[SOLVED] "Loading console font" fails at boot

Hello everyone,
At each boot, the line where it loads the console font fails. The font configured in rc.conf is "161", it's the one by default on installation.
/var/log/boot
Loading Console Font: 161 ^[[231G [BUSY] ^[[231G [FAIL]
It's a fresh install done today.
Any idea why it would fail that?
Last edited by blno (2012-01-06 21:18:47)

Navigate to /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts, pick the font, test it by issuing
setfont font-name.gz
-- and if everything works OK, add it to rc.conf and rebuild your initramfs.
Edit (because I'm extremely short-minded): while adding the font to the rc.conf file, do so without any extensions, eg. Uni2-Fixed16. And 2: before you rebuild your initramfs, it's wise to add "consolefont" to HOOKS in mkinitcpio.conf. It's not obligatory, but this way the new font will become active at the earliest boot stage.
Last edited by bohoomil (2012-01-04 22:52:51)

Similar Messages

[SOLVED] Virtual console font setting is not being applied

TL;DR I want to have the ter-114b font (from the terminus-font package; its path is /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/ter-114b.psf.gz) as my console font.
What have I done:
% cat /etc/vconsole.conf
KEYMAP=br-abnt2
FONT=ter-114b
According to the wiki, this setting should be sufficient. However, there is something wrong, because whenever I reboot my computer, I get the default font instead (I can notice that by executing setfont ter-114b, then I see the difference).
Further information:
% systemctl status systemd-vconsole-setup
● systemd-vconsole-setup.service - Setup Virtual Console
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-vconsole-setup.service; static; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (exited) since Sa 2014-12-20 19:41:23 BRST; 12min ago
Docs: man:systemd-vconsole-setup.service(8)
man:vconsole.conf(5)
Process: 193 ExecStart=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-vconsole-setup (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 193 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
CGroup: /system.slice/systemd-vconsole-setup.service
The Wiki also mentions something about loading KMS earlier than vconsole, however I'm not sure if this refers to the part which talks about putting 'consolefont' as a mkinitcpio hook, or if this refers to the whole section. Anyways, even if I tried to follow this, the problem is the i915 hook (my notebook has an Intel graphics card) doesn't exist as a mkinitcpio module, as the wiki indicates. Or I don't have the necessary module file.
Any clues about what could be wrong here?
Edit: typo
Last edited by thiagowfx (2014-12-20 23:06:53)

Stripped down version of pacman -Ql mkinitcpio. Notice that there is no i915 hook:
mkinitcpio /etc/
mkinitcpio /etc/initcpio/
mkinitcpio /etc/initcpio/hooks/
mkinitcpio /etc/initcpio/install/
mkinitcpio /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
mkinitcpio /etc/mkinitcpio.d/
mkinitcpio /usr/
mkinitcpio /usr/bin/
mkinitcpio /usr/bin/lsinitcpio
mkinitcpio /usr/bin/mkinitcpio
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/functions
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/consolefont
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/keymap
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/memdisk
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/resume
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/shutdown
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/sleep
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/usr
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/init
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/init_functions
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/autodetect
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/base
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/block
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/consolefont
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/filesystems
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/fsck
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/fw
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/keyboard
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/keymap
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/memdisk
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/mmc
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/modconf
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/pata
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/resume
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/sata
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/scsi
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/sd-shutdown
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/sd-vconsole
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/shutdown
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/sleep
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/strip
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/usb
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/usbinput
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/usr
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/install/virtio
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/shutdown
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/udev/
mkinitcpio /usr/lib/initcpio/udev/01-memdisk.rules
Also, suppose I add this hook anyway, so my /etc/mkinitcpio.conf has this line:
HOOKS="base systemd autodetect i915 modconf block filesystems btrfs keyboard consolefont keymap fsck"
Output of mkinitcpio -p linux:
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'default'
-> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Starting build: 3.17.6-1-ARCH
-> Running build hook: [base]
-> Running build hook: [systemd]
-> Running build hook: [autodetect]
==> ERROR: Hook 'i915' cannot be found
-> Running build hook: [modconf]
-> Running build hook: [block]
-> Running build hook: [filesystems]
-> Running build hook: [btrfs]
-> Running build hook: [keyboard]
-> Running build hook: [consolefont]
-> Running build hook: [keymap]
-> Running build hook: [fsck]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating gzip-compressed initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> WARNING: errors were encountered during the build. The image may not be complete.
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'fallback'
-> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img -S autodetect
==> Starting build: 3.17.6-1-ARCH
-> Running build hook: [base]
-> Running build hook: [systemd]
==> ERROR: Hook 'i915' cannot be found
-> Running build hook: [modconf]
-> Running build hook: [block]
==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: aic94xx
-> Running build hook: [filesystems]
-> Running build hook: [btrfs]
-> Running build hook: [keyboard]
-> Running build hook: [consolefont]
-> Running build hook: [keymap]
-> Running build hook: [fsck]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating gzip-compressed initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img
==> WARNING: errors were encountered during the build. The image may not be complete.
See? This hook doesn't exist in my system for some odd reason. Maybe some package is missing? I have xf86-video-intel.

