tried installing new kernel now my only option is reboot to firmware

nboobie · 2024-05-29 21:38:57

Hi everyone this is my first post here. I have to write this on my work computer because my computer is currently doa.

For a while now i was encountering random Caps Lock blinking freezes on my acer 5 laptop and some forums on here suggested it was due to the hardened kernel or nvidia dkms drivers I was using. I tried installing linux-lts and linux along with their headers.

When I rebooted the only option was still my hardened kernel. Thought maybe there could only be one so i uninstalled my hardened and regular linux kernel leaving only lts. Now my only option is Reboot to firmware which takes me to the UEFI screen.

I am able to use a live usb and unencrypt and mount my drive. I arch-chroot and everything looks fine I think. I am still a noobie so i might be wrong. When I try mkinitcpio -p either inside arch-chroot or outside (Trying to force sudo) because whenever I mkinitcpio it says warning built with erros and image may not be complete. From spending a few hours now I think it cannot build properly because my efi isn't mounted or something. I initially used archinstall a year ago and was slowly learning but didn't have to worry about this until now.

when I do a blkid or lsblk I do not even see my fat32 or whatever efi while on the live usb or arch-chrooted so I don't know how i would even go about mounting it if that is the problem. Reinstalling the linux-hardened kernel did not make it appear again in my systemd-boot list.

thank you for your help.

libXq · 2024-05-29 22:08:53

Hey,

Are the initramfs and Linux kernel images located in the folder /boot? Are you sure your bootloader entries, also found in /boot under /loader/entries ..., have the correct file names for the Linux kernel image written in them? They obviously need to match! Can you verify that the kernel which should reside in /boot is on the EFI partition? For example, do you see the kernel file and configs if the EFI partition is mounted to the /boot folder?

To make it more straightforward, my guess is that either the bootloader entry file is incorrect, or you never wrote the kernel or configs to the EFI partition. You need to mount the EFI partition to /boot when you change your kernel, as well as configuring your loader entries.

Last edited by libXq (2024-05-29 22:24:33)

nboobie · 2024-05-30 13:30:23

thank you for the reply. Sorry I can only respond during work as my computer is out of commission lol.
I do see initram and linux kernel images in /boot but I think they may be broken based on the output from mkinitpcio saying they may not be complete. I tried checking the logs for mkinitcpio and it does not say anything different.
The computer was working fine when I installed the new kernels using "sudo pacman -S linux-lts linux-lts-headers" and there were no errors in output during the autorun of mkinitcpio right after so I assume it all went well. EFI would have been mounted at that time. I am not sure how I can mount EFI now to try and run minitcpio -p manually while arch-chroot with a liveusb because I do not see an EFI partition when I run lsblk and blkid. I will hop home during lunch and try again before coming back to work. My computer is fully updated when I run sudo pacman -Syu.

Last edited by nboobie (2024-05-30 13:31:42)

cryptearth · 2024-05-30 14:12:25

How you boot your system? If using GRUB: Have you done a grub-mkconfig after installing the other kernels?
Can you boot from install and chroot into the system?

nboobie · 2024-05-30 14:29:55

systemd-boot which I regret. I have a feeling if this was GRUB I could have had this fixed a long time ago. I tried installing GRUB as well but that didn't recognize the kernels.

yes I have no problem going in with arch-chroot but I don't see any issues. mkinitcpio-p does say images created with errors and might not be complete. Nothing in the mkinitcpio log though about what error. My guess in my original post was because EFI wasn't mounted based on other forum posts I saw here.

cryptearth wrote:

How you boot your system? If using GRUB: Have you done a grub-mkconfig after installing the other kernels?
Can you boot from install and chroot into the system?

Scimmia · 2024-05-30 14:32:47

The problem is simply that you didn't configure your bootloader/boot manager. Be it systemd-boot or grub, they both need configured.

Funny0facer · 2024-05-30 14:53:32

how did you "install" grub? You know, you need to install it via pacman, grub-install and grub-mkconfig with the right arguments.

can you post your mkinitcpio output? See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_o … ted_client if you do not know how.

cryptearth · 2024-05-30 17:52:20

nboobie wrote:

systemd-boot which I regret. I have a feeling if this was GRUB I could have had this fixed a long time ago. I tried installing GRUB as well but that didn't recognize the kernels.

Although I only use grub myself (along with syslinux and ipxe for netbooting) I read the wiki for the other recommended bootloaders - and all of them, like Scimmia mentioned, require proper configuration. Hence I mentioned grub-mkconfig which is the way how it recognizes changes of installed kernels. So do systemd and uki and refined require some setup and config to know about installed kernels and thier initrd.
So, if you're able to arch-chroot from install you should be able to recover from there: Install a kernel of your choice and a bootloader of your choice and then, that's the really important step, follow the proper config of the bootloader.
It doesn't matter if you stick with systemd-boot or change to grub.

Arch Linux

#1 2024-05-29 21:38:57

tried installing new kernel now my only option is reboot to firmware

#2 2024-05-29 22:08:53

Re: tried installing new kernel now my only option is reboot to firmware

#3 2024-05-30 13:30:23

Re: tried installing new kernel now my only option is reboot to firmware

#4 2024-05-30 14:12:25

Re: tried installing new kernel now my only option is reboot to firmware

#5 2024-05-30 14:29:55

Re: tried installing new kernel now my only option is reboot to firmware

#6 2024-05-30 14:32:47

Re: tried installing new kernel now my only option is reboot to firmware

#7 2024-05-30 14:53:32

Re: tried installing new kernel now my only option is reboot to firmware

#8 2024-05-30 17:52:20

Re: tried installing new kernel now my only option is reboot to firmware

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