Arch Linux

CavalierBob

Member

From: San Francisco Bay Area

Registered: 2006-07-20

Posts: 110

[SOLVED] Can't boot into Gnome after pacman -Syu?

This has got to be related to the notice on the website regrading the dbus upgrade. I thought I'd taken steps to prevent this from happening, but I must have errored.

Before the upgrade, I upgraded gnome-seesions. I rebooted and then did the full upgrade. This pulled in the new dbus. However, on the next boot I was greeted with the following error in the GDM (this is the last line of the error):

/opt/gnome/bin/gnome-session: error while loading shared libraries: libdbus-1.so.3: cannot open shared object file : No such file or directory

Trying to use the install disk to boot into my system fails due to dbus & hal errors. From looking in the forums, it looks like the following might cure my problem:

dbus-uuidgen --ensure

So how do I boot the system so I can get to the command line to run the command (as root I assume)?

Thanks!

Bob

Last edited by CavalierBob (2007-02-13 16:02:38)

McQueen

Member

From: Arizona

Registered: 2006-03-20

Posts: 387

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into Gnome after pacman -Syu?

At the grub boot menu just append the number '3' to the end the kernel parameter entry. This should load everything save X, and drop you to a command prompt. Check for any errors along the way. Login and su to root, then issue any command you wish.

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/path/to/Truth

CavalierBob

Member

From: San Francisco Bay Area

Registered: 2006-07-20

Posts: 110

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into Gnome after pacman -Syu?

Thanks for the reply McQueen!

Changed kernel parameter from:

kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda3 ro earlymodules=piix

to:

kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda3 ro earlymodules=piix 3

I did not work for me. I guess since I have GDM in my MODULES array in rc.conf, it still booted to the GDM login screen (?).

Other ideas how to drop to a command prompt?

Bob

McQueen

Member

From: Arizona

Registered: 2006-03-20

Posts: 387

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into Gnome after pacman -Syu?

Thanks for the reply McQueen!
Other ideas how to drop to a command prompt?

You could enter a single runlevel by appending a '1' instead of a '3' on your kernel parameter line and see if that will break you out of a GUI. Or you could use the InstallCD to mount your root partition and use a command line text editor to edit the modules by removing GDM in your rc.conf. Another option would be to boot the Arch CD, run setup, mount partitions (without formating) then goto edit config files. If you have a LiveCD laying around you could boot that and make the same edits from that environment.

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/path/to/Truth

CavalierBob

Member

From: San Francisco Bay Area

Registered: 2006-07-20

Posts: 110

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into Gnome after pacman -Syu?

You could enter a single runlevel by appending a '1' instead of a '3' on your kernel parameter line and see if that will break you out of a GUI.

Great McQueen, this worked! Dropped to the commnad line and was able to login as root. However, when I entered the command dbus-uuidgen --ensure I got a bash error saying the command was not found. I tried to pull up the man page on dbus-uuidgen and got an error on that as well. Looked at the man page on the web from another system and the command looks pretty darn simple.

Also odd was that I discovered that my system does not have a /var/lib/dbus directory. I made this directory and tried running dbus-uuidgen --ensure from inside of it, but to no avail.

Very odd. I hate to think this upgrade has truely hosed my system. Any other thoughts or ideas?

Thanks again!

Bob

CavalierBob

Member

From: San Francisco Bay Area

Registered: 2006-07-20

Posts: 110

Re: [SOLVED] Can't boot into Gnome after pacman -Syu?

Solved!

Since I was root at the command line I ran a pacman -Qi dbus. Came back package not found! I installed dbus and now the system boots fine.

I must have missed an error message in pacman's text output that dbus failed to install. I try to read the output carefully since I've seen enough adminitions to do so. Slippeed by me I guess.

Thanks for getting me over the hump McQueen. I truely appreciate the help!

Bob