Arch Linux

taoleo

Member

From: Nth Qld

Registered: 2011-11-22

Posts: 16

Cannot boot into Gnome

Hi,
I'm a long time Debian user and thought I'd try Arch Linux and so far have done multiple installs however I cannot get past booting into tty1.
I have searched a lot trying to find an answer yet all I find is reference on how to install Arch Linux which sounds straight forward however it doesn't work for me.

At the package stage of installation I choose Gnome (and I've tried xfce4)
I cannot see gdm to select it so I have 'hoped' that it installs with gnome.
I have also tried slim as a login manager.
I'm no wiz at the command line though I can get by with persistance, also I have installed FreeBSD with a desktop manager without problem and that was a challenge, however Arch Linux has got me stumped.
Usually it is something simple that has been overlooked and I'm hoping that it is the same in this case.

Any help is appreciated.

Last edited by taoleo (2011-11-22 02:37:52)

hadrons123

Member

From: chennai

Registered: 2011-10-07

Posts: 1,249

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

did you add dbus,gdm daemons in /etc/rc.conf?

Read this https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide

taoleo

Member

From: Nth Qld

Registered: 2011-11-22

Posts: 16

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

Thanks for the reply,
No I didn't, and I just read the rc.conf part of the Beginners Guide and to be honest it didn't throw much light on the subject.
Can I do it with nano and what would I write or is it a pacman issue?

hadrons123

Member

From: chennai

Registered: 2011-10-07

Posts: 1,249

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

archwiki will be your best guide.follow the beginners guide.

taoleo

Member

From: Nth Qld

Registered: 2011-11-22

Posts: 16

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

Thanks again,
I've read it many times and have followed it very closely and found it quite straight forward.
Can't figure what I'm doing wrong.
I'll read it again.

hadrons123

Member

From: chennai

Registered: 2011-10-07

Posts: 1,249

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

edit /etc/rc.conf with nano, add the daemons. dont forget to install xorg.

KingX

Member

From: CA

Registered: 2010-03-24

Posts: 324

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

At the package stage of installation I choose Gnome (and I've tried xfce4)
I cannot see gdm to select it so I have 'hoped' that it installs with gnome.
...

If you are trying to install gnome during Arch installation it is a little more tricky as you need to select the packages manually without pacman helping you out (I belive so!). Best bet is to just install the "base" level of packages (and base-devel if you want), complete your install, reboot, login and then use pacman to install gnome (Follow the beginners guide in the wiki for that). Pacman will handle all the gnome dependencies etc.

I personally never bother on installing anything but base and base-devel during a fresh install. As using pacman is much more convenient after installation.

taoleo

Member

From: Nth Qld

Registered: 2011-11-22

Posts: 16

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

Thanks KingX,
I'll do another install, I guess I need the practise

edit:
If I install base-devel along with base then later using pacman what what are the basics I need to boot into a desktop environment,
gnome, Xorg and or gdm/slim?

Last edited by taoleo (2011-11-22 05:57:50)

/dev/zero

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2011-10-20

Posts: 1,247

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

I personally never bother on installing anything but base and base-devel during a fresh install. As using pacman is much more convenient after installation.

Ditto that. Do your installs incrementally. First step, make sure you can boot your system and log in as root, with working network access, and some preferred text-editor. Really, if you can do this much, then your Arch install is done.

Once you have the basic level of functionality, create a user with sudo access. Not until after this do you start bringing in whatever eye-candy you feel like today.

Last edited by /dev/zero (2011-11-22 06:03:52)

taoleo

Member

From: Nth Qld

Registered: 2011-11-22

Posts: 16

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

Thanks
Still it would be good to what the bare minimum is needed to be installed with pacman to get the system running with a desktop enviroment.

skunktrader

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2010-02-14

Posts: 1,584

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

Thanks
Still it would be good to what the bare minimum is needed to be installed with pacman to get the system running with a desktop enviroment.

Its all listed in detail in the beginners guide starting from here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … _Interface

taoleo

Member

From: Nth Qld

Registered: 2011-11-22

Posts: 16

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

I downloaded the .iso again and checked the md5sum and tried again only installing base and base-devel then;
# pacman -S gnome
The download ran it's course and all looked good until the install process started and I got a very large list of;
error key "lots of numbers and letters" could not be looked up remotley
error key "lots of numbers and letters" is unknown

this list ended with;
error: failed to comit transaction (invalid or corrupted (PGP signature))
Eorros occurred, no packages were upgraded

This has happened evey time I install the operating system and have tried to install a package.

skunktrader

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2010-02-14

Posts: 1,584

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

Have you tried disabling the testing repository?

taoleo

Member

From: Nth Qld

Registered: 2011-11-22

Posts: 16

Re: Cannot boot into Gnome

No I didn't try that, however I will.
I had enabled them all as I had dead somewhere that it is the best thing to do.