Arch Linux

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

[SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

Apologies for lack of code blocks, I’m on mobile.

I haven’t booted my arch machine in a few months, now I boot to a blinking cursor and never reach tty. Ctrl-alt-f* keys don’t do anything.

After doing hours of research I’ve come across multiple threads here saying it was an issue with a previous potentially failed update.

uname -r and pacman -Q linux return 5.3.1.arch1-1, clearly outdated.

I’ve arch-chrooted into a live usb and mounted /boot and / (in reverse order, just to be clear). Attempting to do a system update tells me everything is up to date, though clearly this is not the case. I updated the mirror list, ran pacman -Sy, and removed the linux package, the mkinitcpio package, and the linux-firmware package. I’ve reinstalled them, and done mkinitcpio -p linux multiple times now. It builds successfully, and pacman -Q linux returns the current version ~5.7, while uname -r shows the previously mentioned ~5.3. After reboot, it is reverted to 5.3 again. I see no issues in the fstab and don’t believe I’m mounting the partitions improperly but the issue persists.

I’m at a loss here and have spent several hours over the past few days on this. Any help appreciated.

Edit: Managed to update the kernel, described issue irrelevant to post title

Last edited by Bosscat (2020-07-06 21:31:42)

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,729

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

Post your bootloader config and partition setup, including blkid

Last edited by Scimmia (2020-07-06 04:58:18)

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

Here are some phone pics, best I could do lol.

https://imgur.com/a/scJDbBr

I’m not sure where to find my boot config, though this is an EFI system. I’m probably on gummiboot

Last edited by Bosscat (2020-07-06 05:04:39)

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,426

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

I’m probably on gummiboot

You don't know what your boot manager is?

What guide did you use to install the system?

---

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Registered Linux User #482438

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

I’m probably on gummiboot

You don't know what your boot manager is?

What guide did you use to install the system?

Unfortunately I’m not sure, I set up this install nearly 6 years ago now and it isn’t my primary system. I have so many laptops running different distros it’s hard to keep things straight!

I followed the wiki, though, when I first created it.

Last edited by Bosscat (2020-07-06 05:19:08)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 77,772

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

After reboot, it is reverted to 5.3 again.

By "reboot" you mean the installation iso?

Do you get a bootloader screen?
Figure what your bootloader is and edit the kernel commandline (if you see the bootloader at the beginning, you can probably do that there) - remove the "quiet" parameter and ensure to boot the multi-user.target (see 2nd link below)

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,518

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

Also where / how are each of those partitions mounted?  You have four linux partitions, but in the steps you described, you only mounted / and /boot.  I'd speculate that one of the others is /home but that leaves one more.  If your ESP is not meant to be mounted on /boot this could be the source of the problem.

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

After reboot, it is reverted to 5.3 again.

By "reboot" you mean the installation iso?

Do you get a bootloader screen?

Yes, rebooting back into the installation iso and redoing the chroot process.

I don’t get the typical grub screen, but pressing F12 gets me the boot manager, naturally. What’s got me confused is letting it boot normally continues to give me the issue, but I decided to try pressing the highlighted option shown in this picture:
https://imgur.com/Qif4mCr
It booted fine to tty and I was able to login. Dissatisfied with not knowing what really happened, I rebooted and selected this option once again. Now I’m met with the same issue described at the start of this thread.

Feeling a bit clueless about the boot process.

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

Also where / how are each of those partitions mounted?  You have four linux partitions, but in the steps you described, you only mounted / and /boot.  I'd speculate that one of the others is /home but that leaves one more.  If your ESP is not meant to be mounted on /boot this could be the source of the problem.

Yes, /dev/sda4 is absolutely my /home partition, but for /dev/sda2, 20g seems awfully large for a swap partition and I don’t exactly need to mount this to fix this issue, right? /dev/sda1 is certainly root, and that just leaves the ESP. Am I meant to be mounting to /boot/efi rather than simply /boot?

Last edited by Bosscat (2020-07-06 16:00:23)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,059

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

Unmount /boot is vmlinuz-linux present in the /boot directory after the unmount?
Edit:
If it is

file /boot/vmlinuz-linux

Last edited by loqs (2020-07-06 16:03:44)

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

Unmount /boot is vmlinuz-linux present in the /boot directory after the unmount?
Edit:
If it is

file /boot/vmlinuz-linux

It isn’t there with it unmounted, but it is while it’s mounted. I’m not sure if that’s intended or if that’s a sign that I’ve built the kernel with the wrong boot mount point

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,059

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

With /boot mounted what kernel version does the file output report?

