Arch Linux won’t boot up after not being used for months | Arch Linux Community | Page 1

lofty wedge Nov 24, 2022, 7:49 PM

#

Hello,

I have Arch with gnome installed, and haven’t used it in a few months. I tried booting into it from Grub but every time I start it up, these messages pop up and I can’t get into the OS. I have no idea where to even start troubleshooting this, would appreciate any pointers!

#

Ah just looked back and it scrolled a bit with some more text. Seems to have detected my USB devices but it‘s still stuck.

polar bridge Nov 24, 2022, 8:43 PM

#

@lofty wedge can you try booting with the quiet kernel parameter

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 3:22 AM

#

@polar bridge it appears the quiet param is enabled

tender whaleBOT Nov 25, 2022, 3:22 AM

#

TheMysticalMagickian

@you just got $\\\LaTeX$'d it appears the quiet param is enabled

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 3:29 AM

#

Woo we time travelling now

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 4:05 AM

#

wth

#

@lofty wedge how bout we switch bootloaders

#

are you on efi

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 4:20 AM

#

polar bridge are you on efi

I think so

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 4:20 AM

#

polar bridge <@202510490008551425> how bout we switch bootloaders

How would I do that?

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 4:39 AM

#

lofty wedge How would I do that?

install a new boot loader

#

do you wanna try

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 4:39 AM

#

Sure why not

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 4:39 AM

#

lofty wedge Sure why not

k then, can you boot into the arch usb

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 4:44 AM

#

Sure lemme grab that

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 4:50 AM

#

ok

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 4:50 AM

#

Just gotta flash it again

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 4:50 AM

#

ok

#

you can use any linux iso actually

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 4:52 AM

#

hacker voice I’m in

#

Guessing I gotta do some chroot shenanigans?

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:16 AM

#

lofty wedge Guessing I gotta do some chroot shenanigans?

yea

#

sorry are you still there

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:32 AM

#

Ah just got out of a League game lol

#

Yeah still here

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:34 AM

#

k

#

so

#

@lofty wedge do you happen to know which partition is which

#

what they're called and where they're mounted

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:36 AM

#

Good question lol, I actually have a bit of a convoluted setup

#

Some LVM stuff going on

#

Do you know the commands to see the LVM info?

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:36 AM

#

lemme see

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:36 AM

#

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:38 AM

#

the power of archwiki

#

do you know what 6 and 7 are for

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:39 AM

#

Basically I was multibooting and trying OpenSUSE at one point

#

I think one of them is OpenSUSE

#

Other one idk

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:39 AM

#

can you try mounting and lsing them just to check

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:41 AM

#

Do you know if there's any easy way to check what OS is there once its mounted

#

like some file in the fs that gives OS info

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:42 AM

#

lofty wedge like some file in the fs that gives OS info

yea usually theres a file called /etc/lsb-release or /etc/os-release

#

in my case

#

i think im using android according to this

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:45 AM

#

Okay so 6 is my Arch linux installation, 7 is a partition for BTRFS snapshots which I was trying to setup at one point but I never fully set it up

#

I'm guessing 5 is the OpenSUSE LVM

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:45 AM

#

do you wanna remove one

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:45 AM

#

Yeah let's delete the OpenSUSE and BTRFS snapshots one

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:46 AM

#

k then

#

go ahead and do that

#

do you know how

#

if not we'll do that later

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:47 AM

#

I forgot how to with the command line, is it fdisk d <partition> or something?

#

But yeah lets just ignore it for now if it can be done later

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:47 AM

#

yea

#

so um

#

mount arch partition to /mnt

#

at this point lets check if youre really in efi

#

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

#

does it say no such file or directory

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:50 AM

#

Oh wait oops I was wrong about the 7 partition.

That's where my home directory is as well 🥲 I have no idea what I was trying to do lmao, so my Arch installation is on 6 and the home directory/files and what not is on 7

#

So I wanna mount 6, right?

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:51 AM

#

yea

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:52 AM

#

polar bridge `ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars`

can you check this

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:53 AM

#

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:53 AM

#

wat

#

@lofty wedge did you install manually

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:54 AM

#

Install Arch manually you mean?

#

Yea

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:55 AM

#

oh ok

#

so um

#

what did you use for esp

#

windows one?

