I just hosed my system - how to fix?

telex4 · l33t Joined: 21 Sep 2002 Posts: 704 Location: Reading, UK

I've had a perfectly good Gentoo install for ages. Today I updated a few unimportant things like xine, libao, procps (off the top of my head), and basically things that shouldn't be anything "core" to the system. I just rebooted, and when Gentoo started up, it failed to load every single module, then several services that required those modules, so now I can't connect to the Internet/network, use a mouse or any number of other things! Thank god for Knoppix!

I can insmod some modules (nvidia, for example) but lots of others come back with unresolved symbols. Modprobe can't even find them, but I think that's an unrelated issue.

Right now I'm trying to find root access in Knoppix so I can try fsck-ing Gentoo's root partition, and if that doesn't help I'll try to recompile my kernel, modules and all. What I'd love to know in the meantime is -- does anyone have any good ideas as to what on earth has happened here, and best of all, how I can fix it?

mmealman · Guru Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 348 Location: Florida

When you say modules, do you mean kernel modules? Or the services that the system loads at boot(mail, cron, syslogd, xdm, etc)?

If it's just the kernel, compile and install a new one.

If for some reason you can't even boot into your system, grab a Gentoo install cd, boot into that and chroot onto your system:

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo
mount -t proc proc /mnt/gentoo/proc
chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash

Once you do that you can compile a new kernel or try to fix what's broken(which usually involves a lot of poking around).

telex4 · l33t Joined: 21 Sep 2002 Posts: 704 Location: Reading, UK

It's the kernel modules. A fsck showed no problems (expected) so it looks like a kernel recompile. The thing that mystifies me is why one minute it would all stop working, when I've not changed anything kernel related! Ah well, I can but try :evil:

myrddian · n00b Joined: 04 Apr 2003 Posts: 27

Possibly a lib or the kernel utils got updated.. cause the kernel to "crack the ****" .. maybe diff GCC versions or glibc

Recompile and rebuild it.. if it fails again post the actual error or something and pass on the CPU ARCH, version of GCC, and what kernel patches your using if any

telex4 · l33t Joined: 21 Sep 2002 Posts: 704 Location: Reading, UK

Aha! A kernel recompile fixed the problem

I can't think of *anything* I've done in between reboots that would have caused this. Oh well, at some point I must have done something stupid, so here's to hoping I won't do it again!

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20093

Moved from Installing Gentoo.
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