New HP HDD load recovery disks fails to boot after install process on pressing continue

I have Pavilion d7-4165dx notebook. I live out US, though made purchase from US (BestBuy).
- HDD failed after renewing trial period of virus software.
- All diagnostics would not recognize HDD.
- HP support indicated still in warranty, but I am out of country. HP indicated most likely issue was HDD cable.
- Purchase cables and had someone hand carry out of US.
- Installed, still same response.
- Ordered new HDD from HP. Backordered. Finally on inquiring was directed to a US 3rd part rep. He recommended buying directly from outlet, but a higher speed. Did that and then HP replacement HDD arrives. Hand carry both out of US.
- Install faster (slightly smaller) Seagate 500G 7200. Started recovery with recovery disks (5 total that received from BestBuy, but not OEM looking), but is squawked as new HDD is smaller than original WD 640G 5400. Put WD into #1 bay and Seagate into #2.
- Start recovery disk process. Go through entire recovery from factory process and on last disk, it says to not touch while PC boots on and off, etc. Then says press Continue to continue.
- When press continue, simply goes to black screen with "No boot device..."
- Run other options, same message.
- Ran diagnostics. HDD all OK.
- Called HP support. He indicates I need to buy the HP recovery disks. The ones I have (5) are not the right one, that there should only be 3! They are as I received from BestBuy, but look like they were made there when BestBuy sets up the PC.
Any suggestions anyone?
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Sorry, I don't have an answer, but rather a similar issue. I replaced a 320Gb - 5400 rpm drive that failed with a 750Gb - 7200 rpm drive and even though I have the factory restore disks, it won't recognize the hard drive and I too get the "No Boot device" message. Unfortunately, the BIOS is not the best and it won't allow me to see if it actually recognizes the new hdd, which I suspect it doesn't. Either that or I have a bad MB.
Sytem information - HP G71-340US
Processor - 2.20 GHz Intel Core2 Duo Processor T6600
BIOS - InsydeH20 3.5
Recovery manager *appears* to be installing W7 just fine, but it's a no go when it's time to actually boot to it. Is this a mb issue or did I just buy the wrong hd?

[solved] Unlocking luks partitions fails at boot, no prompt.

Hello,
I have just installed Arch and I really like it so far - I'm a convert from Ubuntu. I did face a couple of problems that I have not been able to solve and have not been able to find any solutions for anywhere. The most important one at the moment is that with my two encrypted partitions.
Here's my 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
/dev/scd0 /media/dvd udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
/dev/sda3 / ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/sdb1 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb2 /home reiserfs user,owner,auto 0 0
/dev/sda6 /home/nerd/E reiserfs defaults 0 0
/dev/mapper/croot /home/nerd/F ext3 defaults 0 0
/dev/mapper/crypt /home/nerd/D ext3 defaults 0 0
and here's my crypttab:
crypt /dev/sda5 none
croot /dev/sda7 none
I have cryptsetup installed, enabled the dm-crypt and aes-i586 kernel modules, and even edited mkinitcpio and added the encrypt hook. At boot, my computer does see both of the drives, but it just doesn't prompt for passwords, what it prints out is:
Password:!unlocking encrypted volume crypt
command failed: No key available with this passphrase.
I am able to mount the drives manually using cryptsetup, and the data is there. Is there any way for me to fix that? Thanks!
Last edited by DavidR (2009-09-19 10:32:57)

afaik, you should have 'ASK' instead of 'none' in crypttab
edit: argh. too late again
Last edited by bender02 (2009-09-18 19:35:37)

[solved] vconsole.conf FONT setting is not respected in systemd

I recently converted my Arch system to a pure systemd setup (as described here), and everything seems to be working as before.
Well, almost everything.
Prior to switching over to systemd, I had already moved all config settings (except for the DAEMONS line) out of /etc/rc.conf and into the individual config files, and at that time, I had set up /etc/vconsole.conf as follows:
KEYMAP=us
FONT=ter-216n
FONT_MAP=8859-2
When running under initscripts, this was working fine, and I would get the nice Terminus font at my console TTYs. Now, running under systemd, the consoles are no longer using Terminus. Instead, I just get the default font (whatever it's called). It's as if the FONT I set in /etc/vconsole.conf is being ignored.
systemctl reports the following, indicating (I think) that the systemd-vconsole-setup service ran successfully:
[owner@computer ~]$ systemctl status systemd-vconsole-setup.service
systemd-vconsole-setup.service - Setup Virtual Console
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-vconsole-setup.service; static)
Active: active (exited) since Wed, 08 Aug 2012 08:31:51 -0700; 9h ago
Docs: man:systemd-vconsole-setup.service(8)
man:vconsole.conf(5)
Process: 151 ExecStart=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-vconsole-setup (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
CGroup: name=systemd:/system/systemd-vconsole-setup.service
So, I'm stuck. Can anybody point me in the right direction?
Last edited by Steven Monday (2012-08-09 05:31:49)

