Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

Taughtimp2786 · 2022-10-17 14:16:19

Starting all over again does seem like an easy option, but is there any way that I can reinstall the same packages I currently have, to my new system? and with all their settings the same? like the dnscrypy-proxy config, steam accounts, kde plasma settings and the "rice" intact, I can think of many things right now.
And since I can't plug in a hard drive and I don't have a USB drive (I am using drivedroid with my android phone to boot into Arch image), how do I upload all of these to Google drive?

`ls` shows a directory as empty even though I know there are files within that directory. When I `ls` my home directory, `.zshrc` file is not there, but when I `cat /home/ryuo/.zshrc` I get an output. Why is that?

Me being in a situation like this, I don't think there is a way to backup any of my files.

Edit: you had asked if the Reallocated_Sector_Ct had gone up from the smartctl info. No, it is still 16 as it was before.

Last edited by Taughtimp2786 (2022-10-17 14:19:03)

seth · 2022-10-17 14:34:05

When I `ls` my home directory, `.zshrc` file is not there, but when I `cat /home/ryuo/.zshrc` I get an output. Why is that?

ls -a

…

is there any way that I can reinstall the same packages I currently have, to my new system? and with all their settings the same?

Do you have backups?

If you want to rescue the system, the previously linked wiki has scripts that try to reconstruct your package database out of the logs etc.

pacman --sysroot /mnt -Qnq

posts no output?

V1del · 2022-10-17 14:34:25

Taughtimp2786 wrote:

Starting all over again does seem like an easy option, but is there any way that I can reinstall the same packages I currently have, to my new system?

From the current assumptions your pacman database is corrupted and that list is not going to be easily retrievable, so this relies on you generally knowing which packages you have had installed, assuming it is intact or at least somewhat written to, a general log of what you had/might have installed might still reside in /var/log/pacman.log so maybe backup/store that file as well.

and with all their settings the same? like the dnscrypy-proxy config...

Hoping the corruption only affected actively installed/installing packages most configs under /etc/ should/might be intact, check whether you can access the config files you remember adjusting there.

, steam accounts, kde plasma settings and the "rice" intact, I can think of many things right now.

All of these would be somewhere in your /home so assuming the corruption "only" spread to system packages, those might be safe, since you have corruption in the first place there's no easy way to tell for certain. In general config files for these will be under ~/.config, ~/.local and the like, if these are still accessible then you can backup these and most settings should carry over.

And since I can't plug in a hard drive and I don't have a USB drive (I am using drivedroid with my android phone to boot into Arch image), how do I upload all of these to Google drive?

If you have sufficient space on your phone, can't you store some of these there temporarily? I'd focus on settings and personal and important files assuming you can still access them and copy them over/tar them up to keep permissions and the like safe.

`ls` shows a directory as empty even though I know there are files within that directory. When I `ls` my home directory, `.zshrc` file is not there, but when I `cat /home/ryuo/.zshrc` I get an output. Why is that?

That's normal, any file name prefixed with a . is assumed to be a "hidden" file, to make ls show these pass the -a flag.

Edit: I swear I pressed F5 like 10secs before you posted

Last edited by V1del (2022-10-17 14:35:56)

Taughtimp2786 · 2022-10-17 14:36:10

I get different pacman outputs now.

output of `pacman --sysroot /mnt -Qnq`:

acl
attr
audit
bash
bzip2
coreutils
e2fsprogs
expat
filesystem
findutils
gcc-libs
gdbm
glibc
gmp
iana-etc
keyutils
krb5
libarchive
libcap
libcap-ng
libevent
libldap
libsasl
libtasn1
libtirpc
libverto
libxcrypt
linux-api-headers
lz4
ncurses
openssl
pam
pambase
readline
tzdata
util-linux-libs
xz
zlib
zstd

output of `pacman --sysroot /mnt -S --overwrite "*" pacutils`:

resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (40) brotli-1.0.9-8  ca-certificates-20220905-1  ca-certificates-mozilla-3.84-1  ca-certificates-utils-20220905-1  curl-7.85.0-2  gawk-5.2.0-3  gettext-0.21.1-1  glib2-2.74.0-2  gnupg-2.2.40-1  gnutls-3.7.8-1  gpgme-1.18.0-1  grep-3.8-2  icu-71.1-1  json-c-0.16-1  libassuan-2.5.5-1  libffi-3.4.3-1  libgcrypt-1.10.1-1  libgpg-error-1.46-1  libidn2-2.3.3-1  libksba-1.6.2-1  libnghttp2-1.50.0-1  libp11-kit-0.24.1-1  libpsl-0.21.1-1  libsecret-0.20.5-2  libssh2-1.10.0-1  libsysprof-capture-3.44.0-2  libunistring-1.0-1  libxml2-2.10.2-2  mpfr-4.1.0.p13-3  nettle-3.8.1-1  npth-1.6-3  p11-kit-0.24.1-1  pacman-6.0.1-8  pacman-mirrorlist-20221016-1  pcre2-10.40-3  pinentry-1.2.1-1  sqlite-3.39.4-1  systemd-libs-251.6-1  tpm2-tss-3.2.0-1  pacutils-0.11.1-1

