/sbin/init does not exist

hayfe · 2025-07-03 20:08:38

Hey all,

I'm trying to install Arch on a Lenovo C630. I have successfully changed the Firmware to MrChromebox.

I have created a bootable USB drive using Ventoy and installed the Arch iso onto it. I then boot into the USB and run the Arch image. After many attempts, I have gotten. I believe there is something wrong with the drive partitioning? I tried to create a /home directory as a partition as I read it's useful when changing the OS it doesn't need to be repartitioned (something like that). I would like to have the separated /home partition as well as the standard root / partition. I am trying to install Arch with the Hyprland Desktop Environment.

The furthest I made it through the install, it came with errors:

chown: changing of ownership of '/home/USERNAME/.config/systemd/user/default.target.wants': Operation not permitted
chown: changing of ownership of '/home/USERNAME/.config/systemd/user': Operation not permitted
chown: changing of ownership of '/home/USERNAME/.config/systemd': Operation not permitted
chown: changing of ownership of '/home/USERNAME/.config': Operation not permitted
chown: changing of ownership of '/home/USERNAME': Operation not permitted

I then rebooted and it took me to a terminal called

Arch Linux 6.15.4-arch2-1 (tty1)

I can interact with the terminal here fine and sign in with the user account I created in archinstall. But this is not a desktop environment I was expecting and I am unsure where/if in the installation it was cut off. So I try to reinstall from a clean Ventoy USB and image, however now I can't even access the main installation terminal, and the following error is prompted:

ERROR: Root device mounted successfully, but /sbin/init does not exist.
Bailing out, you are on your own. Good luck.

sh: can't access tty; job controll turned off

I have no idea what is going on and I now can't even access the installer? This is my first time properly installing Linux to replace an OS, so I'm feeling quite overwhelmed with all the errors I've been facing the last few days, and would appreciate explanations for any action to take so I can understand it a bit better. If any other information is needed, let me know!

Thanks in advance! <3

unixman · 2025-07-04 13:33:14

Ventoy style boot is completelly different than normal.
i assumed archiso dont designed to boot such style.
get rid of Ventoy as MITM. try normal.(just directly write iso to usb as diskimage)

Last edited by unixman (2025-07-08 06:10:38)

hayfe · 2025-07-08 00:46:36

I have installed the iso to a USB directly by using EtcherIO. I booted into the installer. However, my internal SSD is not being listed as an available partition, only the USB is showing. I think I have to mount my SSD, but I'm unsure how. The only device showing using lsblk is the USB I used to run the image. How can I mount my internal SSD so Arch can install to there? Thank you!

Scimmia · 2025-07-08 01:43:22

That's usually because the drive is set for some raid mode in the system firmware instead of AHCI

foobarDestroyer · 2025-07-08 02:01:07

hayfe wrote:

I have installed the iso to a USB directly by using EtcherIO.

Not to harass you, however: "Etcher" is 'discouraged' as denoted by ArchWiki here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/USB_fl … ion_medium

etcher contains analytics and first-party advertising. See [4], [5] and [6].

From [4] from GitHub (2018):

I launch the app and flash a disk, and it transmits my activity to multiple third parties (google analytics and mixpanel and some other one) without my consent or even warning me that it's doing so so that I could e.g. discontinue use of the spyware app.

- https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/2057

Last edited by foobarDestroyer (2025-07-08 02:03:40)

unixman · 2025-07-08 06:38:58

goto firmware menu check what Scimmia says.
disable Raid if enabled there.
it may CAUSE DATA LOSS!

if you install next to windows(share same SSD:not recommended btw) disable fastboot in windows side.
you can see block devices as "ls /sys/class/block/" too.

hayfe · 2025-07-09 23:15:38

In the firmware menu, I have no option to see if my drives are set to RAID mode or not. I can only change the boot orders. Am I missing something? This is using MrChromebox custom firmware.

schard · 2025-07-10 06:08:10

Boot your system with the installation medium, mount your installation and then chroot into it. Then provide the output of:

# stat /sbin
# stat /sbin/init
# stat /usr/bin/init
# pacman -Qikk systemd-sysvcompat systemd

seth · 2025-07-10 14:35:21

However, my internal SSD is not being listed as an available partition, only the USB is showing.

Maybe we need to sort out that before mounting it …

lsblk -f

Am I missing something? This is using MrChromebox custom firmware.

No idea, we ened to see the firmware.
Link (do not embed them!) photos of the firmware menu pages.

hayfe · 2025-07-17 00:03:04

Hey all,

As requested, here are the screenshots of the firmware menu pages. (I am also able to boot into the UEFI Interactive Shell).

If anything else is needed, lmk.
Thank you!

seth · 2025-07-17 06:35:33

https://imgur.com/upload

So there's a platform setup menu, but it's completely empty?
What are your options in the boot manager? Can you boot in https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Chrome … _Boot_Mode ?

hayfe · 2025-07-21 21:32:55

Hey

Yep, the Platform Set Menu is completely empty. Not sure why that is.

