Freeze at boot after Grub

Broly Ultimatrix · 2015-01-12 17:23:24

So here I am again, baffled by the simple freeze of a computer. I've installed arch Linux to me desktop and didn't receive any errors but when
I boot I barely get past Grub. Computer boots to post, bio's, and grub without problem. I select arch Linux and then I get the following
message.

Loading Linux linux ...
Loading initial ramdisk...

then the screen clears itself and I get

Starting version 218
/dev/sda1: recovering journal
/dev/sda1: clean, 36385/19013632 files, 1491251/76047360  blocks
_

and then the cursor blinks a couple times before freezing. There's an audible blip on the speakers and the cursor will either be on or off depending on which one it flickered to when it froze.

It's a clean install and I follow the same basic process every time taking from the Installation guide, the beginners guide and "Build a Killer Customized Arch Linux Installation". Nothing happened out of the ordinary and I got no error messages, but I'll show the commands I ran.

Got the arch iso from the download page of the archlinux.org/download/. Scrolled down to the http direct downloads and downloaded the iso from the United States mirror archlinux.surlyjake.com. Created a bootable usb to install the program using the USBwriter and that went without a hitch. Booted to the flash drive like normal and everything goes fine except for a small error at the boot where it says it can't load Nouveau something or other, it scrolls by too quick for me to tell but since everything else runs perfectly I don't think that's the issue. It get's to the root and logs in automatically like normal.
So going along with my normal process I took my 300GB harddrive and formatted it accordingly.

fdisk -l /dev/sda

fdisk /dev/sda
m
p
default
+290.1G

m
p
default
default

t
2
82

the above commands creates a 290.1GB /dev/sda1 partition that would hold arch linux. Then I made an 8GB swap partition (I know that that's large to the point of being pointless but I like solid numbers too much and that's how much ram I already have).

I ran the

mkfs.etx4 /dev/sda1
mkswap /dev/sda2
swapon /dev/sda2
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

All my partitions made and mounted, I run

pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel grub

and it installs the necessary programs. Once it's finished I run:

genfstab /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

I change root into the install:

arch-chroot /mnt

Instead of including all these commands, I'll just say what I did. I edited the locale.gen echo'd and exported LANG=yadayadayada, set and created the symlink for the timezone and ran the hwclock command. I run the systemctl enable dhcpcd@eth0 command to have internet. Configure pacman.conf to add the multilib repository and all ILoveCandy to the miscellaneous options.

next comes

mkinitcpio -p linux

and finally I set the root passwd and ran:

useradd -m -g users -G wheel,storage,power -s /bin/bash terin

passwd terin

to make my account. I edited sudo with

EDITOR=nano visudo

and added the wheel to the group.

Next comes

grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda

and

pacman -S os-prober

so I can finalize the dual boot later. I run

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

to finalize the process and exit, umount -r /mnt, swapoff /dev/sda2, and reboot.

This is where I remove the usb stick. The computer posts, bio's, grubs, and everything else fine until I hit the above point and it freezes.

For the sake of giving all the information I can my system is a desktop PC running an msi 970AG46 motherboard, and AMD FX 8320 3.5ghx eight core cpu, a PNY GeForce GTX 750 graphics hard and 8 gb (2x4gb sticks) ddr3 1866 MHx ram. The hard drive is a a Tochiba MK3252GSX 2.5 inch 320 GB sata drive. Hopefully that's all you guys need and we can get the ball rolling and on the right track once more. Thanks in advanced.

rebootl · 2015-01-12 19:34:02

In case you still have the "quiet" kernel parameter set, please remove it and try again (in order to get more information).
See: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ke … eters#GRUB

Have you verified the fstab ?
Can you chroot into the system (by booting from the live medium)?

Also, of course, stick with the Beginners Guide .

Edit: clarify

Last edited by rebootl (2015-01-12 19:41:02)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-01-12 21:24:38

Broly Ultimatrix wrote:

I follow the same basic process every time taking from [...] "Build a Killer Customized Arch Linux Installation".

That guide is FOS -- do not use it.

Use the official Beginner's Guide instead:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide

From your lengthy post, it would appear you have done everything except actually install Arch...

# pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … ase_system

Try it again but follow the right guide this time.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2015-01-12 21:25:46)

Mr. Moonshine · 2015-01-12 22:45:41

I have the exact same problem today, the system freezes when it gets to the root partition on startup

Also I installed using the beginner's guide and had no errors and all was going well until this.

rebootl · 2015-01-12 23:31:46

@Mr. Moonshine: I'm afraid you're having the same problem, but your post isn't that helpful.
What about the questions I asked ?
Unless someone, knowing what the issue is, comes up, we'll need more information to debug this.

Edit: (Or unless it's a severe bug in the installation image or in systemd or so, okay. But I don't think so...)

Thanks

@Head_on_a_Stick: He had:

pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel grub

I don't know how bad the additional "grub" in there is, since the Beginners Guide mentiones to install additional packages later...
Edit: (But I agree about the Beginners Guide of course.)