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

It shows 5.7.7.arch1-1, but uname does not.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,729

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

uname is the currently booted kernel. If you're still booting the install disk, it's never going to change

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

I’ve noticed I’m also having a microcode error at start, and followed this thread https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 6#p1739995

Issued these commands from arch-chroot

pacman -S intel-ucode
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Yet the issue persists. My point is that it seems like the changes I’m making in the chroot environment are having no effect. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the purpose of the chroot environment, or maybe this just simply wasn’t the fix for my case because of grub, etc

To clarify, since I have yet to, this is my process

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt 
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/home 
arch-chroot /mnt

Last edited by Bosscat (2020-07-06 17:03:53)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,059

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

Is vmlinuz-linux in /mnt/home if not try mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/mnt to check it is swap if it succeeds meaning it is not swap check /mnt/mnt for vmlinuz-linux
The issue is that /boot/vmlinuz-linux of the installed system is not the kernel that the bootloader is using,  so the location the bootloader is using has to be located.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,518

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

My point is that it seems like the changes I’m making in the chroot environment are having no effect.

As Scimmia already noted, if you are booting back into the live iso, you could never see an effect.

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

Is vmlinuz-linux in /mnt/home if not try mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/mnt to check it is swap if it succeeds meaning it is not swap check /mnt/mnt for vmlinuz-linux
The issue is that /boot/vmlinuz-linux of the installed system is not the kernel that the bootloader is using,  so the location the bootloader is using has to be located.

Ah you’re onto something. Yes there are initramfs images and a vmlinuz-linux file in /mnt/home. At some point I must’ve mounted things improperly. I’ve removed these files.

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

As Scimmia already noted, if you are booting back into the live iso, you could never see an effect.

Right, I may have been a bit confusing previously. I’ve been removing the live USB and checking the actual system after making changes each time. My bad.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,518

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

Ok, from the chroot environment you get from the steps in post #15, please post the output of each of the following:

pacman -Q linux
file /boot/vmlinuz-linux

The also post the following from booting the system without the usb inserted:

pacman -Q linux
uname -a

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

[root@archiso /]# pacman -Q linux
linux 5.7.7.arch1-1
[root@archiso /]# file /boot/vmlinuz-linux 
/boot/vmlinuz-linux: Linux kernel x86 boot executable bzImage, version 5.7.7.arch1-1 (linux@archlinux) #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed, 01 Jul 2020 14:53:16 +0000, RO-rootFS, swap_dev 0x7, Normal VGA

Well... I’m starting to think this might not be a kernel issue. Oops. So I’m unable to reach tty/login prompt when booting the real system. I’m met with a blinking underscore which has been the main issue. I had assumed it was because of this kernel issue, but now I’m thinking the kernel update worked and just didn’t fix this. Swapping through the Ctrl+alt+function keys also shows a blinking underscore, but it’s definitely a different page each time as you’d expect.

I’m not using a login manager so I don’t believe it’s a graphical issue, I just login and launch an X server normally.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,059

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

chroot in and post the journal for the last boot and contents of /var/log/pacman.log.  See pastebin to post the outputs from the chroot.

Last edited by loqs (2020-07-06 18:53:47)

Bosscat

Member

Registered: 2020-07-06

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

Journal for last boot: https://pastebin.com/qbwFu8yj

Pacman log: https://pastebin.com/wYiGL3RL

You’ll see me reinstalling the kernel like 80 times, lol.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,518

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

That journal is from the iso.  We need a journal from your installed system that is having the problem.

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,059

Re: [SOLVED] Can’t update kernel

The journal is from the archiso.  From within the chroot `journalctl -b -1` should show the journal from the installed system's last boot.
The system was installed in 2014,  there was a gap to 2017 but it does not look like anything was updated during the 2017 updates then another gap until 2020 when you used

[2020-07-04T18:43:10-0400] [PACMAN] Running 'pacman -S --overwrite * linux'

Did you follow the news items for all the manual interventions required between 2014 and 2020?
Edit:

[2020-07-04T18:41:58-0400] [PACMAN] Running 'pacman -Syu'
[2020-07-04T18:41:58-0400] [PACMAN] synchronizing package lists
[2020-07-04T18:42:22-0400] [PACMAN] starting full system upgrade
[2020-07-04T18:43:10-0400] [PACMAN] Running 'pacman -S --overwrite * linux'
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] transaction started
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] installed linux-api-headers (5.6.11-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] installed tzdata (2020a-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/services installed as /etc/services.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] installed iana-etc (20200624-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/fstab installed as /etc/fstab.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/group installed as /etc/group.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/gshadow installed as /etc/gshadow.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/passwd installed as /etc/passwd.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/profile installed as /etc/profile.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/resolv.conf installed as /etc/resolv.conf.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/shadow installed as /etc/shadow.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/shells installed as /etc/shells.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] installed filesystem (2020.05.20-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:14-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/locale.gen installed as /etc/locale.gen.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:15-0400] [ALPM] installed glibc (2.31-5)
[2020-07-04T18:43:15-0400] [ALPM] installed attr (2.4.48-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:15-0400] [ALPM] installed acl (2.2.53-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:15-0400] [ALPM] installed gcc-libs (10.1.0-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:15-0400] [ALPM] installed ncurses (6.2-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:15-0400] [ALPM] installed readline (8.0.004-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:16-0400] [ALPM] installed bash (5.0.017-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:16-0400] [ALPM] installed gmp (6.2.0-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:16-0400] [ALPM] installed libcap (2.36-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:16-0400] [ALPM] installed gdbm (1.18.1-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:16-0400] [ALPM] installed db (5.3.28-5)
[2020-07-04T18:43:16-0400] [ALPM] installed perl (5.32.0-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed openssl (1.1.1.g-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed coreutils (8.32-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed zlib (1:1.2.11-4)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed xz (5.2.5-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed kmod (27-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed mpfr (4.0.2-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed gawk (5.1.0-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed mkinitcpio-busybox (1.31.1-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed cracklib (2.9.7-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed libutil-linux (2.35.2-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed e2fsprogs (1.45.6-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed libsasl (2.1.27-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed libldap (2.4.50-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed keyutils (1.6.1-4)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed krb5 (1.18.2-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed libtirpc (1.2.6-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed pambase (20190105.1-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed pam (1.3.1-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed libcap-ng (0.7.10-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed audit (2.8.5-6)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed shadow (4.8.1-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed libgpg-error (1.38-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed libgcrypt (1.8.5-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed lz4 (1:1.9.2-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed systemd-libs (245.6-8)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed util-linux (2.35.2-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:17-0400] [ALPM] installed bzip2 (1.0.8-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed expat (2.2.9-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed zstd (1.4.5-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libarchive (3.4.3-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed diffutils (3.7-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed findutils (4.7.0-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed pcre (8.44-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed grep (3.4-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed less (551-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed gzip (1.10-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed device-mapper (2.02.187-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed popt (1.18-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed json-c (0.14-4)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed argon2 (20190702-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed cryptsetup (2.3.3-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed dbus (1.12.18-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libmnl (1.0.4-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libnftnl (1.1.7-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libnl (3.5.0-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libusb (1.0.23-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libpcap (1.9.1-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libnfnetlink (1.0.1-4)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libnetfilter_conntrack (1.0.8-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed iptables (1:1.8.5-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed kbd (2.2.0-5)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed hwids (20200306-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libunistring (0.9.10-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libidn2 (2.3.0-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libtasn1 (4.16.0-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libffi (3.3-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libp11-kit (0.23.20-5)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed p11-kit (0.23.20-5)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed ca-certificates-utils (20181109-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed ca-certificates-mozilla (3.54-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed ca-certificates (20181109-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libssh2 (1.9.0-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libpsl (0.21.0-2)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libnghttp2 (1.41.0-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed curl (7.71.1-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libelf (0.180-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed libseccomp (2.4.2-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed pcre2 (10.35-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/systemd/journald.conf installed as /etc/systemd/journald.conf.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/systemd/resolved.conf installed as /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:18-0400] [ALPM] installed systemd (245.6-8)
[2020-07-04T18:43:19-0400] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET] :: Append 'init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd' to your kernel command line in your
[2020-07-04T18:43:19-0400] [ALPM-SCRIPTLET]    bootloader to replace sysvinit with systemd, or install systemd-sysvcompat
[2020-07-04T18:43:19-0400] [ALPM] warning: /etc/mkinitcpio.conf installed as /etc/mkinitcpio.conf.pacnew
[2020-07-04T18:43:19-0400] [ALPM] installed mkinitcpio (27-3)
[2020-07-04T18:43:20-0400] [ALPM] installed linux (5.7.7.arch1-1)
[2020-07-04T18:43:46-0400] [ALPM] transaction completed

How did `pacman -S --overwrite * linux` start a full system update?

Last edited by loqs (2020-07-06 19:19:20)