In the Boot Manager, (as shown in the screenshots) I can choose to:

> Change Boot Order
> Add Boot Option
> Delete Boot Option
> Boot From File

The only boot methods available are
> USB Device
> Internal eMMC
> UEFI Shell

I can boot to the USB install, but again, during the install, it does not allow me to partition using my integrated SSD.

Thank you for the help so far. If anything else is needed, let me know.

seth · 2025-07-21 21:39:17

The ssd is a custom extension?
Or did the device come with it?
Have you tried to re-seat it?
Was it available before switching to MrChromebox?

hayfe · 2025-07-22 00:21:15

Yes, my SSD is the one my device came with. I was able to use it before and access it within Mr Chromebox. Then after the installation difficulty, trying to install Arch again, it just doesn’t seem to show as an available drive to partition anymore. Only the installation USB is available as a drive to partition.

Last edited by hayfe (2025-07-22 00:21:50)

seth · 2025-07-22 05:33:35

Then after the installation difficulty, trying to install Arch again

What "installation difficulty"?

I believe we've not seen any "lsblk -f" output so far?
You can run that from eg. https://grml.org/

hayfe · 2025-07-27 17:42:20

Thank you for the link, I was initially stuck on how to run lsblk but was able to using grml from a USB. The output has been added to the same folder:

I can see the USB drive I booted from called “sda”, and I think my internal ssd is the one named “mmcblk0”.

Last edited by hayfe (2025-07-27 17:54:08)

seth · 2025-07-27 22:18:41

That's not an SSD, you should be able to mount mmcblk0p3 from grml and access the arch installation there.
Likewise mmcblk0p1 or mmcblk0p4 will hold your boot partition and there the initramfs - where I suspect you're missing the mmc modules.

On mmcblk0p3 look for etc/mkinitcpio.conf and post that file (not a screenshot of it!)
On mmcblk0p1 and mmcblk0p4 look out for initramfs-linux*.img files.
You can list their contents w/

lsinitcpio /path/to/initramfs-linux.img | grep mmc

Can you btw boot the fallback initramfs?

hayfe · 2025-07-28 00:32:13

Thank you! I’m a bit stuck with next steps.

I attempted mounting mmcblk0p3 by doing the following:

sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p3 /media/mmcblk0p3

I am unsure how to access the arch installation from here. I have tried cd into the different directories, and also rebooting and booting to the install from the usb, but still not showing the drives under partitioning. Not sure what I’m supposed to do from here.

Also, where do I find .conf and .img files for the mmcblk0p1, mmcblk0p3 and mmcblk0p4? I have tried cd to their /dev and /media directories, but I can’t find any of those files there. Perhaps I’m am going about it wrong.

Where do I run lsinitcpio? I tried running it in grml’s xterm but it says “zsh: command not found”.

Thank you! (Sorry if these are easy questions)
#newbie

seth · 2025-07-28 06:57:24

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Chroot#Using_chroot
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Mkinit … figuration

cat /media/mmcblk0p3/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /media/mmcblk0p1
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p4 /media/mmcblk0p4
ls -lR /media/mmcblk0p{1,4}

hayfe · 2025-07-28 17:57:44

Thank you!

Here is the contents of etc/mkinitcpio.conf
https://pastebin.com/dMmCQaQh

I have also added the file directly to the drive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wz_HeD … sp=sharing

Here is the output of ls -lR /media/mmcblk0p{1,4}
https://pastebin.com/Lc8Q7u1E

seth · 2025-07-28 21:23:13

tail -n 1000 /media/mmcblk0p1/loader/entries/*

/media/mmcblk0p1 is your boot partition, you'll have to chroot into arch on /media/mmcblk0p3, mount /media/mmcblk0p1 into /boot and then

lsinitcpio /boot/initramfs-linux.img | grep mmc
lsinitcpio /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img | grep mmc

The mkinitcpio.conf though looks like mmc should™ be added to the modules there.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-07-03 20:08:38

/sbin/init does not exist

#2 2025-07-04 13:33:14

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#3 2025-07-08 00:46:36

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#4 2025-07-08 01:43:22

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#5 2025-07-08 02:01:07

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#6 2025-07-08 06:38:58

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#7 2025-07-09 23:15:38

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#8 2025-07-10 06:08:10

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#9 2025-07-10 14:35:21

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#10 2025-07-17 00:03:04

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#11 2025-07-17 06:35:33

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#12 2025-07-21 21:32:55

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#13 2025-07-21 21:39:17

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#14 2025-07-22 00:21:15

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#15 2025-07-22 05:33:35

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#16 2025-07-27 17:42:20

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#17 2025-07-27 22:18:41

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#18 2025-07-28 00:32:13

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#19 2025-07-28 06:57:24

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#20 2025-07-28 17:57:44

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

#21 2025-07-28 21:23:13

Re: /sbin/init does not exist

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