Arch Linux

skogshjort

Member

Registered: 2016-04-21

Posts: 5

Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

So, the last two times my arch system got itself an upgrade I couldn't start X on reboot. Some basic modules for graphics and such were missing, and upon login it tells me that the default display can't be found or loaded or whatnot. My solution the first time was to re-do the upgrade from a live usb system - mounting and chrooting and just reinstalling the already downloaded linux and filesystem* packages. The second time I tried to do this from the root login of the actual system, with no success - and had to boot into the live system again.

Any ideas why this happens? Seems so far to happen every time.

I have a UEFI boot setup, with the "/boot" partition on sda1 and "/" partition on sda2. My laptop is the old Yoga 15 model, I run a default arch system with an xinitrc that starts dwm and touchégg.

Hugs,
Ivan

* I'm not sure if the filesystem package is necessary for this, my plan next time is to try the linux package only.

Last edited by skogshjort (2018-05-27 12:54:37)

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,729

Re: Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

Sounds like the /boot partition isn't actually mounted, or your bootloader is looking at the root partition instead of the /boot partition.

pb

Member

From: Krakow, PL

Registered: 2014-12-26

Posts: 336

Website

Re: Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

Try to cleanup your main patition. Sounds like it's full.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,729

Re: Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

Try to cleanup your main patition. Sounds like it's full.

It doesn't sound like that at all.

skogshjort

Member

Registered: 2016-04-21

Posts: 5

Re: Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

Sounds like the /boot partition isn't actually mounted, or your bootloader is looking at the root partition instead of the /boot partition.

That might totally be the problem. I just stupidly guessed it would mount but I guess I'll have to write the mount somewhere manually. Which file should I use? Should i write a little systemd mount unit or is there some way I can hook into pacmans system upgrade and mount during that? 

Try to cleanup your main patition. Sounds like it's full.

Well, no. It's not

> df -h | grep sda2
/dev/sda2       468G  7.0G  438G   2% /

Last edited by skogshjort (2018-05-27 13:39:37)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,435

Re: Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

Just mount it in your fstab. Any reason you would not want to have it mounted?

skogshjort

Member

Registered: 2016-04-21

Posts: 5

Re: Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

Just mount it in your fstab. Any reason you would not want to have it mounted?

Allright, fstab it is. I went and labeled my partitions, using the fatlabel command for the boot partition since it is a vfat partition. Now I've written the following in my fstab*:

LABEL=PART_BOOT /boot vfat defaults 0 1

Does it look correct? Should the boot partition's sixth field be a 2? Should I add an entry for the root partition as well?

Hugs

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,113

Re: Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

Does it look correct? Should the boot partition's sixth field be a 2? Should I add an entry for the root partition as well?

Why not just test the entry?  The value for the sixth field is covered by man 5 fstab.  How did you initially generate the fstab?

skogshjort

Member

Registered: 2016-04-21

Posts: 5

Re: Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

How did you initially generate the fstab?

It has never, to my knowledge, been generated. Just contained some comments.

The value for the sixth field is covered by man 5 fstab.

Yeah that's where I read. But is root filesystem in this context the "/" partition, or the first partition on the device, in my case the "/boot" partition?

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,113

Re: Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

The root partition is always / .  Installation_guide#Fstab that was the step where the fstab was intended to be generated including entries for / and /boot.

skogshjort

Member

Registered: 2016-04-21

Posts: 5

Re: Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

[...] that was the step where the fstab was intended to be generated including entries for / and /boot.

Ah, I see. Missed that one since I just did the bare minimum. Good catch. When I downloaded and generated a file now, it added entries for efivarfs and bpf. What are those? Should I just keep them in?

Hugs

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,113

Re: Full system upgrade leaves x unstartable

efivars and bpf are virtual kernel filesystems that genfstab has not been updated to filter out,  they should not be added to fstab.