Last edited by rebootl (2015-01-12 23:40:17)

Broly Ultimatrix · 2015-01-13 04:26:52

aWas at work so I'm only just now getting all this. I only reference the killer guide as a third source to the process as I do prefer some of his methods. Things like making the user account while chrooted in and he explained the EDITOR=nano visudo thing which I never see in the beginner or install guides. I prefer setting it up when I'm chrooted in as well. I know I could always go to the Sudo page for that line but Then I don't see the different methods of installing arch linux and seeing what changes effect what outcomes. Anyway, a moot point. I use the install as my primary source and the beginners guide as my secondary source when installing or reinstalling Arch Linux (a process I've done some 25 times over the years usually without headache if you don't count the 15 times I didn't really know what I was doing and the 5 times I broke the os messing around)

As far as the questions, yes I can chroot into my install and I turned off the quiet parameter for this session and rebooted. It froze again but with different stuff on the screen I'll detail below:

starting version 218
:: Running hook [udev]
:: Triggering uevents...
:: Performing fsck on '/dev/sda1'
/dev/sda1: clean, 36431/19013632 files, 1489292/76047360 blocks
::mounting '/dev/sda1' on real root
:: running cleanup hook [udev]

Welcome to Arch Linux!

         Expecting device dev-sda2.device...
[  OK  ] Reached target Remote File Systems.
         Expecting device sys-subsystem-net-devices-eth0.device...
[  OK  ] Created slice Root Slice.
[  OK  ] Created slice User and Session Slice.
[  OK  ] Created slice System Slice.
[  OK  ] Created Slice system-getty.slice.
[  OK  ] Created slice system-dhcpcd.slice.
[  OK  ] Listening on Delayed Shutdown Socket.
[  OK  ] Listening on udev Kernel Socket.
[  OK  ] Listening on udev Control Socket.
[  OK  ] Listening on /dev/initctl Compatibility Named Pipe.
[  OK  ] Listening on Journal Socket (/dev/log).
[  OK  ] Listening on Device-mapper event daemon FIFOs.
[  OK  ] Reached target Slices.
[  OK  ] Reached target PAths.
[  OK  ] Listening on LVMZ metadata daemon socket.
[  OK  ] Reached target Encrypted Volumes.
[  OK  ] Set up automount Arbitrary Executable File Formats File System Automount Point.
[  OK  ] Listening on Journal Socket.
         Starting Remount Root and Kernel File Systems...
         Mounting Temporary Directory...
         Starting Journal Service...
         Mounting Debug File System...
         Starting Create list of required static device nodes for the current kernel...
         Mounting Huge Pages File System..
         Starting Apply Kernel Variables...
         Mounting Configuration File System
         Starting udev Coldplug all Devices...
         Mounting POSIX Message Queue File System...
         Starting Setup Virtual Console...
[  OK  ] Started udev Coldplug all Devices.
[  OK  ] Started Create list of required static device nodes for the current kernel.
[  OK  ] Started Apply Kernel Variables.
[  OK  ] Started Setup Virtual Console.
[  OK  ] Mounted Huge Page File System.
[  OK  ] Mounted POSIX Message Queue File System.
[  OK  ] Mounted Configuration File System.
[  OK  ] Mounted Debug File System.
[  OK  ] Mounted Temporary Directory.
[  OK  ] Started Remount Root and Kernel File Systems.
         Starting Load/Save Random Seed...
         Starting Create Static Device Nodes in /dev...
[  OK  ] Started Load/Save Random Seed.
[  OK  ] Started Create Static Device Nodes in /dev.
         Starting udev Kernel Device Manager...
[  OK  ] Reached target Local File Systems (Pre).
[  OK  ] Reached target Local File Systems.
[  OK  ] Started udev Kernel Device Manager.
[  OK  ] Started Journal Service.
         Starting Flush Journal to Persistent Storage...
[  OK  ] Reached target Sound Card.
[  OK  ] Found Device TOSHIBA_MK3252GSX 2.
         Activating swap /dev/sda2...
[  OK  ] Started Flush Journal to Persistent Storage.
         Starting Create Volatile Files and Directories...

And then it freeze, I mean it is still frozen. It stayed that way long enough for me to hand type all that in the code bracket. Hopefully this helps.

rebootl · 2015-01-13 18:52:59

Maybe something similar to this: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=149472

I know it's not exactly this, but maybe something similar went wrong. E.g. with grub-mkconfig.

Try to verify the grub config, especially look for the UUID's. And/Or recreate it using the exact commands from the wiki.

Also what about the fstab ? A similar issue could have occured there. Have you verified it ?
And/Or recreate it using the exact command from the wiki, i.e. using UUID's. When recreating using the (appropriate) genfstab command, I think you should move the existing file first.

Other than that I currently don't know. It looks like a normal boot process to me...

Edit: You could also try syslinux instead of grub.

Last edited by rebootl (2015-01-13 18:55:13)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-01-12 17:23:24

Freeze at boot after Grub

#2 2015-01-12 19:34:02

Re: Freeze at boot after Grub

#3 2015-01-12 21:24:38

Re: Freeze at boot after Grub

#4 2015-01-12 22:45:41

Re: Freeze at boot after Grub

#5 2015-01-12 23:31:46

Re: Freeze at boot after Grub

#6 2015-01-13 04:26:52

Re: Freeze at boot after Grub

#7 2015-01-13 18:52:59

Re: Freeze at boot after Grub

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