gdm-binary: /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket: No such file or directory
 

Update: Now, I *CAN* get the installation to boot, but I can't get it to load past twm despite having a full desktop environment (GNOME), GDM, and even non-standard apps installed.

As for the error message that GDM is putting out, it's something like:

I'm still trying to figure out how to hook dbus into the initrd.

needs to be sdb1 sdb2, etc right?
not /dev/sdb

change the fstab and grub boot line manually for /dev/sdb1 /, root=/dev/sdb1, etc

did you DD it to the drive?

Yeah, my mistake, I did try that. It still caused the same problem.

Also tried editing /etc/fstab. No change. :banghead:

how did you transfer it to the drive, unsquashfs'd it and then copied it?
does the drive have a sdb1?
whats the output of fdisk -l as root?

I decided to 'unsquashfs' it directly to the drive, using with the drive mounted in /mnt. Then, I installed the needed and wanted packages on the drive, installed GRUB, and updated GRUB. Yet, I've run into these roadblocks every time I tried to boot it!

And yes, it does have an sdb1; I specifically created it in GParted so that I could use GRUB on it.

i forget the command, but you need to delay mounting root, which is your external drive, to allow archlinux time to discover it first. I used to use 6 seconds which was fine for my external.

here is the command you need to put on your kernel line in grub
rootdelay=6
change the 6 to however many seconds you feel is needed.

The default is 10 seconds, and the kernel still isn't finding it. How do you modify that value?

you need to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst as root and look for your kernel line. here is an example with the rootdelay=6 added to it

kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb10 rootdelay=6 ro

Actually, that's for legacy GRUB. I have GRUB 2.

I decided to edit my /etc/default/grub and include "rootdelay=30" in the "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX" variable, then update GRUB. Hopefully, this will solve the problem. At 10 seconds, it still isn't working.

you can still add kernel options in grub.cfg using grub 2
here is wiki page for grub 2
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB2

Still, 30 seconds doesn't fly.

I wonder if it registers as a different device, say /dev/sda1, on the external device? I will try to see if that is the case.

try labeling the drive and then boot by-label instead of by-uuid or by device. info here

I tried that:

Still, no success. I wonder if there's any drivers installed by default in Arch for it. If not, how do I get them?

actually I meant to use the "by-label" part from that link, not by-id or by-uuid. what you need to do is label your drive using one of the commands depending on your file system you used. label it anything you want like "arch_usb" or whatever. then in your command use
or whatever you decide to label the drive. then it won't matter what the actual /dev/sXX is because it will look for the drive label "arch_usb" and boot that drive.

wait a minute

when you made the new kernel26.img, how did you do it?

OH!
also, see this about adding "usb" as one of the hooks
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/...x_on_a_USB_key

mine looks like this
HOOKS="base udev usb autodetect pata scsi sata filesystems"

hope that helps

And this is from a chroot jail with /proc, /sys, and /dev/pts mounted.

Still needing help.

Also: Trying to 'nano /proc/version' returns an input/output error from the chroot. I will try copying /proc/version to the clipboard and unmounting /proc, then copying the version back into /proc, seeing if that will help when I edit it.

Still no luck.

And here's the big gig: How come mkinitcpio is looking for Ubuntu's kernel?! I specifically specified the kernel version in the mkinitcpio command line!

your doing it from an ubuntu 10.10 install
you might have to do it from a arch livecd
its looking for the kernel modules your running off of

you got a arch livecd/usb?

you may be able to use fake-uname from salixos
http://enialis.net/~jrd/salix/fake-u....1-noarch-1cp/

http://www.salixos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=275

so before or after you chroot do

fake-uname-activate 2.6.35-ARCH or whatever

just decompress it and put everything where it goes,etc
works on debian sid, etc

Sorry, forgot '-k'. Now it works perfectly. After my GNOME Shell installation on Ubuntu is finished, I will reboot and try out my Arch to see if it boots.

Also: I was chrooted into the external 500GB drive from the Ubuntu installation on my main SSD.

At least now I am able to boot to a shell. But I still can't figure out why I can't get GDM to start! Every time I try to copy /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket to the drive, it's always lost on reboot. Any commands I have to type in the chroot or hooks I have to add to mkinitcpio to make GDM autostart during the boot process (and me being able to log into my chroot-installed GNOME)? If so, what?

Yes, I have GDM installed, in case you're wondering. I installed it when I chrooted into the basic Arch installation on the external 500GB SimpleTech drive from Ubuntu and installed GNOME, Shotwell, Firefox, LibreOffice, and many other packages.

For any of you who are wondering, GDM's error message reads something like:

And I still have DBus installed.

I was getting help, and now no help at all? Why?! Just how do I get dbus to run at startup so that GDM can also run?

Please, I'm begging here. Just what hooks do I pass to mkinitcpio to load X and GNOME at startup?!

/!\bump/!\

!!!!!!!<bump>!!!!!!!

DBus
 

I had the same problem, but when I put dbus in /etc/rc.conf in the daemons section, gdm started normaly.