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

[Andrew Lowe]

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