minimal install only /a dir. "cannot execute rc.S"

egag · 03-22-2005, 08:55 AM

hi there,

in short here's what i did:
-made a 2 gig. partition with ext3 filesystem.
-mounted it under /diskhome
-did a " installpkg -root /diskhome *.tgz " in the /a dir of the slack-10.1 cd1
-copied (to /diskhome/etc/ ) & modified fstab
-copied the moduletree from the kernel i use to /diskhome/lib/modules
( i'm using my working 2.6.11.5 kernel )

the errors at boot are :

-cannot execute /bin/rc.d/rc.S
-cannot execute /bin/rc.d/rc.M
-cannot execute /sbin/agetty
( the last one several times )
then i stops with " no more processes for this runlevel " ( the runlevel is set to 3 as allways )
all of the scrips/binaries are existing with the right permissions.
also /bin/bash ant the link /bin/sh exist.

Q: am i missing something that should be installed along with the /a dir to get it started ?

any suggestion welcome....

egag

gbonvehi · 03-22-2005, 09:17 AM

Did you set the right root= parameter on lilo.conf?

egag · 03-22-2005, 09:49 AM

sorry, i should have mentioned that:

-----------
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11.5
root = /dev/hdb8
label = minitest
append="pci=usepirqmask"
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11.5
root = /dev/hdb2
label = Linux-2.6.11.5
append="pci=usepirqmask"
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
----------------

hdb2 is what i use now, hdb8 is the minisetup ( i checked again ).
but your Q makes me think that the prob is not that some package is missing
but it cannot find the whole partition..........
hmmmm.....and it's just ext3 fs. and it wasn't a kernel panic

and lilo installed without errors

and the linux i'm using now i installed also this way, exept then i installed everything.
and i thought the /a packages are sufficient to get to a console.

egag

chbin · 03-22-2005, 10:24 AM

You need glibc from the /l directory.

chbin · 03-22-2005, 10:27 AM

Did the same thing myself and it stalled at init too. When I added glibc with required /a packages everything booted up fine.

chbin · 03-22-2005, 10:56 AM

oh for fun you might trying passing the init -b option to the kernel, which tells it to boot into a single user shell without running any other startup scripts. curious if it would work?

egag · 03-22-2005, 11:46 AM

thanks but that didn't work.
i installed all of the /l dir. and still the same error.

also starting with " init 1 " didn't work.
rc.S still needs to be executed.

if i hit ctl-alt-del i get a message : respawning too fast.......cannot exec...etc.

any ideas...?

egag

egag · 03-22-2005, 12:08 PM

also....when i try to chroot to it in a console i get :

root@Slack21:/home/egag# chroot /diskhome/
chroot: cannot run command `/bin/sh': No such file or directory
root@Slack21:/home/egag# ls -l /diskhome/bin/sh
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2005-03-22 13:56 /diskhome/bin/sh -> bash
root@Slack21:/home/egag# ls -l /diskhome/bin/bash
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root bin 666452 2004-11-03 23:30 /diskhome/bin/bash

i just don't understand......

egag

chbin · 03-22-2005, 12:18 PM

strange I had the exact same problem and i did a reinstall with required /a and glibc and it boots, but when I just added glibc after the fact it didn't? I'm really curious why that is. I had the exact same thing. If you try to do a fresh install of /a and glibc at the same time I bet it will work. I have no idea why. It doesn't seem like that should possible make a difference but it does. Perhaps it something done in the setup script?

keefaz · 03-22-2005, 12:26 PM

I would think it is a glibc problem, I had the same issue (agetty, rc.*) one time from a
failed glibc upgrade, I fixed that with :
boot from slackware CD 2, mount the / partition in /mnt/hd
then :
cp /lib/libc.so.6 /mnt/hd/lib
cp /lib/libc-x.x.x.so /mnt/hd/lib

After that it booted fine and I re-did the glibc upgrade

I had not workable system though that's why I booted from CD...

DaHammer · 03-22-2005, 12:33 PM

The problem is most likely missing library files, as suggested. I set up a simple test where I installed all the packages from the "a" directory to /test, in the same manner as you did. I then tried to "chroot" into that and got the following:

Code:

root@corvette:~# chroot /test
chroot: cannot run command `/bin/bash': No such file or directory

Turns out the following libraries were missing:

Code:

/lib/libdl.so.2
/lib/libc.so.6
/lib/ld-linux.so.2

None of them are listed in the MANIFEST, so I'm not sure which slackware package/s they are in, but you'd need to find them or copy them off your current system (since you're using the same version that will work), it should then boot. There may be other libraries missing as well, use "ldd" to see what libs a binary is linked against. I didn't boot to it, though, just ran "chroot /test" to change into it.

keefaz · 03-22-2005, 12:40 PM

Also look at gnashley link
http://home.earthlink.net/~gnashley/...ix8_1howto.htm

Quote:

this page describes how to create a fully functional SLACKWARE installation in as little as 40MB!

egag · 03-22-2005, 12:58 PM

success......!

found out not all installscripts did run ok
so the symlinks ( DaHammer ) were not made...

also i bookmarked the link to gnashley 's howto.
gonna read it tomorrow.

right now i can chroot to there and use it.
( i cannot reboot right now cuz i need the pc. , but that will work also i guess )

thanks all for the help.

egag

DaHammer · 03-22-2005, 01:05 PM

Ahh, didn't even think about the lib symlinks, I just hard copied the files. So there is a problem with the install script in glibc-solibs-2.3.4-i486-1.tgz.

cavalier · 03-22-2005, 03:13 PM

Am I the only one that's curious? 14 posts, and nobody asked "why" you would do this. Enlighten me, because I'm having a hard time figuring out why I'd ever want to do this.