Arch Linux

milez

Member

Registered: 2017-12-03

Posts: 3

Boot is stuck at loading initial ramdisk

Hey everyone,

I installed Arch according to the installation guide but I can't seem to get past getting stuck at "loading initial ramdisk" after booting the fresh installation.

Quick system overview:

- Boot via EFI
- Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti graphics card
- Samsung M2 NVME SSD
- 7th generation Intel Core i5

While arch-chroot'ed I have installed the nvidia drivers via "pacman -Sy nvidia" and set the DRM kernel mode setting (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NV … de_setting), but that didn't help. So it doesn't seem to be a graphics issue.

When I run "journalctl" while arch-chroot'ed I don't get any output, which supports my assumption that the system is truly stuck at this point.

I also tried installing the linux-lts kernel but that doesn't solve my problem either.

Any ideas?

PS: I am aware somebody just posted a topic with the exact same issue but since I have a different configuration I thought I'd open another topic.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,321

Re: Boot is stuck at loading initial ramdisk

Add the Kernel_parameters loglevel=7 early_printk=efi remove the parameter quiet if it is present.
Does that produce any additional output?
Edit:
Oh and welcome to the arch linux forums milez.  Also which kernel version is the system using?

Last edited by loqs (2017-12-03 16:38:32)

milez

Member

Registered: 2017-12-03

Posts: 3

Re: Boot is stuck at loading initial ramdisk

Hey loqs, thanks for welcoming me here

Unfortunately that doesn't help, I get

Booting a command list

Loading Linux linux-lts ...
Loading initial ramdisk ...
_

and it gets stuck.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,321

Re: Boot is stuck at loading initial ramdisk

If you set initrd=null does the kernel panic?
Try removing the nvidia drivers or blacklisting them using the command line and Kernel_mode_setting#Disabling_modesetting.
Edit:
What boot loader/boot manager is the system using and what is its config?

Last edited by loqs (2017-12-03 17:38:45)

milez

Member

Registered: 2017-12-03

Posts: 3

Re: Boot is stuck at loading initial ramdisk

Still no change whatsoever, initrd=null doesn't cause kernel panic, neither does blacklisting and disabling the modesetting change anything.

But I found that setting gfxpayload=text lets the system boot (hdd lights are active and the system powers off upon pressing the power button - and there are journal entries when I chroot into the installation) but my screen still gets stuck at the same line. I had the nvidia drivers uninstalled at that point so I installed them again and still no change at the screen but now the system won't even boot (hdd lights inactive and system doesn't react to power button press and no journal entries) even though gfxpayload is set to text.

I hope we're getting closer to the issue here ...

Edit: the bootloader is GRUB and I am running a dual boot with Win 10, during install I mounted the existing EFI Partition to /boot

Last edited by milez (2017-12-03 18:11:39)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,321

Re: Boot is stuck at loading initial ramdisk

What were the parameters you used to disable KMS?
What is the contents of /boot/grub/grub.cfg and /etc/default/grub?
Edit:
Going over what did work the live media using EFI so that would be systemd-boot worked with whatever kernel version was on that version of the live media.

Last edited by loqs (2017-12-03 19:39:23)