89c51 wrote:
... it should be
FONT_MAP=8859-2_to_uni
Yes, you're right. I have updated my /etc/vconsole.conf accordingly.
However, I just tested this, and it turns out that my FONT_MAP mistake was not relevant to my original problem.
progandy wrote:I didn't modify the file, but then I use Early KMS start for my radeon driver.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … _KMS_start
Interesting. It turns out that using early KMS start also solves my console font problem. I think I prefer this solution, since it doesn't involve overriding systemd-vconsole-setup.service. Enabling early KMS start feels like a less invasive change. As documented here, I simply added i915 to the MODULES line in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, and then rebuilt the /boot/initramfs-* files.

[SOLVED] Console Font Gets Reset During Boot

I've recently switched to Arch Linux and am quite happy with it. I've never had so much fun with Linux until a friend recommended Arch. I have since installed it on both my MacBook Pro and Mac mini. Everything has been pretty smooth, but I do have one issue.
During the boot process, the system starts up with its default console font, per the usual. I have edited /etc/vconsole.conf to set the font to Lat2-Terminus16 and to set the keyboard layout to Dvorak. Here's my current config:
KEYMAP=dvorak
FONT=Lat2-Terminus16
Part-way through the boot process, the font switches to use the new font. So far, so good. Shortly after, however, the screen gets cleared and continues to produce normal kernel messages until the screen is cleared once again and presents the boot prompt, but with the default console font as opposed to the font in vconsole.conf. I am able to re-set the font again by using the setfont command, but this is a bit of an inconvenience. The keyboard layout, however, is as it should be: set to Dvorak. So, systemd-vconsole-setup.service is doing its job.
I have narrowed down the problem to that when agetty starts, it seems to be resetting the font back to the default. I have tried adding nouveau (my machines have Nvidia) to the array of modules within /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and rebuilding initramfs, but I get the same results. I have also tried adding vconsole.font=Lat2-Terminus16 to the boot arguments in GRUB, but I get the same results. This is affecting both of my machines. I have updated them with pacman -Syu, but the problem still exists.
I have found a workaround which is to add a service to systemd (I call it fontfix.service), set it to start after getty.target, and have it included in multi-user.target. But is there a better way? Or is something else other than agetty resetting the font?
tl;dr
agetty appears to be resetting the console font after systemd-vconsole-setup.service sets the font. Is there a way to have agetty recognize what console font is currently is use? Or is something else other than agetty resetting the font?
Last edited by linux2647 (2013-01-10 07:30:30)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sy … er_boot.3F

[solved]systemd and console font

Hi guys. I've just switched my laptop over to systemd and so far I'm finding it great! I am, however, having a slight issue with getting it to set a console font, err, properly.
KEYMAP=uk
FONT=Lat2-Terminus16
Before switching to systemd, this worked fine. However now when I boot up, the font is set early (I have the hook in mkinitcpio.conf) but once I get to the login screen, the screen flickers and I end up back on the default font. I've tried this with several of the available fonts and it happens with all of them. I don't have it set anywhere else, so I'm not sure why the font is being reset. Has anyone else come across this issue yet?
Cheers.
Last edited by JHeaton (2012-08-25 20:20:34)

bohoomil wrote:Did you really rebuild the initramfs? Once it becomes a part of your boot image, it shouldn't be reset (which happens when the video driver like nouveau gets loaded: if this is the case, add your video driver to the MODULES array in /etc/mkinitcpio,conf and rebuild the image again). I have been doing the very same thing every time I prepare a new setup and it always works as expected.
Yes, I did rebuild it. I didn't have the video driver in MODULES though; adding it has now solved the issue. Don't know why I hadn't added i915 to that array though.
Thanks very much for your help.

