[SOLVED] VLC autoplay DVDs in Gnome/Arch Linux?

Hello everyone.
I am trying to figure out how to make VLC launch and start playing when I insert a DVD. I've done it in Ubuntu (where it's more a case of changing the player from totem to vlc) but there seem to be some things missing from the Arch version of Gnome.
I followed these instructions: http://ubuntumanual.org/posts/6/how-to- … sert-a-dvd
But reached a problem when I tried to access the Media tab in the nautilus preferences window and it wasn't there.
Last edited by powerpleb (2008-08-08 06:55:54)

I've been poking around in gconf-editor and found the part that seems relevant in Desktop >> Gnome >> Volume_manager
I set the autoplay_dvd_command variable to 'vlc' and ensured the box was ticked (it already was). Reset X and it's still not working.
The thing is that when I insert an audio CD rhythmbox automatically plays it, so I know it should be able to do it.
Last edited by powerpleb (2008-08-06 00:28:29)

Similar Messages

[Solved]dual boot windows 7 and arch linux

I have successfully installed arch linux dual boot with the original win7 on my PC. If I only use linux, then the system works well. The problem is that once I boot into Win7 then after reboot, the linux boot manager will stop working and the system always boots into windows automatically. My guess is Win7 automatically repair the boot loader.
My current solution is whenever I have finished using Windows, I'll boot with my linux USB installation, and run "gummiboot --path=/boot install". Afterwards, linux will work fine. But I believe there must be a better solution. Any help will be appreciated.
I have UEFI board by the way.
Last edited by jl2014 (2015-04-19 17:35:57)

Thanks for all your help first! I have tried Head_on_a_Stick's suggestions as the first step. Here is what I did. I have created :
$ cat /boot/loader/entries/windows.conf
title Windows
efi /EFI/hidden/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
The window boot path was :
/boot/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
and I changed
/boot/EFI/Microsoft
to
/boot/EFI/hidden
After reboot, I clicked 'Windows' option on the linux boot manager. Below are the error messages:
Windows failed to start.
File: \EFI\Microsoft/Boot/BCD
Info: An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data.
Any idea what goes wrong?
I'll try other suggestions soon. Thanks all of you again.
Last edited by jl2014 (2015-04-19 00:03:33)

[SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

Ok so I'm stuck trying to get my computer to dual boot windows 7 and arch. They are installed on different hard drives and I have grub 2 as the boot loader. I can't find any tutorials on how to do it with seperate hard drives I know how to do it if they are on the same hard drive. Also I want windows on the "first" hard drive how do I check to see which one it considers the first?
Last edited by bdawg (2012-09-21 23:15:37)

DSpider wrote:
drobole wrote:If you want to change it so that sda becomes sdb and sdb becomes sda, you should be able to do that in BIOS.
Not from the BIOS. He would need to physically open up the computer and switch the cables between them (or add another drive).
There's no actual performance increase in changing this order. Performance increase is when you have the partitions as close to the beginning of a HDD as possible, where the platters spin faster (basic mechanics, not to be confused with CD/DVD, which are being written from the inside-out to prevent errors after extended usage), and it especially doesn't apply to SSDs whatsoever.
You may be right about that. I remember I had to do this a while back but I probably switched the cables. It also messed up the drive mapping in Windows 98 if I remember correctly.

[SOLVED]Arch Linux running inside GNOME Boxes.

Hello,
I wanted to create a vm using GNOME Boxes to run another Arch Linux installation (to test things and avoid to break my main system).
I did a normal install, then installed gnome-shell and gdm from testing repos. I enabled gdm and NetworkManager and after reboot my box.
The box don't boot. The main display only see early fsck lines (about /), I can see in the thubnail more lines but can't read messages.
What is wrong here ?
Regards,
Fabien
Last edited by fbourigault (2014-10-07 11:22:36)

I can't read it it only show in the thumbnail. I posted here to known if I missed some package installation or if someone already had the problem and solve it !.
EDIT:
I installed a new box, using gnome from stable repositories. I installed the same packages but didn't enable anything. I'm starting services by hand to allow me do configuration in the box
You can find the gdm log here : http://pastebin.com/R5ek3Xwy (full version with multiple failing runs :http://pastebin.com/fCsPxAvb)
EDIT 2 :
Problem solved by installing xf86-video-qxl from AUR ! This package should really be in official repos.
Last edited by fbourigault (2014-10-07 08:41:32)

