I used useradd and then passwd without the user's name parameter without which means root's password was changed to user's password and user never got a password. Simple mistake

Another member passed this on: I've been waiting to use this: Head-slap

ron says: Ha, Ha, Ha. Ouch!

ron said: I successfully net installed arch 64 bit basic in virtualbox on fedora 16.

I was able to first boot and login.

I pacman -Syu successfully.

I installed xorg-server xorg-xinit kde-meta-kdebase virtualbox-archlinux-additions xf86-video-fbdev xf86-video-vesa sudo dbus metalog gpm slocate.

I made config file adjustments to rc.conf, and set up a iptables.rules file.

I left inittab set to original run level and xinit settings.

I useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash "my name"

I didn't make any visudo adjustments.

On reboot I expected to be in a terminal, login and try startx command.

But can not login anywhere.

[tty1 archlinux login incorrect]

I'm very confident that I configured correctly and tried several wipe and new installs.

I have an archlinux vboximage kde full 3 months old and updated that works on this same hardware.

$ uname -a

Linux f16.home.net 3.1.7-1.fc16.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Jan 3 19:45:05 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

system http://www.system76.com/laptops/model/gazelle

-ron

You can boot into runlevel 1, then change password with passwd command

What bootloader do you use ? Lilo, grub...

(edit)
Sorry, didn't realize that your problem is that you can't get a login prompt at boot

The only thing to do is to edit inittab and configure the correct runlevel afaik
(you need to change runlevel in the bootloader first, though)

Grub.[Solved]

I booted the live cd and:

# mount /dev/sda1/ mnt/cdrom

# chroot /mnt/cdrom

# passwd root

I couldn't get to grub screen because "quiet splash" was on

to make matters worse I was in virtualbox and none of the function keys worked.