[SOLVED] Arch Linux Duke (2007) Fails to Boot

Folks, I have a unique and challenging problem that has exhausted my Arch Linux skills, and so I am now turning to you.
I have a vintage Pentium Pro 200 system (that’s 200 MHz folks! – 200 MHz 686 architecture – the original 686!), two CPUs, running a dual boot between Windows NT 4.0 and Arch Linux Duke (2007). It has 512 MB of RAM and a 120 GB hard drive, partitioned up between Windows NT and Linux. I built this system new in 2007, hence the dated version of Arch. It has run like a charm all these years, granted not getting that much use. After about a year of no use at all, I fired the system up last week to help with a little research for a blog post I was writing on networking Windows NT 4.0 and Mac OS 8.6. Windows NT 4.0 fired right up with no issue, and after I was done testing what needed to be tested I tried to boot over to Arch.
After a year of disuse, Arch unexpectedly and stubbornly refused to boot. The boot process started up just fine, but towards the end, it declared that it could not mount the root file system on the root device and took a kernel panic and stopped. My Arch skills have gotten a bit rusty in the last few years, but I dusted them off and went to work. My guess was a file system or superblock error. Arch wouldn’t boot, but I dragged out my trusty RIPLinux 2.9 Rescue Live CD and fired it up. It came right up and ran, and I was able to mount the Arch partition and view all the files… everything seemed to be there; it just wouldn’t boot. Windows NT 4.0 AND RIPLinux both boot and run on the machine, so the hardware is fine as well.
A little information on the disk layout. Windows NT 4.0 is in the first partition on the hard drive. The extended partition has a second Windows NT 4.0 partition (sort of a /home partition for Windows NT 4.0), followed by the main Arch partition (the one I am trying to boot), followed by a swap partition and then the largest partition, which I use to share data between Arch and Windows NT 4.0 (I have loaded an ext2/3 driver into Windows NT 4.0 and it happily accesses the Linux partitions on the box).
RIPLinux’s e2fsck did find some issues with the Arch partition and I had it repair them all. I checked again afterwards that all the files were still there, and they were. With the partition now known to be clean, and the superblock repaired from one of the backups, all should have been well. However, Arch still wouldn’t (and still won’t) boot.
RIPLinux has a kind of a chain loader function, so I had it attempt to start up Arch for me. However, this was flummoxed by the fact that Arch addresses all my hard drive partitions as /dev/sdax and RIPLinux addresses them as /dev/hdax. Hence, without a common language, it was hard to get the one to start the other. Still, using this function, I have been able to get a crippled version of Arch running on the machine again. No modules had been loaded, and so it couldn’t do almost anything, but there it was (and is), Arch Linux Duke, at the CLI level. From there, I can see all the files, I can move freely in and out of my user account and the root account, but I can’t make the thing actually boot properly.
If you have read this far, you are a trooper. Summarizing what I know, the hardware is good, the file system is clean, the superblock is good, I can mount it cleanly from a live CD and I can chain load a crippled version of Arch. Here is the boot process blow-by-blow. When I try to do a normal boot, the Windows NT 4.0 loader passes control to the Lilo boot sector I have placed on hda1 (sda1 in Duke’s parlance). Lilo takes over, present a menu and when I select Duke, takes off. Arch Linux Duke starts to boot. It gets a good long way along, all the way along to:
:: Loading udev events [Pass]
:: Mount root Read-only
:: Checking file systems
This is where it stops.
The next thing I see is:
/dev/sda6
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else) then the superblock is corrupt and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
E2fsck –b 8193 <device>
I then get a sort of character based splash screen that says
**********FILE SYSTEM CHECK FAILED ****************************
* Please repair manually and reboot. Note that the root file system
* is currently mounted read-only. To remount it read-write, type:
* mount –n –o remount,rw /. When you exit the maintenance
* shell, the system will reboot automatically
Give root password for maintenance
At this point, I give the root password and enter the maintenance shell as root. I typed in “mount” and the first entry I got back is
/dev/sda6 on / type ext3 (rw)
This is exactly the root partition that the start up complains about. It is clearly there. I can see it, I can walk around it… it is clearly there. Why won’t it boot? Despite the message, the superblock is fine – it passes every test e2fsck can throw at it.
At this point, I did a “e2fsck /dev/hda6 (which is how RIPLinux would have passed it into Arch” and it says it is “clean”. I suspect that the Superblock message is because Arch sees root as sda6, while RIP passed it in as hda6...
Deciding to see what Arch would be seeing as it tried to set things up in the boot sequence, I tried the following next:
# mknod “/dev/root2” b 3 6
(“3” because RIPLinux refers to my hard drive as IDE, while Arch refers to it by major number “8”, which is SCSI. By the way, it IS an IDE drive – not sure why Arch insists on using the sdx nomenclature instead of hdx)
Then I entered “mount /dev/root2 /mnt/hda6” and “ls /mnt/hda6”
All was well. I can make the node, I can mount it, and I can see the contents. All is clearly well, but something is clearly wrong enough that Arch can’t boot.
I am totally out of ideas. I have tried every trick I know and am out of tricks. I would welcome any insights as to what I could try to get this venerable Arch installation back on its legs.
By the way, the key section of the /etc/lilo.conf file (lest anyone want to know) is:
image = /boot/vmlinuz26
root = /dev/sda6
label = ArchLinux-Duke
initrd = /boot/kernel26.img
read-only
I am stumped. Thanks in advance for any and all pointers you may be able to offer.
Last edited by mac57 (2014-06-02 17:42:21)

