[gentoo-user] Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[gentoo-user] Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Harry Putnam]

I've just completed first part of a fresh install.

Mounted the new root and emerged a few things while still chrooted.

It'd be difficult to list quickly since I can't boot it, but the
highlights are:

eix
genkernel
gentoolkit
gentoolkit-dev
gentoo-sources
grub
lynx
ntp
reiserfsprogs
rsyslog
vim
vixie-cron

And a number of dependancies pulled in from my use flags.

I didn't want to start from scratch dinking around with kernel params
so elected to go the `genkernel all' route, hoping that with that much
junk being compiled... surely I'd get whatever I needed to start the
process of building up this installation.

I realize there are many who have lots of rants against genkernel but
unless you think that is the core of the problem... please hold off on
advice to build my own kenel.

kernel = 2.6.29-r5

What I see on reboot:

Normal booting appears to be going along then moments after dev is
mounted followed by filesystems... a massive screen full of text
begins scrolling by and never stops.

Impossible to read any of the text and neither pause/break or
scroll/lock keys have any effect.

Appears to be a continuous wrapping line repeated.

But it completely kills the boot process, and no further progress is
possible. 

I really have no idea what to change when I boot off the install media.

Re: [gentoo-user] Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Harry Putnam<reader@newsguy.com> wrote:
> I've just completed first part of a fresh install.
>
> Mounted the new root and emerged a few things while still chrooted.
>
> It'd be difficult to list quickly since I can't boot it, but the
> highlights are:
>
> eix
> genkernel
> gentoolkit
> gentoolkit-dev
> gentoo-sources
> grub
> lynx
> ntp
> reiserfsprogs
> rsyslog
> vim
> vixie-cron
>
> And a number of dependancies pulled in from my use flags.
>
> I didn't want to start from scratch dinking around with kernel params
> so elected to go the `genkernel all' route, hoping that with that much
> junk being compiled... surely I'd get whatever I needed to start the
> process of building up this installation.
>
> I realize there are many who have lots of rants against genkernel but
> unless you think that is the core of the problem... please hold off on
> advice to build my own kenel.
>
> kernel = 2.6.29-r5
>
> What I see on reboot:
>
> Normal booting appears to be going along then moments after dev is
> mounted followed by filesystems... a massive screen full of text
> begins scrolling by and never stops.
>
> Impossible to read any of the text and neither pause/break or
> scroll/lock keys have any effect.
>
> Appears to be a continuous wrapping line repeated.
>
> But it completely kills the boot process, and no further progress is
> possible.
>
> I really have no idea what to change when I boot off the install media.

You emerged reiserfsprogs before the machine was up and running. Does
this somehow imply that you are trying to boot from a Reiser partition
and could that be part of the problem?

Does the machine have a serial port and do you have access to a second
machine that you could capture and save the early boot messages? That
might be helpful. I know many machine now don't support that. There
may be ways to do something similar over the network or USB if the
boot gets that far.

- Mark

[gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Harry Putnam]

Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> writes:

>> I really have no idea what to change when I boot off the install media.
>
> You emerged reiserfsprogs before the machine was up and running. Does
> this somehow imply that you are trying to boot from a Reiser partition
> and could that be part of the problem?

Yes, as advised in the quick install guide.  And yes I am booting off
of a reiserfs and have been doing so for at least 2 yrs.  I haven't
seen this problem in that time.

> Does the machine have a serial port and do you have access to a second
> machine that you could capture and save the early boot messages? That
> might be helpful. I know many machine now don't support that. There
> may be ways to do something similar over the network or USB if the
> boot gets that far.

No serial port

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 6:48 PM, Harry Putnam<reader@newsguy.com> wrote:
> Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> I really have no idea what to change when I boot off the install media.
>>
>> You emerged reiserfsprogs before the machine was up and running. Does
>> this somehow imply that you are trying to boot from a Reiser partition
>> and could that be part of the problem?
>
> Yes, as advised in the quick install guide.  And yes I am booting off
> of a reiserfs and have been doing so for at least 2 yrs.  I haven't
> seen this problem in that time.

