Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Fresh install on reboot endless scrolling text

[Mike Kazantsev]

On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:52:26 -0500
Harry Putnam <reader@×××××××.com> wrote:

> Roy Wright <roy@××××××.org> writes:
>
> > So you have grub installed, the grub menu appears, you select a boot
> > option, boot starts, the usual kernel messages flash by, you get to the
> > second part of the boot where the lines look like:
> >
> >  blah...   [OK]
> >
> > Then something goes crazy.
>
> Yes,  just the first few `blah   [ok]' lines... maybe 3.

Okay, the syslog is probably not one of them, so /var/log shouldn't be
too populated, except for rc.log, which should be enabled specifically
in /etc/rc.conf (w/ baselayout-2) or /etc/conf.d/rc - look for
rc_logger line or something similar with older baselayout.

Then there's also "interactive boot" feature.
Just press "I" as soon as you see first gentoo "[ok]" messages and the
boot will proceed step-by-step asking about every init script
encountered.
In baselayout-2' rc.conf there's option "rc_interactive"to enable it. I
believe it was in baselayout-1 as well, but you can try upgading to 2
if it's not there.

If that won't work try passing "init=/bin/bash" as a kernel parameter
(from grub) to drop right into shell on start, then do
"ls /etc/runlevels/boot" and try starting each script one-by-one until
one of them fails like you described.

I believe there's also "1" or "single" parameter, that can instruct
init not to proceed past the first runlevel, which might be a cleaner
way than "init=/bin/bash", but might as well try to start the same
faulty script if it's encountered early enough.

And then there's a low-level hack w/ sysrq key (SysRq-K, if i recall
correctly) to drop into shell, which can be used at the same time as
"I" mode I've described above.

You can try disabling one of the scripts mentioned at the beginning of
linked log file (my rc.log) by removing +x from them (just removing
symlink from runlevel probably won't do, since other scripts might
start it as a dependency) to see if boot proceeds a bit further w/o
mentioned crash.
rc.log: http://dpaste.com/53552/

-- 
Mike Kazantsev // fraggod.net