Arch Linux

codebliss

Member

Registered: 2009-07-06

Posts: 3

System break on pacman -S gnome

Hello .

I'm just recently a convert from ubuntu and loving it.  After getting the system running (AMD x86_64) and configuring BASH and network tools, etc, I thought I'd try and install gnome and see what I can do with it.  It was running fine, and throughout the installation I kept getting error messages about libreadline.so.5.  Now, when I try to fire up the system (standard or the automatically generated fallback grub option) neither works.  Has this occurred before (search yielded nothing)?

Thank you.
PS:  Great job on the distro.

Arisna

Member

Registered: 2009-02-13

Posts: 81

Re: System break on pacman -S gnome

Did you do a full system upgrade (pacman -Syu) before installing Gnome?  If not, that's probably the cause.  Arch works best if you don't try to install major software packages on an outdated installation, and since it's rolling release, the packages on the installation CD get outdated quickly.

The solution is to use the installation CD to update the packages on your hard drive.  You do this by booting the CD, mounting your hard drive, and then calling pacman with the -r flag to make it treat your hard drive as the root device.  Check out the pacman manual page and browse the wiki for more information.

Allan

Pacman

From: Brisbane, AU

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 11,390

Website

Re: System break on pacman -S gnome

This is the cause.  You did not just do "pacman -S gnome", you must have done a "pacman -Sy" at some stage too.  Doing an "-Sy" and not a "-Syu" is dangerous.

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codebliss

Member

Registered: 2009-07-06

Posts: 3

Re: System break on pacman -S gnome

I used the FTP LiveCD to install arch about a week ago.  What should I do to fix this?  Do I boot the livecd and open a new virtual console, mount it, and try to run pacman from there?

Arisna

Member

Registered: 2009-02-13

Posts: 81

Re: System break on pacman -S gnome

That's right, the FTP LiveCD should have pacman on it, so it's all you need other than an Internet connection.  You can run pacman from the CD and make it operate on the hard drive using the -r flag like I said last night.

Edit:  Similar problem going on here.

Last edited by Arisna (2009-07-06 19:39:44)

codebliss

Member

Registered: 2009-07-06

Posts: 3

Re: System break on pacman -S gnome

It worked, thanks!

PS:  For the record.

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
pacman -r /mnt -Syu
pacman -r /mnt -Syu # Just in case