Failure to boot - modprobe issue?

Hello, hopefully someone here can assist me.

I installed Fedora 10 XFCE Spin the other day and was following some of the tips on this forum to get the sound working better. So I created a file called Sound under /etc/modprobe.d/ and added the config line for acer.aspire into it and then rebooted. That was the last I saw of the desktop.

Now the system goes through the motions of booting but never quite gets there. I get the fedora 10 loading bar at the bottom of the screen that slowly increases but once complete the system just sits there.

Is there any way I can get access to the terminal at least so I can remove the sound file and see if that enables the system to boot properly again?

Also, while I'm here. Assuming I get it working again is there a way to disable the touchpad while typing on Fedora 10? Had it on Linpus and it was ace, hate brushing the touchpad while trying to type (done it a few times during this post!).

 

Try ctrl-alt-F1

--Japser.

 

Thanks, while it's booting or once it's finished trying to boot?

Doesn't seem to have any effect either way.

 

when it's finished booting try ctrl-alt-F2 (or F3 to F6) as sometimes on fedora F1 doesn't work (i think this mainly happens when you use the vga hack to show plymouth), if that doesn't take you to a virtual terminal boot again and on the grub screen choose to modify the kernel arguments and remove rhgb and quiet, then watch the boot messages and see what is causing the failure, post back to let us know how you get on

phil

 

I don't have a grub screen

ctrl-alt-F2/F3/F6 didn't work either.

But I did eventually manage to mount SDA2 and remove the file I added into modprobe. Still doesn't boot though.

Just going to reinstall and start again I think.

 

so if you don't have a grub screen how do you choose which kernel to boot? or which os if it's dual boot? you must have a grub screen or prompt :?

phil

 

There's no grub screen, it just boots straight into Fedora. There's a boot partition with grub on it, but I never see a grub menu.

Bit strange.

I've stuffed it again, looks like it's the planetccrma kernal that's killing it. So a grub screen would be REALLY useful right now to save me having to reinstall for a 3rd time...

Here's my grub.conf, if you have any ideas what I can change in this to get a menu or at least to boot into something then let me know:

 

I deleted the line with the CCRMA kernel so it boots into fedora again.

...and I've commented out the hiddenmenu line and added a sensible timeout number so now I get the grub menu

Just need to fix the problem with ccrma failing to boot now.

 

remove the rhgb and quiet from the end of the kernel lines and watch the boot process and see where it fails, post back and let me know, i've never installed ccrma but i might still be able to help fix the issue

phil

 

ok, last thing before it goes wrong is:

Code:

udevd-event[753]: run_program: '/sbin/modprobe' abnormal exit

Then after a bit of a wait I get:

 

well that's all to do with your wireless card, looks like it could be problems with the ath5k kernel module, try booting to fedora and switching off the wireless card with the switch on the front, there will be no visual indicator that it's off other than the wireless connection dropping, then reboot and choose the ccrma kernel and see if it boots then

phil

 

I tried switching off the wireless, but it still doesn't boot. I'd suspect the wireless errors are maybe a symptom rather than the cause.

So I guess I really need to find out why modprobe is exiting abnormally.

 

try seeing if the machine will boot to runlevel 3, just add the number three to the end of the kernel line in grub. so it would be like this

Code:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.26.8-1.rt16.1.fc10.ccrma.i686.rt ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 3

and see if it boots to runlevel3. but i think it's looking like you might need to try re-building the ccrma kernel on your own machine from the source, because it's still booting to fedora it points to the ccrma kernel's modules you installed being the problem

phil

 

Nah, it still has that line about modprobe exiting abnormally in runlevel 3.

If I want to try re-compiling the CCRMA kernel is it just a case of following these instructions:
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/s ... ernel.html

Thanks for the help BTW.

 

Good news! I gave the CCRMA testing repository a try, it has a more experimental kernal I believe, and it boots up with no problems :mrgreen:

So dunno what the issue was with the older CCRMA kernel. I've spent the last few days scouring the forums and couldn't find any mention of anyone else having similar problems. Very strange.

Thanks for the help Harry.

 

great news chris! i think there must have been a conflict in the ath5k module in the ccrma kernel, hence the failure at modprobe, but at least it's working now.

just fyi those kernel compile instructions are a little old and some of the paths will be different on fedora but they should still work, but i would personally follw this guide >> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/CustomKernel

have fun with your music project

phil