Folks, thanks for all your helpful comments, and I wanted to report back to you that I finally overcame the issue, and ArchLinux-Duke (2007) is once again executing flawlessly on my old Pentium Pro 200 system. I won't bother reporting here all the blind allies I went down as I tried to figure out what was wrong, but in the end, literally moments before I was about to give up and overwrite my Arch installation with a new Linux variant (antiX seemed well suited for such old and low power hardware), my attention was drawn to a note I had made in my files back in 2007 about a problem with similar symptoms. In that case, I had just deleted ZenWalk Linux from the hard drive (both Arch and Zen had been on the drive), and merged several partitions to make use of the newly free space. This had changed Arch's view of the drive lettering, and what had been its /dev/sddx root device was now /dev/sdcx. Arch failed to boot, throwing off the same errors I was seeing now. I wish I had recalled that note a month or so ago! It would have saved me a lot of work and a lot of frustration.
At any rate, as a last step, and testing the idea that maybe the drive lettering had changed for some reason, I repeatedly manually booted Arch, specifying root=/dev/sda6, then /dev/sdb6, then /dev/sdd6, and finally, /dev/sdc6. Eureka! Arch now considered itself to be on /dev/sdc6 whereas previously it had been on /dev/sda6. This got me part way there, but the boot failed at the filesystem check stage and threw me into root. I disabled the file system check in /etc/rc.sysinit and got farther. Then I cleaned up /etc/fstab to agree with the new sdc naming, and I was back on the air fully.
So, what had happened was that Arch had changed its view of the drive it was on from sda6 to sdc6. While I could not understand why this "sudden" change had occurred, at least I had a solution, and had Arch back up and running.
Trolling through the rest of my notes, I found the answer. In 2012, the Tekram SCSI card in the machine failed, and I ultimately replaced it with an Adaptec card. The Tekram card did not have a BIOS segment on it. The Adaptec card did. My guess is that this caused the two internal SCSI devices I have built into the system (Iomega ZIP and Jaz respectively) to be enumerated first, claiming the "sda" and "sdb". device names. That left "sdc" for the root device, and that is where Arch went next. This is my guess anyway.
I should have caught this issue back in 2012, at the time, but from my notes, I can see that I tested the new card thoroughly using the Windows NT 4.0 side of the machine, but never thought to bring up Arch as well. Hence, this problem lay dormant for two years, before I attempted to fire up Arch last month and blundered right into it.
It has not all been bad. I have learned more about the ext2 and ext3 file systems and superblocks in the intervening time than I will ever need to use. I have learned how to manually boot Linux on a machine whose BIOS is so old that it cannot address the disk cylinder that the kernel is on and I have completely refreshed the many general Linux skills that used to just flow from my finger tips. It has been a frustrating experience, but ultimately a successful and useful one.
Just wanted to let everyone know that this is now [SOLVED]. I would mark the post as such, but I don't see any obvious way to do that. Thanks again everyone.

[SOLVED] Console Font Not Retained After Reboot

Hi, again. Happy to report that I successfully installed Arch Linux last night, with no problems whatsoever. Thanks to those who addressed my concerns. Still reading up on the package manager, user and group management, etc.
Anyway, one of the first things I noticed is that the console font gets reset after every reboot. I need to manually type "setfont Lat2-Terminus16" - which works just fine, except for the annoyance in having to do that each time I boot up. My /etc/vconsole.conf has the following:
KEYMAP=us
FONT=Lat2-Terminus16
Following the solution described here:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=155876
I added 'consolefont' (without quotes) to the beginning (first item) of the HOOKS line in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf. Then I rebuilt the initramfs by typing "mkinitcpio -p linux". Again, no errors during the rebuild.
I've rebooted several times, but there's no change... my selected console font is not retained.
Can anyone point what I'm doing wrong, or offer ideas? Thanks.
Last edited by R0b0ty (2013-03-06 16:52:42)

Have you tried
If the fonts seems to not change on boot, or change only temporarily, it is most likely that they got reset when graphics driver was initialized and console was switched to framebuffer. To avoid this, load your graphics driver earlier. See for example KMS#Early_KMS_start or other ways to setup your framebuffer before /etc/vconsole.conf gets applied.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fonts#Examples_2

