Ok I've just finished a gentoo install and it appears that the bootloader and kernel are working ie. im booting and there arent any kernel error messages, the problem is this - after the boot up ticks along nicely i run into this error message

/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

1st - what does this mean? - ive looked around and i think it means that the terminal isnt working.
2nd - what would cause it?
3rd - how do i fix it?

after the error message i get a built in shell called ash and it has a few commands - like kill, cp, cd, ls etc. but nothing usefull and i can't access any of the programs that i know are on there - what can i do?

Thanks in advance,

tom

1. Yes, that's pretty much it.
2. On several newer systems, using the "Enhanced PCI access mode" setting in your computer's BIOS (or something to the same effect) will cause this. I have no idea why, but disabling it is a good start. Also, a misconfigured 2.6 series kernel will also generate similar errors. You will want the options
CONFIG_UNIX98_PTYS=y, CONFIG_UNIX98_PTY_COUNT=256 and CONFIG_DEVPTS_FS=y when configuring your kernel to have proper virtual (and actual) console access.
3. goto 2


Håkan

thanks man - the thing is im not using 2.6 but 2.4.22 however i will try that enhanced pci access mode

ok i couldnt find the "enhanced pci access mode" so thats a no-go any other ideas?

well i gave up in the end and just did a reinstall which worked, there mustve been something that id mucked up