Total Installed Size:  136.04 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] 
checking keyring...
checking package integrity...
loading package files...
checking for file conflicts...
checking available disk space...
error: could not open file: /etc/mtab: No such file or directory
error: could not determine filesystem mount points
error: not enough free disk space
error: failed to commit transaction (unexpected error)
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

Something is really wrong right now.

Last edited by Taughtimp2786 (2022-10-17 14:36:41)

Taughtimp2786 · 2022-10-17 14:40:17

seth wrote:

When I `ls` my home directory, `.zshrc` file is not there, but when I `cat /home/ryuo/.zshrc` I get an output. Why is that?
ls -a
…
is there any way that I can reinstall the same packages I currently have, to my new system? and with all their settings the same?
Do you have backups?
If you want to rescue the system, the previously linked wiki has scripts that try to reconstruct your package database out of the logs etc.
pacman --sysroot /mnt -Qnq
posts no output?

yes, sorry, I actually did do ls -a but there is still no .zshrc but other hidden files are still there.

no backups.

Last edited by Taughtimp2786 (2022-10-17 14:40:37)

Taughtimp2786 · 2022-10-17 14:46:32

V1del wrote:

Taughtimp2786 wrote:
Starting all over again does seem like an easy option, but is there any way that I can reinstall the same packages I currently have, to my new system?
From the current assumptions your pacman database is corrupted and that list is not going to be easily retrievable, so this relies on you generally knowing which packages you have had installed, assuming it is intact or at least somewhat written to, a general log of what you had/might have installed might still reside in /var/log/pacman.log so maybe backup/store that file as well.
and with all their settings the same? like the dnscrypy-proxy config...
Hoping the corruption only affected actively installed/installing packages most configs under /etc/ should/might be intact, check whether you can access the config files you remember adjusting there.
, steam accounts, kde plasma settings and the "rice" intact, I can think of many things right now.
All of these would be somewhere in your /home so assuming the corruption "only" spread to system packages, those might be safe, since you have corruption in the first place there's no easy way to tell for certain. In general config files for these will be under ~/.config, ~/.local and the like, if these are still accessible then you can backup these and most settings should carry over.
And since I can't plug in a hard drive and I don't have a USB drive (I am using drivedroid with my android phone to boot into Arch image), how do I upload all of these to Google drive?
If you have sufficient space on your phone, can't you store some of these there temporarily? I'd focus on settings and personal and important files assuming you can still access them and copy them over/tar them up to keep permissions and the like safe.
`ls` shows a directory as empty even though I know there are files within that directory. When I `ls` my home directory, `.zshrc` file is not there, but when I `cat /home/ryuo/.zshrc` I get an output. Why is that?
That's normal, any file name prefixed with a . is assumed to be a "hidden" file, to make ls show these pass the -a flag.
Edit: I swear I pressed F5 like 10secs before you posted

It is a chaos in the web version of archlinux forums on mobile. I am answering each question through my mobiles keyboard and formatting very difficult. refreshing is a mess. whenever I have to send an output, I have to upload it to some paste service and then copy it from there and paste it here.

so about the .zshrc not being visible, yes I know I have to use ls -a to show the hidden files. there was a typo I believe that I put ls instead of ls -a on my last reply. .zshrc is still not visible in the output of ls -a

I guess I will have to use my mum's phone to backup the data as I can't access my phone's storage when I am hosting archlinux image (can someone tell me how do I mount a phone's storage).

seth · 2022-10-17 15:00:43

output of `pacman --sysroot /mnt -S --overwrite "*" pacutils`:

Try

pacman --root /mnt --cachedir /mnt/var/cache/pacman/pkg -S --overwrite "*" pacutils

Edit:
also

ls -lha /mnt/home/ryuo
stat /mnt/home/ryuo/.zshrc
lsattr /mnt/home/ryuo/.zshrc

Do not chroot into the system for this - you cannot rely on it and have to inspect and fix it offline.