I understand, and I'm not suggesting it was the problem. Just asking questions.

Keep in mind that I ran xorg-server with the Intel driver for 4 years
and the recent xorg-server/driver updates totally broke it. I couldn't
wait for a fix (wife's computer - we know who really runs this
place...) so I bought a new cad and moved on.

Is this the same old ReiserFS that you've been running? It's not the
new fangled versions is it?

It sounded like the time your boot goes crazy might be when everything
is getting mounted? Is that about the right time? What do you think
the last message is that's good?

>
>> Does the machine have a serial port and do you have access to a second
>> machine that you could capture and save the early boot messages? That
>> might be helpful. I know many machine now don't support that. There
>> may be ways to do something similar over the network or USB if the
>> boot gets that far.
>
> No serial port

Yeah, I understand. I wonder what the kernel devs use these days for
this issue? I know with my machine, which has a serial port, I was
able to capture some stuff for Ingo Molnar that helped him out, but I
couldn't do it today on 6 of the 7 machines in my house.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Roy Wright]

On Jun 9, 2009, at 7:50 PM, Harry Putnam wrote:

> I've just completed first part of a fresh install.
> [snip]
> What I see on reboot:
>
> Normal booting appears to be going along then moments after dev is
> mounted followed by filesystems... a massive screen full of text
> begins scrolling by and never stops.
>
> Impossible to read any of the text and neither pause/break or
> scroll/lock keys have any effect.
>
> Appears to be a continuous wrapping line repeated.
>
> But it completely kills the boot process, and no further progress is
> possible.
>
> I really have no idea what to change when I boot off the install  
> media.

So you have grub installed, the grub menu appears, you select a boot
option, boot starts, the usual kernel messages flash by, you get to the
second part of the boot where the lines look like:

  blah...   [OK]

Then something goes crazy.

Assuming that's the scenario, boot with your install media, enter the
chroot, then take a peek at the logs in /var/log.  Hopefully you can  
find
a hint.

HTH,
Roy

[gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Harry Putnam]

Roy Wright <roy@wright.org> writes:

[...]

>> I really have no idea what to change when I boot off the install
>> media.
>
> So you have grub installed, the grub menu appears, you select a boot
> option, boot starts, the usual kernel messages flash by, you get to the
> second part of the boot where the lines look like:
>
>  blah...   [OK]
>
> Then something goes crazy.

Yes,  just the first few `blah   [ok]' lines... maybe 3.

> Assuming that's the scenario, boot with your install media, enter the
> chroot, then take a peek at the logs in /var/log.  Hopefully you can
> find
> a hint.
>

In progress on you suggestion now. 
But no syslog is running in the chroot.(is it?)  But still looking
around. 

And just incase its something related to the newest kernel I've
downgraded to 2.6.29-r2 and building from an old .config of 2.6.28.
(not genkernel on this one)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 6:52 PM, Harry Putnam<reader@newsguy.com> wrote:
> Roy Wright <roy@wright.org> writes:
>
> [...]
>
>>> I really have no idea what to change when I boot off the install
>>> media.
>>
>> So you have grub installed, the grub menu appears, you select a boot
>> option, boot starts, the usual kernel messages flash by, you get to the
>> second part of the boot where the lines look like:
>>
>>  blah...   [OK]
>>
>> Then something goes crazy.
>
> Yes,  just the first few `blah   [ok]' lines... maybe 3.
>
>> Assuming that's the scenario, boot with your install media, enter the
>> chroot, then take a peek at the logs in /var/log.  Hopefully you can
>> find
>> a hint.
>>
>
> In progress on you suggestion now.
> But no syslog is running in the chroot.(is it?)  But still looking
> around.
>
> And just incase its something related to the newest kernel I've
> downgraded to 2.6.29-r2 and building from an old .config of 2.6.28.
> (not genkernel on this one)

I think he was hoping that you would find something in your
chroot/var/log/messages file or something like that. boot from the CD,
mount the hard drive like you were doing an install, and then poke
around and see if anything got written and is still there. Just
hunting for clues.

