions.  https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … s_and_swap

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Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,523

Website

Re: error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory

Please edit your first post to revise the title to be relevant to the issue you are having.

Also, not to discourage you - but in your other thread you said you were relatively new to linux.  If you are new to linux and compiling software in debian has been sufficiently challenging that you want to give up and use something else, then archlinux is a very bad choice: I doubt you would be happy with archlinux at this point.

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"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

mrkapqa

Member

Registered: 2015-08-07

Posts: 7

Re: error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory

Glancing over what you wrote, you did not format the partitions.  https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … s_and_swap

#
thanks, this helped me.

mrkapqa

Member

Registered: 2015-08-07

Posts: 7

Re: error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory

Please edit your first post to revise the title to be relevant to the issue you are having.

Also, not to discourage you - but in your other thread you said you were relatively new to linux.  If you are new to linux and compiling software in debian has been sufficiently challenging that you want to give up and use something else, then archlinux is a very bad choice: I doubt you would be happy with archlinux at this point.

actually, i am still using debian, but i want to try out arch linux maybe it is suiting my needs better. yes, i am relativley new to linux, but i like to explore so hopefully arch linux can team up well with me. hope to learn from you all! thanks

mrkapqa

Member

Registered: 2015-08-07

Posts: 7

Re: error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory

managed to install pacbase-system,

afterwards i did

1,
genfstab -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

2.
arch-chroot /mnt

"here it fails: unshare: failed to execute chrrot : Input/output error"

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory

The wiki says https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … ase_system

arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash

What command exactly did you run?

Last edited by karol (2015-08-16 18:37:04)

mrkapqa

Member

Registered: 2015-08-07

Posts: 7

Re: error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory

well, actually it seems that it has problems with the actual operating systems that are already installed. i am getting I/O error ; will try tomorrow again and let you know; thanks