Arch Linux

SleepyFloyd

Member

Registered: 2008-06-11

Posts: 91

[solved] Another hotplugging problem, with a little twist...

so I got this old Desktop running Arch standing idle around (because the monitor died). A few days ago, I fired this thing up for the first time in about two months and did a "pacman -Syu". Several hundred MB later I had a new kernel and a reboot after that my (PS/2) mouse and keyboard don't work anymore. Having followed the forums as a silent reader, I know this is related to the evdev hotplugging issue...

My problem now is that I've no idea how to fix it. GDM starts as a deamon, and as soon as it's up, every input device is dead. I can't do [ctrl][alt][back] or [ctrl][alt][1], the [num] or [caps] keys don't even let the leds flash...

So, how do I keep GDM (and Xorg) from starting, so that I can fix the xorg.conf? This is probably a pretty stupid question, but I've never encountered a problem like this, where I can't even use the keyboard to start a console to edit some basic files...

Last edited by SleepyFloyd (2009-01-20 14:38:36)

ploub

Member

Registered: 2007-05-16

Posts: 132

Re: [solved] Another hotplugging problem, with a little twist...

So, how do I keep GDM (and Xorg) from starting, so that I can fix the xorg.conf? This is probably a pretty stupid question, but I've never encountered a problem like this, where I can't even use the keyboard to start a console to edit some basic files...

Add a 3 to your grub options line on your next boot

xaiviax

Member

From: Michigan

Registered: 2008-11-04

Posts: 282

Re: [solved] Another hotplugging problem, with a little twist...

With Inittab Method it's relatively easy using grub, but since you have gdm starting as a daemon, I think you need to use a boot disk.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Add … on_startup

kludge

Member

Registered: 2008-08-03

Posts: 294

Re: [solved] Another hotplugging problem, with a little twist...

With Inittab Method it's relatively easy using grub, but since you have gdm starting as a daemon, I think you need to use a boot disk.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Add … on_startup

try:

* adding 'single' to the end of you kernel command-line in grub.  i don't *think* this will start gdm.
* adding 'init=/bin/sh' to your kernel boot parameters.  you should get a really minimal root shell that will let you edit /etc/rc.conf.  you might (probably will) have to remount the root filesystem as read-write.

---

[23:00:16]    dr_kludge | i want to invent an olfactory human-computer interface, integrate it into the web standards, then produce my own forked browser.
[23:00:32]    dr_kludge | can you guess what i'd call it?
[23:01:16]    dr_kludge | nosilla.
[23:01:32]    dr_kludge | i really should be going to bed.  i'm giggling madly about that.

SleepyFloyd

Member

Registered: 2008-06-11

Posts: 91

Re: [solved] Another hotplugging problem, with a little twist...

Thanks guys, everything is working fine now.