#

@lofty wedge

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 5:56 AM

#

lofty wedge

I think so? I see a "EFI System" partition from the output of fdisk -l

#

That's partition 1

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:58 AM

#

@lofty wedge can you show the output of efibootmgr

#

if youd like to upload it to a pastebin

#

.s rs

next nacelleBOT Nov 25, 2022, 5:58 AM

#

polar bridge .s rs

<command to print output> |& curl --data-binary @- https://paste.rs

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 5:59 AM

#

@lofty wedge

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:00 AM

#

Ooh that's handy

#

I get a couldn't read data from file error

#

#

#

This is the output though

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:02 AM

#

lofty wedge

missing a space after the -

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:03 AM

#

Oooh

#

https://paste.rs/3vQ

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:03 AM

#

can you redo with efibootmgr -v

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:04 AM

#

https://paste.rs/TXK

#

It's getting pretty late for me, do you mind if we continue this tomorrow?

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:13 AM

#

no

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:14 AM

#

Oh okay lmao

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:15 AM

#

wait really quick

#

@lofty wedge before you log off where do you mount your booting partition

#

remember, when you installed grub, it asked for a --efi-directory=

#

what's that

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:16 AM

#

Uuuuh I really have no idea tbh 😅

#

How can I check that?

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:17 AM

#

@lofty wedge try mount /dev/sda1 /mnt and then find /mnt -name grub\*.efi

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:19 AM

#

SDA1 is the flash drive where the Arch iso is on for me, is it suipposed to be my actual hard dtrive?

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:20 AM

#

oh right

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:21 AM

#

lofty wedge SDA1 is the flash drive where the Arch iso is on for me, is it suipposed to be m...

i meant nvme0n1p1, whoops

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:21 AM

#

http://paste.rs/PGt

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:22 AM

#

you have to put p1

#

then find /mnt -name grub\*.efi

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:22 AM

#

Ah alr

#

https://paste.rs/BD2

#

I'm guessing it's the last one

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:24 AM

#

yea

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:24 AM

#

/mnt/EFI/arch/grubx64.efi

#

Do I wanna basically reinstall Grub using that same efi directory?

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:28 AM

#

lofty wedge Do I wanna basically reinstall Grub using that same efi directory?

i was thinking we would just install a different boot loader

#

do you wanna leave now

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:28 AM

#

polar bridge no

you do realize i was saying i dont mind right

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:29 AM

#

polar bridge you do realize i was saying i dont mind right

Yeah lmao, just playing

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:29 AM

#

oh ok

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:29 AM

#

polar bridge i was thinking we would just install a different boot loader

Sounds like a plan

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:29 AM

#

do you wanna keep going rn

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:30 AM

#

I'm gonna go to sleep for now, it's 1:30am here

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:30 AM

#

ok sounds good

lofty wedge Nov 25, 2022, 6:30 AM

#

Really appreciate all the help!

#

Good night

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:30 AM

#

i'll get the steps for when you get up

#

gn

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 6:46 AM

#

do this while booted into the arch iso & connected to wifi, with /dev/nvme0n1p6 mounted to /mnt

chroot into /mnt
mount the boot partition (tip: if its in the fstab, you can just run mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 without saying where to mount to)
bootctl install (installs systemd-boot)
make efistub file according to arch wiki (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/EFISTUB#efibootmgr, also maybe add quiet and loglevel=4); do this on /dev/nvme0n1p1
you could also add ucode stuff if you have it

EFISTUB

polar bridge Nov 25, 2022, 7:26 AM

#

here we go

#

curl -O https://paste.rs/C34 && . C34

#

just run that in the iso, outside of chroot

#

should work

#

you should be able to exit and reboot

lofty wedge Nov 27, 2022, 5:57 PM

#

Hey sorry I got busy with IRL stuff, appreciate the little script you wrote!

#

I just ran the script and got the following error though

#

https://paste.rs/Iwh

#

Huh actually that command didn’t capture everything that was outputted

#

#

Here’s the full output

polar bridge Nov 28, 2022, 1:17 AM

#

@lofty wedge do you know what the root partition is for arch

#

if its p6 then im a little confused

#

ohhhh

#

@lofty wedge the script assumes you didnt mount root and panicks if you did

#

like i said, just run it outside of chroot (and get on wifi if you use that)

#Arch Linux won’t boot up after not being used for months