[SOLVED] Windows 8.1, lost Arch boot loader, cannot reinstall or boot

Hi all,
Apologies but I am only posting as I have exhausted my (admittedly quite limited) knowledge and have spent hours trying to get it back up and running but nothing seems to work at all. This will probably be quite long, apologies if there is something really obvious that I have missed on the Wiki or anywhere, but I'm only posting as I can't seem to get anywhere with it at all despite reading and trying.
Essentially I had a Toshiba Satellite p850-321 laptop (UEFI, secure boot off, fast boot off) which I had dual booting with Windows 8 and Arch using rEFInd. I then had several moments of madness, starting when for some reason - on very little sleep so didn't think - decided to upgrade Windows 8 to 8.1. Unsurprisingly (but a surprise for me at the time), it then booted straight into Windows 8.1, no rEFInd. In hindsight, it had probably just set itself as boot priority but I thought it had overwritten rEFInd with its own bootloader or set it back to default or something so started on a way to try and get it back.
I then spent many hours trying to get my old bootable Arch USB stick to work with no joy, updating it to the latest arch iso and all sorts. It eventually worked when I updated the laptop BIOS. Booted from the USB, chrooted into arch, reinstalled rEFInd, played around, eventually got it to reboot and display rEFInd but Arch wouldn't start. At this point I noticed that my fstab looked strange (devices/labels mixed up from what I expected), so followed the Beginner's Guide again and recreated the fstab. My disk is partitioned as follows (main partitions of note):
/dev/sda2 - Windows EFI partition
/dev/sda4 Windows 8.1
/dev/sda6 arch swap partition (archswap)
/dev/sda7 arch root partition (archroot)
/dev/sda8 arch home partition (archhome)
Couldn't get rEFInd to work so decided to start again with gummiboot. Installed gummiboot, followed Beginner's Guide to install and configure it. Edited arch.conf and after having to mess about with the location of vmlinuz-arch.efi in the conf file, I have the options part looking like this:
options root=/dev/sda7 rw
Now gummiboot loads on startup but all I get on trying to load Arch from gummiboot is the dreaded:
ERROR: device '' not found. Skipping fsck
ERROR: Unable to find root device ''.
I've tried changing the root in options in arch.conf to UUID, PARTUUID and even different partitions (just to see what happened...) - the same. Is it likely to be due to me recreating the fstab and something is messed up there?
Another problem is that now, whatever I do, I cannot boot from the USB again to get in to even try to fix anything. The laptop on boot just hangs for a while and then loads the gummiboot from the disk drive rather than from the USB (I've set the boot priority, everything) and nothing will allow me to boot from the USB. That is probably a secondary issue, I can probably try to reinstall the BIOS again and see if that helps.
If anyone has had anything similar and has any solutions I'd be really grateful - anything. I don't mind being shown to be incredibly stupid, I get that a lot so have a lot of experience! - just anything that can get me back into Arch again without having to reinstall from scratch!
Thanks.
Last edited by pilf (2013-11-02 19:45:44)

Thanks for replying, very much appreciated. The partitions were numbered sequentially, I only posted up the partitions that I thought were of interest to the issue (which wasn't very helpful!). The partitions are as follows:
Partition No Type
1 Win Recover
2 EFI System (EFI partition)
3 Microsoft Reserved
4 Microsoft Basic (Windows 8.1 installation)
5 Windows Recover
6 Linux Swap
7 Microsoft Basic (Arch root partition)
8 Microsoft Basic (Arch home partition)
9 Windows Recover
It looks like I have managed to solve it, but I admit I'm not sure what of the several changes I made that solved it. I managed to boot into the USB arch disk by resetting my BIOS back to defaults and then changing the boot order back, which was the only way it would boot the USB - without resetting back and putting the boot order back exactly how it was before it wouldn't boot from the USB. Anyway...
Checked the partitions with gdisk, no problems. I did sort the partitions as you mentioned, just in case. Changed the partition names using gdisk to the same names I had before (archroot, archhome, archswap). Changed the types from Microsoft Basic to Linux filesystem (partitions 7 and 8) and wrote the partition.
Mounted everything, chrooted, edited the gummiboot arch.conf file and noticed there were some strange characters in it, a forward slash before /root in the options for example. I had edited the arch.conf file from windows by booting into Windows, mounting the EFI partition (mountvol z: /s) and editing it that way, which would have messed up the formatting. It can't have only been that though as it wasn't booting anyway which is why I went into Windows to edit the file in the first place. Corrected the arch.conf file, rebooted and it booted. Some errors on boot which I need to correct but I can work on those as it boots into my arch installation.
So all solved. I thought I'd update just to say thanks for the advice and in case it helps anyone else in the future.

