Re: [gentoo-user] After logging into a console. text flashes on the screen and returns to the login

Andrew Lowe <agl@×××××××.au> [16-01-30 16:16]:
> Hi all,
> 	I have an ARM device that I have Gentoo on. In the past I had it
> successfully running and then one day I managed to "customise" something
> and I could no longer get it to boot. At the time I though "I'll have to
> fix that...". Today I'm trying.
>
> 	The machine in question operates as a small server hence runs headless.
> For the work at hand, I've attached it to the TV hence everything is in
> text mode, no X.
>
> 	When it boots, I'm presented with the login prompt. I enter "root", the
> password & enter. The screen flashes, a frame by frame viewing of a
> video of this shows that it's printing the last time I logged in and
> then am represented with the login again. This just repeats. I though
> that I had forgotten the root password hence accessed the disk via
> another machine, reset things in the shadow file and rebooted. Once
> again the screen flashed, with the same output, and I was presented with
> the login prompt again.
>
> 	Any thought on what could be going wrong here? I've ensured all the
> files that should be owned by root are owned by root - I think. Logging
> appears not to be working so I can't get much from that. I'm 99.99% sure
> this is not an ARM specific problem as the machine was running perfectly
> beforehand.
>
> 	Any thoughts greatly appreciated,
>
> 		Andrew
>


Hi Andrew,

things which came into my mind (in no specific order):

- default shell wrongly set
- $HOME points to Shangrila
- fstab corrupted so that vital parts of the root tree get
  not correctly mounted on tmpfs like /var, /tmp and such.

Does this ARM system has an UART, which spits out the whole
boot process and more so there may be a chance to get closer 
to any informations (error logs etc)?

Fingers crossed!
Good luck!

Meino