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Hi,
I have installed Arch today. The problem is, Grub doesn't seem to work at all. Every time I boot up my computer, I get a command-line prompt from grub but not the expected graphical menu. What could I have done wrong? Where to start to seek for the error? I have no idea, please help me.
Best regards
EDIT: As I have read from another thread, these information might be useful:
When booted from Live-CD (Legacy IDE support) and mounted /dev/hda2 as /mnt/mounted-root:
fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000b0070
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 17654 141797376 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 30309 30401 747022+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda3 17654 30308 101650610 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Disk /dev/hdb: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5ebb1b1b
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 9964 80035798+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
cat /mnt/mounted-root/etc/fstab
#
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
#/dev/cdrom /media/cd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
#/dev/dvd /media/dvd auto ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0
#/dev/fd0 /media/fl auto user,noauto 0 0
UUID=246e7470-731e-45ef-b992-868bff58c5c8 / ext4 defaults 0 1
UUID=b9d5c5d4-19f3-449c-b3ec-888029cde18e swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/win2k8 auto ro,auto,defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/shared auto ro,auto,defaults 0 0
cat /mnt/mounted-root/boot/grub/menu.lst
# Config file for GRUB - The GNU GRand Unified Bootloader
# /boot/grub/menu.lst
# DEVICE NAME CONVERSIONS
#
# Linux Grub
# -------------------------
# /dev/fd0 (fd0)
# /dev/sda (hd0)
# /dev/sdb2 (hd1,1)
# /dev/sda3 (hd0,2)
#
# FRAMEBUFFER RESOLUTION SETTINGS
# +-------------------------------------------------+
# | 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024
# ----+--------------------------------------------
# 256 | 0x301=769 0x303=771 0x305=773 0x307=775
# 32K | 0x310=784 0x313=787 0x316=790 0x319=793
# 64K | 0x311=785 0x314=788 0x317=791 0x31A=794
# 16M | 0x312=786 0x315=789 0x318=792 0x31B=795
# +-------------------------------------------------+
# for more details and different resolutions see
# http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Framebuffer_Resolution
# general configuration:
timeout 5
default 0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
# boot sections follow
# each is implicitly numbered from 0 in the order of appearance below
#
# TIP: If you want a 1024x768 framebuffer, add "vga=773" to your kernel line.
#
#-*
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/246e7470-731e-45ef-b992-868bff58c5c8 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/246e7470-731e-45ef-b992-868bff58c5c8 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
# (2) Windows
#title Windows
#rootnoverify (hd0,0)
#makeactive
#chainloader +1
I have Windows Server 2008 installed on /dev/hda1, just wanted to mention it, in case this information is of any matter.
Last edited by the[V]oid (2009-05-14 11:01:50)
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Honestly - I just cannot bring my brain around all this disk_by_uuid stuff ...
Change it to /dev/sdaX, tell us exactly what kind of grub error you get - and I shall be happy to have a look at it.
By-the-way - in your menu.lst above - there is nothing 'graphical' about it ... all you you get are two lines with archlinux and archlinux fallback - and that's all ...
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By 'graphical' I meant an interface that is more than just a command line.
Grub gives me no error at all.
My updated menu.lst:
# general configuration:
timeout 5
default 0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda2 vga=775
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda2
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
# (2) Windows
#title Windows
#rootnoverify (hd0,0)
#makeactive
#chainloader +1
My updated fstab:
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda2 / ext4 defaults 0 0
/dev/hda3 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win2k8 auto ro,auto,defaults 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/shared auto ro,auto,defaults 0 0
It still doesn't work.
I tried re-installing grub following this wiki article but when it comes to
grub> root (hdx,x)
I keep getting "Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82" for hd0,1 (which actually should be ext4) and "Filesystem type is xfs, partition type 0x83" for hd0,2 (which actually whould me swap). I thaught this was kinda strange and I should mention it. And when I try a simple
grub-install /dev/hda
I got "/dev/hda does not have any corresponding BIOS drive." So I performed a
grub-install --recheck /dev/hda
and since then I'm getting "The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly." when running grub-install.
Last edited by the[V]oid (2009-05-13 08:29:06)
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I'm confused.
You say:
"When booted from Live-CD (Legacy IDE support) and mounted /dev/hda2 as /mnt/mounted-root: (output)"
however, fdisk -l right underneath that suggests that 2 is swap and *3* is the root.. so that couldn't have been right.
/dev/hda2 30309 30401 747022+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda3 17654 30308 101650610 83 Linux
then grub also switches 2 and 3 what appears to be incorrectly:
title Arch Linux
# /boot is on the first hd (correct), 2nd partition (not correct according to fdisk?)
root (hd0,1)
# / is on hda2, which fdisk says is swap
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda2 vga=775
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
Perhaps switch it accordingly?
Also, try perhaps using "(hd0)" (with quotes for a change, IIRC) instead of /dev/hda?
If not, perhaps you would have more luck making a /boot partition separately, chrooting into it, then mounting /boot accordingly after chrooting, adding the /boot partition to fstab, reinstall grub, reinstall kernel26 and kernel26-firmware, then see if you have any luck? Note that if you do this, remove all "/boot" prefixes from menu.lst and change the set root= line to point to the /boot partition.
To save yourself from most of the confusion involved in this mess in the future, you might try using gparted on a non-mounted system (new ext4-supporting livecd, like System Rescue CD, my favorite, or the official gparted livecd) and giving all of your partitions a label of your own for fstab and menu.lst/grub.cfg to use. For instance, on my setup, I made this nonsense a whole lot simpler by labling them with "Arch4" (Arch root, 4 for ext4), "Home4", "Boot4", "Swap" case sensitive. (Oh and fyi, in order to label swap, you need to delete it and make a new one. Apparently you can only label it in gparted when it's being made, not after.)
Ie:
/etc/fstab entries:
LABEL=Arch4 / ext4 defaults 0 1
LABEL=Home4 /home ext4 defaults 0 1
LABEL=Boot4 /boot ext4 defaults 0 1
LABEL=Swap swap swap defaults 0 0
/boot/grub/grub.cfg (the menu.lst equivalent for Grub2-gfxmenu, obviously uses a different format, and this is set to point to my particular /boot partition, but you get the idea):
# Entry 0 - Arch Overlord
menuentry "Arch Overlord" --class "arch2" {
set root=(hd0,5)
linux /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-label/Arch4 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
}
EDIT: Added a couple things above.
EDIT2: Added more
Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-05-13 08:42:25)
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Thanks! I really somehow managed to install arch on the swap partition and didn't notice it... Now it's working
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Hehe. It happens
I just got done un-screwing my sister's x64 that I managed to install a random assortment of like 30 i686 (including some important ones) packages onto without paying attention mixed in with the x64's. Some bizarre stuff happened there!
Would appreciate if you would edit the original post to mark it [SOLVED].
Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-05-13 11:47:06)
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Just a li'l extra comment here - and it has to do with device names.
If you boot off a live-cd with legacy-ide - then your ide-drives will come up as /dev/hda, /dev/hdb, etc
If your installed archlinux is default (ie non-legacy-ide), then those same disks will be /dev/sda, /dev/sdb etc
One should always keep this in mind when using a live cd, because it may not show the same devices as the installed distro, and if you use a live cd to alter/change your /etc/fstab or reinstalling grub, then pay extra attention to what you are actually doing.
Last edited by perbh (2009-05-13 13:58:41)
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