Edit #2: and you can upload those outputs, eg.

ls -lha /mnt/home/ryuo | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

Last edited by seth (2022-10-17 15:06:22)

Taughtimp2786 · 2022-10-17 16:01:56

pacman --root /mnt --cachedir /mnt/var/cache/pacman/pkg -S --overwrite "*" pacutils

https://termbin.com/oegvq

ls -lha /mnt/home/ryuo

https://termbin.com/9jox

stat /mnt/home/ryuo/.zshrc

https://termbin.com/bscj

lsattr /mnt/home/ryuo/.zshrc

https://termbin.com/b94b

Edit #2: and you can upload those outputs, eg.
ls -lha /mnt/home/ryuo | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

ls -lha /mnt/home/ryuo | nc termbin.com 9999

is easier than

ls -lha /mnt/home/ryuo | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

seth · 2022-10-17 16:09:50

error: gnupg: signature from "David Runge <dvzrv@archlinux.org>" is marginal trust

Is this some dated installation iso?

Taughtimp2786 · 2022-10-17 17:13:46

My file manager says:

Date Modified:
1 June

seth · 2022-10-17 19:34:19

Aside from being meaningless, the latest arch install iso is from 2022-10-01

Taughtimp2786 · 2022-10-18 06:08:14

Now pacman gives a different output to that same command.

resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (40) brotli-1.0.9-8  ca-certificates-20220905-1  ca-certificates-mozilla-3.84-1  ca-certificates-utils-20220905-1  curl-7.85.0-2  gawk-5.2.0-3  gettext-0.21.1-1  glib2-2.74.0-2  gnupg-2.2.40-1  gnutls-3.7.8-1  gpgme-1.18.0-1  grep-3.8-2  icu-71.1-1  json-c-0.16-1  libassuan-2.5.5-1  libffi-3.4.3-1  libgcrypt-1.10.1-1  libgpg-error-1.46-1  libidn2-2.3.3-1  libksba-1.6.2-1  libnghttp2-1.50.0-1  libp11-kit-0.24.1-1  libpsl-0.21.1-1  libsecret-0.20.5-2  libssh2-1.10.0-1  libsysprof-capture-3.44.0-2  libunistring-1.0-1  libxml2-2.10.2-2  mpfr-4.1.0.p13-3  nettle-3.8.1-1  npth-1.6-3  p11-kit-0.24.1-1  pacman-6.0.1-8  pacman-mirrorlist-20221016-1  pcre2-10.40-3  pinentry-1.2.1-1  sqlite-3.39.4-1  systemd-libs-251.6-1  tpm2-tss-3.2.0-1  pacutils-0.11.1-1

Total Installed Size:  136.04 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] 
checking keyring...
checking package integrity...
loading package files...
checking for file conflicts...
checking available disk space...
:: Processing package changes...
installing libffi...
error: could not create directory /mnt/var/lib/pacman/local/libffi-3.4.3-1/: File exists
error: could not commit transaction
error: failed to commit transaction (transaction aborted)
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

I have tried deleting that directory, but each time I do that and run the command again, I get the same error but with a different "file".

Last edited by Taughtimp2786 (2022-10-18 06:09:31)

seth · 2022-10-18 06:16:32

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman … )%22_error

Taughtimp2786 · 2022-10-18 09:08:42

Each time I rename a file and run the pacman command again, a new file comes up and renaming that doesn't help either.

Taughtimp2786 · 2022-10-18 11:40:01

Finally installed pacutils after deleting every one those "files".
I recovered my pkglist, and I *think* it is complete, except the AUR packages. Can you please tell me how I can recover the AUR package list too?

seth · 2022-10-18 13:55:34

You could have globbed the --overwrite.

pacman -Qqm

lists all non-repo packages.

Since the AUR packages are probably not relevant to the basic functionality of the system: did you try to boot it?

Taughtimp2786 · 2022-10-20 05:28:15

I give. Installing the packages results in corrupted package before the installation even starts.
I will start all over again.

What I learned:
Never shut down the computer using the physical power button. It's not a proper shutdown. Use the key combination Alt + SysRq + REISUB to do a system restart by unmounting the drive. This key combination too, should only be used if the system is not responding and when there's nothing you can do to properly restart it.

Last edited by Taughtimp2786 (2022-10-20 05:37:36)

Arch Linux

#26 2022-10-17 14:16:19

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#27 2022-10-17 14:34:05

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#28 2022-10-17 14:34:25

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#29 2022-10-17 14:36:10

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#30 2022-10-17 14:40:17

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#31 2022-10-17 14:46:32

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#32 2022-10-17 15:00:43

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#33 2022-10-17 16:01:56

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#34 2022-10-17 16:09:50

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#35 2022-10-17 17:13:46

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#36 2022-10-17 19:34:19

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#37 2022-10-18 06:08:14

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#38 2022-10-18 06:16:32

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#39 2022-10-18 09:08:42

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

#40 2022-10-18 11:40:01

Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

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Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

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Re: Unable to Boot into My Arch Linux Installation

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