[Solved]Arch Linux Gnome writing to usb disk destination is read only

Hi
i Have installed Arch Linux latest image 1-3-2015 not using Evolution Linux or any GUI installer
i installed Arch Linux using command line
i have gnome 3.14
each time i try to write movie to usb flash or usb external hard disk
the error says
the destination disk is read only
how to change this
Last edited by belal (2015-04-04 20:58:54)

I'm curious. Is the filesystem on the USB, ntfs ?
If yes, did you install NTFS-3G ? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NTFS-3G. Happened to me 8 days ago .
EDIT - Sorry for the repost using the same solution as my above post. Didn't see his link. Just surfed through the posts for the word "NTFS-3g" and it wasn't there.
Last edited by newguy (2015-03-31 07:51:48)

[SOLVED]Multiple Problems after a new install on Arch Linux

Hello all,
I just finished installing Arch Linux from the core ISO which I downloaded from the site. The install went smoothly and booted up fine. Also I was able to install gnome and its extras fine as well. On the first boot after installing gnome I managed to get my resolution correct also. However later on after I installed compiz fusion everything with the resolution seems to be going wrong . My computer specs are shown below :
AMD 64 3200
Asus M2N MX-SE
2 GB Ram
Geforce 8600 GT
Viewsonic VA1918wm (Native resolution is 1440x900)
At the moment I can only manage to get upto 1024x768 and it looks quite bad at that resolution. I have attached the xorg.conf I have at the moment.
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "record"
Load "extmod"
Load "glx"
Load "dri2"
Load "dri"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
BoardName "G84 [GeForce 8600 GT]"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
While I was trying to fix this I noticed I was encountering other problems also. For one I found that sometimes dhcpcd times out on booting up and I cant seemt o connect to the Internet on booting. Although I just thought of trying a static IP and I'll post if that helped later on.
Another problem is I found that I seem to get the following error randomly. Pressing ctrl + D after this just restarts the machine.
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>
Finally, while I boot up I noticed that it says "Mounting root partition as read only [DONE]" Is the root partition supposed ot be mounted as read only ? Attached my fstab just in case it is needed.
# /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/sda3 /boot ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/sdb1 / ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/sdb2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sdb3 /home ext3 defaults 0 1
As you can see I'm quite new to Arch Linux so any help would be deeply appreciated.
Last edited by FilledVoid (2009-09-11 16:28:28)

Thank you for all your suggestions . I tried replacing the ID to Card0 but it didnt seem to fix it . However on the bright side I checked more threads on the forum and found some that helped out . :)
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=75070&p=2
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=72788
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=76938
I copied the xorg.conf file from the third link and just made minor changes to it like removing all the resolutions I didn't need and now its working fine :).
Now Im just stuck with two problems. One is the following message which appears randomly.
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>
******************* FILESYSTEM CHECK FAILED *************
* Please repair manually and reboot. Note that the root *
* filesystem is currently mounted read-only. To remount *
* it read-write type: mount -n -o remount,rw / *
* When you exit the mantenance shel the system will *
* reboot automatically. *
A thread about the same can be found http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=295384 but there isn't a solution on it.
The second is the intermittent problems with the Network being setup. Sometimes when I boot up it just says dhcpcd timedout and I won't be able to connect . However I can connect on another machine at the same time.
Took a look at the drive in question with gparted and it shows the below information:
/dev/sdb1 ext3 / 32.59 GB 4.92 GB 27.68 GB boot
By any chance is any of the above information relevant :x ?

A VERY Easy Tutorial on doing a clean install of Arch Linux with Gnome

is there anyone who could help me test Arch Linux with Gnome DE?

The pacman bit is new, and has already been solved: [SOLVED] pacman update fails: gcc requires gcc-libs=4.7.0-3
Just press "N" and you'll see that pacman will be on the list.
Welcome to the forums.
Edit:
Shahe1993 wrote:is there anyone who cou...
Oh. Feeling a bit busy there, huh? Nevermind.
Last edited by DSpider (2012-04-12 17:28:18)

