# Booting problems [SOLVED]

## Cuchulainn

Since I rebooted my computer yesterday, I keep getting the message

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> init: Id "c1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
> 
> init: Id "c2" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
> ...

 

I haven't rebooted for a while, so I cannot pinpoint  if it is an update which caused the problems. When I tried to fix it by booting knoppix and chrooting, I got an error saying "illegal instruction". I also tried the 2004.3 version of the livecd, but this gave me the same error message. Any idea how to fix this?Last edited by Cuchulainn on Tue May 10, 2005 6:37 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## bkunlimited

maybe there is a problem with your harddisk? or with your filesystem?

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## Gherald

nah, it's udev related.  try emerging udev and search these forums for more info

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## Cuchulainn

Any idea how to emerge udev if I cannot get into my system?

I checked the harddisk and the filesystems, no problems on that front.

P.S. I use a 2.4.26 kernel

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## adaptr

...in which case you don't have udev  :Wink: 

The process which runs on the consoles is agetty - check any problems with that.

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## Cuchulainn

I don't know where to begin... I checked my inittab. It seems ok:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> #
> 
> # inittab       This file describes how the INIT process should set up
> ...

 

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## adaptr

Well... the "restarting too fast" can be caused if agetty can't open a tty; have you checked your kernel config for Pseudo TTY (Unix PTY) support ?

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## Cuchulainn

/dev/pts file system for Unix98 PTYs is not enabled. But I haven't changed anything in the kernel since the last reboot. I also checked the kernel I used before this one, and it has the same problem. /dev/pts file system for Unix98 PTYs was not enabled in that one either.

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## adaptr

That's not the one I mean.

You really, really need support for Virtual TTYs for Linux to work properly.

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## Cuchulainn

Under Character devises I have the following:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> #
> 
> # Character devices
> ...

 

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## adaptr

Then that shouldn't be the problem - perhaps the permissions on the tty devices aren't set right to allow agetty to open them ?

Note that this is on the verge of entering "fubar" territory...

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## Cuchulainn

The most likely cause is the upgrading of a package. If I only knew which one... I use the stable portage btw. The kernel has worked before, so that should not be the problem.

If I only could chroot into the system, at least I could try to emerge the latest stable packages and see if this helps. But as I said, chroot is not working either.

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## adaptr

Boot from a LiveCD and mount your root.

Then set up sshd to start at boot so you can ssh into the box.

This does not depend on agetty or consoles.

Alternatively, you can boot & mount and simply change the system from there, but then you will first have to figure out what to change...

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## Gherald

It is a udev problem.

see for instance https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-327979-highlight-udev+respawning.html

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## adaptr

 *Quote:*   

> 2. Using udev on Gentoo
> 
> Requirements
> 
> udev is meant to be used in combination with a 2.6 kernel 

 

No, it isn't.

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## Cuchulainn

I came across this post as well, but since I use a 2.4.28 kernel without udev, it doesn't seem to apply to me. I already set up ssh with knoppix, and i can tinker with the config files. I cannot chroot into it though, like I would normally do, to (re-)install packages.Last edited by Cuchulainn on Mon May 09, 2005 1:49 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## adaptr

That's not what I mean - run ssh from gentoo, then you can do anything you could do on the console through ssh.

Including emerging.

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## Gherald

 *Cuchulainn wrote:*   

> I cannot chroot into it though, like I would normally do, to (re-)install packages.

 

Uh, yes you can.  Suppose you mount your root on /mnt/hda3.

Then:

chroot /mnt/hda3 /bin/bash

What you need to do is get portage to either use udev or devfsd.  It's in an indeterminate state right now.

Upgrading to 2.6 while you're at it would be a good if at all possible.

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## Cuchulainn

That is exactly what I tried before,but it gives me an "illegal instruction" message.

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## Gherald

 *Cuchulainn wrote:*   

> That is exactly what I tried before,but it gives me an "illegal instruction" message.

 

What is your CHOST string and CFLAGS?

Have you tried pressing e in grub to pass the kernel options "single" or "init=/bin/bash" ?

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## Cuchulainn

 *adaptr wrote:*   

> Boot from a LiveCD and mount your root.
> 
> Then set up sshd to start at boot so you can ssh into the box.
> 
> This does not depend on agetty or consoles.
> ...

 

I guess this means I also need to enable networking at boot-level? How can I make something start at bootlevel without using rc-update?

P.S. I already tried adding single and init=/bin/bash to the kernel line.

CFLAGS="-march=pentium4 -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -funroll-loops -fprefetch-loop-arrays"\

CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

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## Cuchulainn

Btw, here are my cpu specs:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> cat /proc/cpuinfo
> 
> processor       : 0
> ...

 

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## Cuchulainn

I just checked which files in /lib got updated last week. The files are libncurses and libcurses. Could that have anything todo with it?

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## Cuchulainn

Eventually I got it fixed! I replaced binutils with the version from ftp://ftp.ruled.org/pub/Gentoo/ and bash and ncurses with the version from http://dev.gentoo.org/~avenj/bins/i686/.

Thanks for all the help everyone!

Cheers, Cuchu

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