[Solved] console font issue

Hi there!
Can't get terminus-font in console
I installed terminus-font, and renamed it as it described at wiki:
cp /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/ter-v14n.psf.gz /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/ter-v14n.psfu.gz
FONT="ter-v14n" string added to /etc/vconsole.conf
"consolefont" hook added to mkinitcpio hooks list, mkinitcpio rebuilt.
But after reboot I still have a default font.
During boot I can see that font switches to terminus but at login prompt it switches back to default font.
I think font itself is ok: I can switch to terminus manually by running 'setfont ter-v14n' and it works fine. But it so boring to do it on every boot...
Where am I wrong?
Thanks in advance.
Last edited by chord (2014-08-10 00:15:25)

That's Russian and I'd rather not touch non-English pages. I barely have to time to fix the English ones, so spreading myself thinner isn't going to help.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_script
Google translated the part about the cp command as
In this case, after the installation of many of the fonts, for example, terminus, font files, and even get there automatically, but are unsupported extension psf.gz. To a certain variable CONSOLEFONT font was found, rename the font file to its expansion was psfu.gz.
That's not true - at least not anymore. Maybe it once was <shrugs>
$ cat /etc/vconsole.conf
FONT=ter-v16n
FONT_MAP=8859-2
KEYMAP=pl2
$ ls -l /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/ter-*.psfu.gz
$ ls -l /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/ter-v16n.psf.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 3.7K May 8 16:33 /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/ter-v16n.psf.gz
Look, Ma, no psfu.gz files!
Edit: Quick rm https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?ti … did=316040
Last edited by karol (2014-08-09 22:46:15)

[Solved]USB Flash Installation Media fails on booting kernel

I've been trying to install Arch on my desktop however the live USB keeps failing to load. The process of loading modules freezes at random points. I've tried acpi=off and mem=2048M, as well as enabled various debugging flags. It doesn't freeze at the same spot on different tries. I tried loading from RAM and dd'ing the drive, I'm sure the drive works because my laptop can boot off of it. I've ran out of options, can anyone help?
http://i60.tinypic.com/2rca6bp.jpg
http://i62.tinypic.com/6z9fsl.jpg
EDIT: Nevermind nomodeset worked....
-- mod edit: read the Forum Etiquette and only post thumbnails http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … s_and_Code [jwr] --
Last edited by Pentlander (2014-03-28 01:52:25)

@DSpider: Please stop FUD about archisolabel and related message. I suggest to learn how boot things really works.
Reaching such message is because some of these things fails:
1) User does not setup a filesystem label when copy ISO contents to booteable media (usb drives). In that case, if users insist in not using label, there is a boot option archisodevice=...
2) Broken/incompatible/unsupported hardware/firmware on Linux and sometimes with udev built-ins (cdrom_id, ...). -> Needed modules not loaded or loaded but not working for boot medium.
Again, archboot work in a really different way than archiso. It just work on initramfs (rootfs), so there is no need to detect and mount boot media then switch_root.
So please finish with these false alarms. I already read several of your messages in different places on this forum, repeating the same thing over and over again.
PS1: Archiso will continue using the great label-system.
PS2: memdisk is the most discourage method to boot especially in x86_32.

[SOLVED] Luks with /arch/setup installation , fails at boot

Hi all,
So I tried to install arch on virtualbox with encrypted partitions (root /, /home/ and swap), but it fails at boot.
/dev/sda1 is /boot
/dev/sda2 is swap
/dev/sda3 is /
/dev/sda4 is /home
The root partition seems to be loading fine because it asks for my password, then the boot sequence goes on, until the /home/ (apparently) :
:: Bringing up loopback interface
:: Unlocking encrypted volumes: chome..Usage: cryptsetup [-?vyrq] (...all the options...can't copy paste with virtualbox)
/sbin/cryptsetup: Unknown action
failed [FAIL]
/dev/mapper/croot: clean, 27576/457856 files, 166316/1830898 blocks
fsck.ext4: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/mapper/chome
Possibly non-existent device?
/dev/sda1: clean,29/24096 files, 20790/96356 blocks
[FAIL]
It seems that it tries to open /dev/mapper/chome but it's not mounted yet
In my /etc/crypttab, I added the lines :
chome /dev/sda4 none luks
cswap /dev/sda2 none luks
/etc/fstab (I didn't change anything, /arch/setup configured it that way) :
/dev/mapper/chome /home ext4 defaults 0 1
/dev/mapper/croot / ext4 defaults 0 1
/dev/mapper/cswap swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda1 /boot ext2 defaults 0 1
And grub :
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/mapper/croot cryptdevice=/dev/sda3:croot ro
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
What I wanted to do was to have swap,root and home encrypted partitions mounted at boot, but maybe it is not possible?
I tried a lot of configurations for /etc/fstab and /etc/crypttab according to what I could find on the net but nothing worked. I read the whole tutorial https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sy … _with_LUKS but there is no config for fstab or crypttab or grub when installing with /arch/setup
Thanks for any help !
Last edited by John0000 (2012-04-12 12:50:18)