[solved] Arch linux access point with multiple interfaces for the NAT

Hi, I have a router running Arch linux. It is connected via LAN (let's call it eth0) to the internet. It has a second LAN interface, eth1, and a wireless interface in master mode, wlan0.
Now, Everything works perfectly except providing network connectivity on eth1 and wlan0 simultaneously. I followed the guide in the "Internet share" wiki article and use dnsmasq/hostapd for the AP. It appears as if all traffic from the router is sent to the wlan0 interface, even if it came in through eth1 (for example, dhcp requests). I cannot really find information how to solve this. The words "bonding" and "iptables" are floating around, but there is not really an easy to understand tutorial for this.
What do I need to do to use both the eth1 and wlan0 interface (for different clients!) on my router?
Best regards, and thank you in advance
Jan Oliver
/e: This seems to be my problem: http://www.novell.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7000318 How do I solve this using the usual iptables? (The way described in the article doesn't work: "RTNETLINK answers: No such process" errors.)
Last edited by janoliver (2013-09-25 22:24:53)

Or you could bridge eth1 and wlan0, and make dnsmasq bind/listen on that bridge...

[SOLVED]System Hang in Arch Linux

I have tried distributions like ubuntu and fedora in hope for finding a stable system . So I move on to Arch Linux
But this problem also exist on Arch. While using my Arch Linux (including ubuntu and fedora) my system hangs with a black screen with something written on the whole screen which cannot be pasted here as my system hangs and I have to push power button to restart.
So I check my errors.log file and found these errors
Jul 8 22:59:24 localhost kernel: [ 1.680013] ata3: softreset failed (device not ready)
Jul 8 22:59:24 localhost kernel: [ 7.298612] SP5100 TCO timer: mmio address 0xfec000f0 already in use
Jul 8 22:59:31 localhost kdm_greet[792]: Cannot load /usr/share/apps/kdm/faces/.default.face: No such file or directory
I have a HCL K21 pdc notebook
Note: In Ubuntu my notebook start with ata1: softreset failed error at boot time
Most often this error occur while watching videos or listening music with VLC
Last edited by Manuj19 (2011-07-09 10:13:24)

ewaller wrote:It might be better to just post the output of lspci -nn It will tell us a great deal more about the hardware related to the PCI bus, including specific chip set identifiers.
Thanks for suggestion
Here is output of lspci -nn
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: ATI Technologies Inc Device [1002:5a31] (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge [1002:5a3f]
00:04.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge [1002:5a36]
00:05.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge [1002:5a37]
00:06.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge [1002:5a38]
00:07.0 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge [1002:5a39]
00:12.0 SATA controller [0106]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA [1002:4380]
00:13.0 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0) [1002:4387]
00:13.1 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1) [1002:4388]
00:13.2 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2) [1002:4389]
00:13.3 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3) [1002:438a]
00:13.4 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4) [1002:438b]
00:13.5 USB Controller [0c03]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI) [1002:4386]
00:14.0 SMBus [0c05]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller [1002:4385] (rev 13)
00:14.1 IDE interface [0101]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE [1002:438c]
00:14.2 Audio device [0403]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) [1002:4383]
00:14.3 ISA bridge [0601]: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge [1002:438d]
00:14.4 PCI bridge [0604]: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge [1002:4384]
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RC410 [Radeon Xpress 200M] [1002:5a62]
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:001c] (rev 01)
08:01.0 CardBus bridge [0607]: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II [1180:0476] (rev b3)
08:01.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C552 IEEE 1394 Controller [1180:0552] (rev 08)
08:01.2 SD Host controller [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter [1180:0822] (rev 17)
08:01.3 System peripheral [0880]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter [1180:0592] (rev 08)
08:07.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ [10ec:8139] (rev 10)
Last edited by Manuj19 (2011-07-09 07:20:08)

