Arch Linux

snakepie

Member

Registered: 2014-11-15

Posts: 2

Can't access shell after boot

Hello, I'm very new to linux and I've been trying to follow the beginner's guide wiki page.

In windows I mounted the most recent distribution of arch linux on a flash drive using usbwriter. So archlinux booted fine and I don't really know what I'm doing so I got to the creating a new partition step in the guide. I have a lot of questions and I want to understand what I did wrong. Why is it necessary to create a new partition in the first place? My goal is to create a vanilla linux environment with all the packages synced and I'll start adding stuff from there; I essentially want to go through the guide and understand what's going on with the os and hardware. I took os and computer architecture classes at school so I have a cursory understanding of basic computer hardware setups and how software interfaces with it. So with the usb key I skimmed through the partition wiki and followed the steps outlined here for GPT because it said it was the one of the easier/more user-friendly ways to partition a disk. I followed the prompts initiated by gdisk and pressed enter for all the default values. After writing the new partition I think the os said it was using an out of date partition table and that it would use the new one after rebooting.

Now the computer boots into rootfs and the shell doesn't start. I put another copy of archlinux onto an SD card using usbwriter in windows again so I'm able to boot into a stable default version. What does a default version of archlinux provide and what does going through the beginners guide add (sorry if too vague)? Right now I'm trying to do this on my laptop and I normally use windows so how would I copy files using linux commands onto a flashdrive that I can use with windows? Would I just copy files onto a basic flash drive and use them in windows without an issue or do I have to do anything else because right now I can't copy/paste anything? Also what does something like usbwriter do when you mount the archiso? After putting the iso onto the flash drive windows doesn't see it as a storage device anymore, how would I delete everything/reformat the flash drive from windows just so I'd be able to start over if I make too many mistakes? Can I do that with the windows command line?  Right now I can boot using the SD card, plug the the usb key in and it gets recognized so can I fix it from the SD card in linux? How is that done correctly so I could just use it as a storage device again?

When I try to boot off the usb key there's some mounting error. I paraphrased some output:

 
mounting '/dev/disk/by-label/ARCH_201411' to '/run/archiso/bootmnt'
mount you must specify filesystem type

error failed to mount '/dev/disk/by-label/ARCH_201411'
falling back to interactive prompt
sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

[rootfs]/# [   6.845183] se 5:0:0:0 [sdc] No caching mode page found
[   6.845183] se 5:0:0:0  assuming drive cache; write through

This happens after booting my laptop with both the usb key (device name sdc) and the SD card (sdb) plugged in at the same time. When I boot off the SD card and plug in the usb key fdisk -l spits out the device name (\dev\sdc1\) the start, end, and sectors for the partition and lists its type as a linux filesystem.

What did I do wrong and why can't linux load the shell from the usb key? With gdisk I used the o option and then used the n option once to make a new partition and left it's id as a linux filesystem. When I look at the usb key on the hardware description menu from the splash screen on boot I can see the drive and all the information and its bootflag is off. So how do I fix the usb key so it will boot correctly? Or did I do something catastrophically wrong and, if so, how do I salvage the usb key? Also what other files/logs would I need to look at in order to figure out what went wrong?