Do you have a digital camera? If so maybe it's fast enough to capture
the screen while it's scrolling and make the message semi-readable
even though they aren't to your eyes?

[gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Harry Putnam]

Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> writes:

>> And just incase its something related to the newest kernel I've
>> downgraded to 2.6.29-r2 and building from an old .config of 2.6.28.
>> (not genkernel on this one)
>
> I think he was hoping that you would find something in your
> chroot/var/log/messages file or something like that. boot from the CD,
> mount the hard drive like you were doing an install, and then poke
> around and see if anything got written and is still there. Just
> hunting for clues.
>
> Do you have a digital camera? If so maybe it's fast enough to capture
> the screen while it's scrolling and make the message semi-readable
> even though they aren't to your eyes?

Just reporting some kind of fix here.

I downgraded to 2.6.29-r2 kernel from `r5' and built it from my old
.config from a different system.  (with a few changes in accord with
the difference in the kernels [ 2.6.28 to 2.6.29-r2 ].

On reboot it just worked.... no endlessly scrolling text.

So maybe its someting related to 2.6.29-r5 kernel or related to
building that kernel with genkernel.

At any rate, it seems a bit too opaque of a problem to continue trying to
sort out, now that I got something working.

Thanks for the tips posters.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Mike Kazantsev]

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On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:52:26 -0500
Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:

> Roy Wright <roy@wright.org> writes:
> 
> > So you have grub installed, the grub menu appears, you select a boot
> > option, boot starts, the usual kernel messages flash by, you get to the
> > second part of the boot where the lines look like:
> >
> >  blah...   [OK]
> >
> > Then something goes crazy.
> 
> Yes,  just the first few `blah   [ok]' lines... maybe 3.

Okay, the syslog is probably not one of them, so /var/log shouldn't be
too populated, except for rc.log, which should be enabled specifically
in /etc/rc.conf (w/ baselayout-2) or /etc/conf.d/rc - look for
rc_logger line or something similar with older baselayout.

Then there's also "interactive boot" feature.
Just press "I" as soon as you see first gentoo "[ok]" messages and the
boot will proceed step-by-step asking about every init script
encountered.
In baselayout-2' rc.conf there's option "rc_interactive"to enable it. I
believe it was in baselayout-1 as well, but you can try upgading to 2
if it's not there.

If that won't work try passing "init=/bin/bash" as a kernel parameter
(from grub) to drop right into shell on start, then do
"ls /etc/runlevels/boot" and try starting each script one-by-one until
one of them fails like you described.

I believe there's also "1" or "single" parameter, that can instruct
init not to proceed past the first runlevel, which might be a cleaner
way than "init=/bin/bash", but might as well try to start the same
faulty script if it's encountered early enough.

And then there's a low-level hack w/ sysrq key (SysRq-K, if i recall
correctly) to drop into shell, which can be used at the same time as
"I" mode I've described above.

You can try disabling one of the scripts mentioned at the beginning of
linked log file (my rc.log) by removing +x from them (just removing
symlink from runlevel probably won't do, since other scripts might
start it as a dependency) to see if boot proceeds a bit further w/o
mentioned crash.
rc.log: http://dpaste.com/53552/

-- 
Mike Kazantsev // fraggod.net

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[gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Harry Putnam]

Mike Kazantsev <mk.fraggod@gmail.com> writes:

> Okay, the syslog is probably not one of them, so /var/log shouldn't be
> too populated, except for rc.log, which should be enabled specifically
> in /etc/rc.conf (w/ baselayout-2) or /etc/conf.d/rc - look for
> rc_logger line or something similar with older baselayout.

[...]

Thanks for the large array of possible ways to proceed.  Nice tips to
keep handy.

I'm not spending any time on that problem now since its disappeared
when I downgraded kernel version to 2.6.29-r2 instead of -r5.