[SOLVED] Ndiswrapper, NetworkManager 0.7 and 64-bit Arch Linux

Hi there!
I am having problems configuring my wireless card. I know I have to use Ndiswrapper, and this is what I have tried to do; however, it didn't go quite well.
This is rather odd because it worked perfectly in the 32-bit version of Arch Linux, but now it doesn't work.
So, here comes the code.
valandil ~ $ lspci | grep Network
0b:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
I really use ndiswrapper and have already installed what I think is the proper driver (it seems that the list the official ndiswrapper site had has somehow disappeared.
sudo ndiswrapper -l
Password:
bcmwl5 : driver installed
device (14E4:4311) present (alternate driver: ssb)
Here's iwconfig:
valandil ~ $ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
wmaster0 no wireless extensions.
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
I use NetworkManager 0.7 and have configured properly:
rc.conf:
# /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux
# LOCALIZATION
# LOCALE: available languages can be listed with the 'locale -a' command
# HARDWARECLOCK: set to "UTC" or "localtime"
# USEDIRECTISA: use direct I/O requests instead of /dev/rtc for hwclock
# TIMEZONE: timezones are found in /usr/share/zoneinfo
# KEYMAP: keymaps are found in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps
# CONSOLEFONT: found in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts (only needed for non-US)
# CONSOLEMAP: found in /usr/share/kbd/consoletrans
# USECOLOR: use ANSI color sequences in startup messages
LOCALE="en_US.utf8"
HARDWARECLOCK="localtime"
USEDIRECTISA="no"
TIMEZONE="America/Vancouver"
KEYMAP="cf"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
USECOLOR="yes"
# HARDWARE
# MOD_AUTOLOAD: Allow autoloading of modules at boot and when needed
# MOD_BLACKLIST: Prevent udev from loading these modules
# MODULES: Modules to load at boot-up. Prefix with a ! to blacklist.
# NOTE: Use of 'MOD_BLACKLIST' is deprecated. Please use ! in the MODULES array.
MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes"
#MOD_BLACKLIST=() #deprecated
MODULES=(fuse ndiswrapper fglrx !b44 !mii bcm43xx !snd_pcsp snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-hwdep snd-page-alloc snd-pcm snd-timer snd snd-hda-intel soundcore !pcspkr)
# Scan for LVM volume groups at startup, required if you use LVM
USELVM="no"
# NETWORKING
# HOSTNAME: Hostname of machine. Should also be put in /etc/hosts
HOSTNAME="cipher"
# Use 'ifconfig -a' or 'ls /sys/class/net/' to see all available interfaces.
# Interfaces to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each interface then list in INTERFACES
# - prefix an entry in INTERFACES with a ! to disable it
# - no hyphens in your interface names - Bash doesn't like it
# DHCP: Set your interface to "dhcp" (eth0="dhcp")
# Wireless: See network profiles below
#eth0="eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255"
eth0="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(lo !eth0 !wlan0)
# Routes to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each route then list in ROUTES
# - prefix an entry in ROUTES with a ! to disable it
gateway="default gw 192.168.1.1"
ROUTES=(!gateway)
# Enable these network profiles at boot-up. These are only useful
# if you happen to need multiple network configurations (ie, laptop users)
# - set to 'menu' to present a menu during boot-up (dialog package required)
# - prefix an entry with a ! to disable it
# Network profiles are found in /etc/network.d
# This now requires the netcfg package
#NETWORKS=(main)
# DAEMONS
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
# - prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it
# - prefix a daemon with a @ to start it up in the background
DAEMONS=(@stbd httpd !network syslog-ng netfs crond alsa hal dhcdbd networkmanager fam gdm)
hosts file :
# /etc/hosts: static lookup table for host names
#<ip-address> <hostname.domain.org> <hostname>
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost cipher
# End of file
/etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf:
GNU nano 2.0.9 File: /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf
[main]
plugins=keyfile
[keyfile]
hostname=cipher
I hope you can solve this problem; wireless is really crucial.
Thanks for any help,
Last edited by valandil (2012-05-02 18:27:09)

Alleluia!!!
I think I will write a new rule for myself to follow :
Thou shalt never use ndiswrapper again.
Thanks a lot, wonder, and thanks to you too, Xyne.
FYI, I tried to use something else than ndiswrapper before, but it didn't yield satisfying results. Anyway, thanks.

[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] Arch Linux on Macbook Pro 4.1

Hey There,
I'm a 2 years old Arch Linux guy and due to the problems I've had with my HP Pavilion PC, I've bought a Macbook Pro 3-4 months ago.. Because that it's a pain in the ass to install, upgrade and remove software on Mac OS X, especially development software such as Python and its bindings, I'm thinking of migrating to Arch Linux. Any way, I've just installed Arch Linux and dual boot..
I've installed X, GNOME, NVIDIA so far and when I try to open GNOME (via startx), it opens up a 800x600 or 1024x768 resolution X and shows GNOME.. But I can't move the mouse and no matter what I type no menus show up.. So I'm stuck after GNOME starts.. I can't drop back into the terminal so I hold the power button to shutdown and start the machine...
It seems that this is the only problem I have for now.. Anyone had this problem before? I've tried it with and without xorg.conf and the result is the same..
Last edited by T-u-N-i-X (2008-11-30 16:17:11)