Indeed you have a point, putting password in plaintext isn't very safe.
There is a good alternative though: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sy … _a_Keyfile
the reason why you don't have a passphrase for root in a file somewhere is that you provide this passphrase during boot-time.
Somewhere during boot you get the option to unlock you root device by typing in a passphrase... right?
ro means that the volume is mounted read only http://linux.die.net/man/8/mount

Set default console font early in the boot process using mkinitrd?

Hi,
I'm a Slackware user, and I have a cross-distro question to the Arch gurus here. I like using a custom font (Lat2Terminus16) in the console, on servers. Now I remember having defined this font as default in the Arch console when I gave it a try, and then added it not only to rc.conf, but also to the configuration file that drives the initrd creation. Thus, the console font was defined very early in the boot process.
Now here's my question: is there any way to achieve this on a stock Linux distribution like Slackware? The man page for mkinitrd and mkinitrd.conf doesn't say anything about custom console fonts. So how do you guys do that?
Cheers from the sunny South of France.

Zom wrote:
We do it by adding 'consolefont' to the HOOKS section in mkinitrd.conf.
E: Or you could just add the relevant files to the FILES section, if you don't want to use the hook I suppose.
Yes, but there's no HOOKS and no FILES section in a default Slackware install. My question was more or less to the Arch devs, to know if there was a *generic* (e. g. non-Arch-specific) way to achieve this.

How to solve the issue "OEL 5.6 boot Oracle ASMLib driver: FAILED" ?

Folks,
Hello. I am installing Oracle 11gR2 RAC using 2 VMs (rac1 and rac2) whose OS are Oracle Linux 5.6 in VMPlayer.
I downloaded Oracle Linux 5.6 Media Pack for x86_64 (file name V24479-01) from https://edelivery.oracle.com/linux.
I have installed OEL 5.6 for VM rac1 and done the follows:
1) install rpm and oracleasm packages for rac1.
2) edit /etc/hosts to set up IP addresses for eth0 and eth1 for rac1 and rac2.
3) edit eth0 and eth1 for rac1 by using command [root@rac1 \]# neat
But when boot the OS, I see "initializing Oracle ASMLib driver: FAILED".
When configure Oracle ASM library driver by running the command:
[root@rac1 /]#/etc/init.d/oracleasm configure -i
Its output "initializing Oracle ASMLib driver: FAILED"
I think the reason is the OS cannot initialize Oracle ASMLib driver. My question is:
Do any folk understand how to solve the issue "OEL 5.6 boot Oracle ASMLib driver: FAILED" ?
Thanks.

Folks,
Hello. Thanks a lot for replying. OEL 5.6 comes with 2 kernels: uek and red hat
I have chosen to use red hat kernel for 64-bit. I run the following command:
[root@rac1 /]# uname -rm
Output: 2.6.18-238.el5x86_64
I have downloaded 4 files for this version of kernel from
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/linux/downloads/rhel5-084877.html as below:
oracleasm-2.6.18-238.el5xen-2.0.5-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
oracleasm-2.6.18-238.el5debug-2.0.5-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
oracleasm-2.6.18-238.el5-debuginfo-2.0.5-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
oracleasm-2.6.18-238.el5-2.0.5-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
I have installed the 4 files and got the error messages for the first 2 files as below:
[root@rac1 /]# rpm -ivh /home/oracleasm-2.6.18-238.el5xen-2.0.5-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
Error: Failed dependencies: kernel-xen=2.6.18-238.el5 is needed by oracleasm-2.6.18-238.el5xen-2.0.5-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
[root@rac1 /]# rpm -ivh /home/oracleasm-2.6.18-238.el5debug-2.0.5-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
Error: Failed dependencies: kernel-debug=2.6.18-238.el5 is needed by oracleasm-2.6.18-238.el5debug-2.0.5-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
The last 2 files have been installed successfully. But when reboot Oracle Linux Server-Base 2.6.18-238.el5, I still see :
"Initializing ASMLib driver: FAILED."
[root@rac1 /]#/etc/init.d/oracleasm configure -i
Its output "initializing Oracle ASMLib driver: OK "
My questions are:
Does the issue OS "Initializing Oracle ASMLib driver: FAILED" have effect later ? Do we need to solve it ?
Thanks.

[SOLVED] "Loading console font" fails at boot

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