But these tips look very useful.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Mike Kazantsev]

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On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:01:02 -0500
Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:

> Mike Kazantsev <mk.fraggod@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Okay, the syslog is probably not one of them, so /var/log shouldn't be
> > too populated, except for rc.log, which should be enabled specifically
> > in /etc/rc.conf (w/ baselayout-2) or /etc/conf.d/rc - look for
> > rc_logger line or something similar with older baselayout.
> 
> [...]
> 
> Thanks for the large array of possible ways to proceed.  Nice tips to
> keep handy.
> 
> I'm not spending any time on that problem now since its disappeared
> when I downgraded kernel version to 2.6.29-r2 instead of -r5.

Well, as of today you have an unique chance to push your luck with .30
kernel, since it was just released as stable and already hit the ~tree
in form of vanilla-sources ;)
Guess gentoo-sources should be there in a day or two.

-- 
Mike Kazantsev // fraggod.net

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:52:26 -0500, Harry Putnam wrote:

> Yes,  just the first few `blah   [ok]' lines... maybe 3.
> 
> > Assuming that's the scenario, boot with your install media, enter the
> > chroot, then take a peek at the logs in /var/log.  Hopefully you can
> > find
> > a hint.
> >  
> 
> In progress on you suggestion now. 
> But no syslog is running in the chroot.(is it?)  But still looking
> around. 

Have you got rc_logger="YES" in /etc/rc.conf? If so, look
at /var/log/rc.log.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Daddy? What's this little red button for?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:50:23 -0500, Harry Putnam wrote:

> Mounted the new root and emerged a few things while still chrooted.
> 
> It'd be difficult to list quickly since I can't boot it, but the
> highlights are:

You can find this from /var/log/emerge.log, if the install system has
genlop installed, you can get a list with

genlop -l -f /chroot/path/var/log/emerge.log


-- 
Neil Bothwick

How do you know that honesty is the best policy until you have tried
some of the others?

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[gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Harry Putnam]

Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> writes:

> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:50:23 -0500, Harry Putnam wrote:
>
>> Mounted the new root and emerged a few things while still chrooted.
>> 
>> It'd be difficult to list quickly since I can't boot it, but the
>> highlights are:
>
> You can find this from /var/log/emerge.log, if the install system has
> genlop installed, you can get a list with
>
> genlop -l -f /chroot/path/var/log/emerge.log

Yeah thanks... I knew that... what I meant by `difficult to list
quickly' was having to boot from install media remount several
partitions onto /mnt/gentoo, then chroot etc etc.

But the problem has disappeared now since downgrading to 2.6.29-r2
kernel and building by hand instead of genkernel.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:03:37 -0500, Harry Putnam wrote:

> > You can find this from /var/log/emerge.log, if the install system has
> > genlop installed, you can get a list with
> >
> > genlop -l -f /chroot/path/var/log/emerge.log  
> 
> Yeah thanks... I knew that... what I meant by `difficult to list
> quickly' was having to boot from install media remount several
> partitions onto /mnt/gentoo, then chroot etc etc.

You only need to mount the partition containing /var and you don't need
to chroot.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

WinErr 00B: Inadequate disk space - Free at least 50MB

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[gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Harry Putnam]

Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> writes:

> On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:03:37 -0500, Harry Putnam wrote:
>
>> > You can find this from /var/log/emerge.log, if the install system has
>> > genlop installed, you can get a list with
>> >
>> > genlop -l -f /chroot/path/var/log/emerge.log  
>> 
>> Yeah thanks... I knew that... what I meant by `difficult to list
>> quickly' was having to boot from install media remount several
>> partitions onto /mnt/gentoo, then chroot etc etc.
>
> You only need to mount the partition containing /var and you don't need
> to chroot.

Yeah unless I want to use tools that are not available on (minimal)
install media but are available on my installed os.

But anyway... just rebooting with install media and getting to the
partitions is most of it... but done now and need no more comment.