CTRL + ALT + Backspace
That should close startx. Also, the user manual has a couple of alternative methods of setting up your xorg.conf file. I'd try those next.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beg … phic_Cards
Last edited by sharpie (2008-11-30 14:05:39)

Arch Linux PPC : Gnome 2.16.1 in Testing

Gnome 2.16.1, Evolution and beagle are in testing on Arch Linux PPC . Please test
- Benoît

nice, will try it out on my powerbook later on

Ubuntu look-alike gnome theme for arch linux

Is there any theme/gnome package(s) for arch linux that will give me gnome that looks kind of like the gnome package for ubuntu? I'm moving over from ubuntu to arch, and I'm hoping to ease the transition at first while I get used to the rest of the system. Thanks!
EDIT: Actually, how configurable is xfce? I've used gnome and kde for arch a bit, but they're just so vanilla, and I'm still looking for a relatively nice graphical interface on top of cli. Thanks!
Last edited by pythonscript (2009-07-27 23:29:40)

xfce4 is just about as configurable as GNOME at the level of gconf/ xfconf and way more configurable via the settings GUI.

[SOLVED] Arch Linux on encrypted luks partition on USB key

Hi
I've installed Arch Linux on a USB key following this Wiki page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … _a_USB_key
I also used dm-crypt as described in this Wiki page: https://wiki.archlinux.de/title/Festpla … iante_1.29
I installed Arch Linux on the USB key using VirtualBox.
To do that, I created a "rawvmdk":
vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ./usb.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sdd
Everything works fine when I'm trying to start the system within VirtualBox.
Syslinux loads Arch using the following kernel command:
APPEND cryptdevice=UUID=6aa73872-3755-4bdf-bee3-d1cd7a3fe0bf:main root=/dev/mapper/main-root rw
/etc/mkinitcpio.conf holds the following "HOOKS" configuration:
HOOKS="base udev autodetect modconf block keyboard keymap encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsch resume"
As already mentioned the configuration works within VirtualBox. When I'm trying to boot from the USB key on my real computer, I'm getting an error. Syslinux works fine and loads Linux, but Linux is complaining. Here's the log:
:: running hoock [encrypt]
Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/disk/by-uuid/6aa73872-3755-4bdf-bee3-d1cd7a3fe0bf ...
ERROR: device '/dev/mapper/main-root' not found. Skipping fschk.
ERROR: Unable to find root device '/dev/mapper/main-root'.
You are being dropped to a recovery shell
I'm not getting prompted for the passphrase since the cryptdevice can not be found. But why? It can be found when I'm booting within VirtualBox. What might be different? I successfully installed other Linux distributions (but without encryption and using GRUB as bootloader) previously within VirtualBox and was able to boot from the USB key on a real machine afterwards.
Some additional information that might help:
Here's the "lsblk -f output" for the stick:
sdd
├─sdd1 ext4 usbboot bb45e84e-842e-4209-8c44-1af3c7933389
└─sdd2 crypto_L 6aa73872-3755-4bdf-bee3-d1cd7a3fe0bf
When I'm running "lsblk" or "blkid" from the recovery shell after the failure, I'm getting no output. "ls /dev/sd*" returns nothing as well. The directory /dev/disk does not even exists in the recovery shell. (I'm not sure if this is normal or not.)
Thanks for helping.
Last edited by The Infinity (2014-08-14 20:26:06)

I still haven't solved the problem:
When starting the system on a machine with NVIDIA GTX 560Ti graphics card:
- X doesn't start using startx or xinit and there are no log entries in /var/log/Xorg.*.log (as I haven't tried to start X).
- I'm getting the message "Waiting for X server to begin accepting connections .. .. .. ..".
- I already tried to uninstall xf86-video-nouveau and nouveau-dri with no effect.
- Additionally: The "default terminals tty1/2/3/..." (which I'm using to start X) from have a poor resolution (I think 640x480 pixel).
When starting the system on a virtual machine or a machine with an ATI Radeon (mobile) graphics card:
- X starts and runs without any trouble the XFCE desktop environment.
- Additionally: The default terminals have a proper resolution (I think the maximal resolution of the display).

[SOLVED] VLC autoplay DVDs in Gnome/Arch Linux?

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