[SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

theboringkid · 2022-04-14 09:19:21

Yesterday I updated my mirrorlist, and I am pretty sure that I accidentally upgraded my kernel while doing this, as I started the Computer again today, and before the tty login shows up, a few errors pop up which tell me that arch is not able to load some modules (failed to start load kernel modules, wireless service). After some digging around I found that this can happen when I have my boot partition not mounted while installing a kernel. After checking, yes uname -r shows:

5.17.1-arch1-1

while pacman -Q linux shows a newer version:

linux 5.17.2.arch3-1

I tried reinstalling the linux kernel while making sure boot is mounted (which it was automaticly, so I think it was also mounted during the accidental kernel install), and tried regenererating my grub config which both didn't help.
I also can't access the internet because I only have wifi and therefore am not able to install new packages(I maybe can if I use my arch install medium and use pacstrap to install packages (like when installing arch))

I would really appreciate some help since I broke my Ubuntu installation too and I really do not want to use my Windows install again.
Thanks

Last edited by theboringkid (2022-04-14 15:40:19)

Allan · 2022-04-14 09:39:50

Reboot - you keep running the kernel you had at boot, regardless of updating.

theboringkid · 2022-04-14 09:58:20

Allan wrote:

Reboot - you keep running the kernel you had at boot, regardless of updating.

To clarify, I did the accidental install yesterday, then i turned the PC off over night, and today when I turned it back on the errors showed up and I can't use the system. Therefore, rebooting doesn't help.

seth · 2022-04-14 12:33:04

The common cause is that you forgot to mount your boot partition during the update (seems not the case) or are indeed booting from the root partition.

cat /proc/cmdline
cat /etc/fstab
lsblk -f
mount
ls /boot
umount /boot
ls /boot # sic! we're looking at the unmounted path now

theboringkid · 2022-04-14 13:11:04

Umm, so I think I have missed something... umount says that /boot isn't mounted. Which makes sense, because you (seth) said to run

ls /boot

after unmountig the boot partition, but running 'ls /boot' was the way how I was checking wether /boot is mounted...
So, when I now want to mount the boot partition, where do I have to mount it? Or do I just have to run

mount /boot

without any specified mount directory? (That would return that it isn't able to find /boot in /etc/fstab)

Do I still need to post the output of the commands?

seth · 2022-04-14 13:24:55

Well, you want to mount the boot partition (assuming you know which that is) to /boot, then re-install the kernel and probably upgrade your fstab so you won't forget this again in the future.
If anything about the above is unclear, yes, please post the output of those commands.

The list of mounted devices is btw. printed by "mount".

theboringkid · 2022-04-14 13:33:20

Wait I'm confused(and sorry, this should now probably belong to the newbie corner) so do I have to mount /dev/...(the boot partition) to /boot? But why is stuff inside /boot when nothing is mounted to it?
ls /boot:

grub  initramfs-linux-fallback.img  initramfs-linux.img  vmlinuz-linux

Last edited by theboringkid (2022-04-14 14:41:17)

V1del · 2022-04-14 14:33:58

When "nothing is mounted to it" then /boot is a directory on your root partition. When you mount a device to a certain directory then whatever contents used to be under the /boot directory get logically masked by the /boot partition you mount there. So both of these symptoms are explainable through that.

So you get a disjoint here if you had the boot partition actually mounted during your initial installation, and then didn't have it mounted anymore during your normal system boot (because you forgot to add it to the fstab). Your /boot partition that you initially installed the kernel on and where GRUB loads the kernel from and the /boot directory that's on your root partition where the kernel images from updates will have landed. you can fix this either way, by not mounting a /boot partition and reconfiguring GRUB to look at the root partition and /boot directory on the root partition, or mounting the /boot partition and explicitly regenerating/reinstalling the kernel with mkinitcpio -P .

theboringkid · 2022-04-14 14:46:27

Ok, I understand the issue now, but now I have another problem:
When I try to mount sda1(my boot/efi partition) an error occurs:
mount /dev/sda1 /boot:

mount: unknown filesystem type 'vfat'

V1del · 2022-04-14 14:58:46

yes because you are booting a too old kernel that can't load it's modules anymore. If you don't have a live disk handy but you didn't yet wipe your cache you could install the old kernel temporarily, e.g.

pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/linux-5.17.1-arch1-1-x86-64.tar.zst

(... typed this from memory might contain typos, just install the old kernel package again and boot into that, after which you should be able to mount the partition again)

theboringkid · 2022-04-14 15:39:48

Great, everything works again!
Thanks to everybody helping me out!

Arch Linux

#1 2022-04-14 09:19:21

[SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

#2 2022-04-14 09:39:50

Re: [SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

#3 2022-04-14 09:58:20

Re: [SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

#4 2022-04-14 12:33:04

Re: [SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

#5 2022-04-14 13:11:04

Re: [SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

#6 2022-04-14 13:24:55

Re: [SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

#7 2022-04-14 13:33:20

Re: [SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

#8 2022-04-14 14:33:58

Re: [SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

#9 2022-04-14 14:46:27

Re: [SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

#10 2022-04-14 14:58:46

Re: [SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

#11 2022-04-14 15:39:48

Re: [SOLVED]uname -r and pacman -Q linux not the same

Board footer