Re: Only boot tty
On 10/16/19, ben smith <delevon34@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi I was installing Debian and after finishing I was only able to boot into
> a tty. There was a problem during install where it wouldn't connect to the
> mirror and I had to go ahead anyway and it said I'd only have basic
> utilities. I was at the library and I may have had a unreliable connection.
Tty *might* be a good start. Someone else will surely have a better
line of attack than mine including knowledge of the possibility that
the installation MIGHT have downloaded some useful things that are
just waiting on the sidelines for their turn. If not, my comfort zone
is/would be..
If those alleged basic utilities include apt/apt-get AND you can get
it to respond to you, you might be able to finish out ala
debootstrap-ish. A quick command such as "apt-get upgrade" will show
if apt/apt-get's present and functioning properly. If apt/apt-get
works, this is an unexpected opportunity to cherry-pick a lot of what
you want, dependencies notwithstanding. :)
I'm guessing that Internet-type access may not yet function. That's
where chroot comes in handy. If you've never done anything via chroot,
it borrows online access from the host operating system without any
additional tinkering.
A P.S. on that is there's at least one other route to something
similar to chroot, but I've never buckled down and learned that (or
those). "schroot" is the one coming to mind. I think I've seen it said
that schroot's a better way to go, but I'm not remembering why just
this second, only that the accompanying explanation always makes
sense. :)
If you decide to chroot and try to see if debootstrap's instructions
get you anywhere, PLEASE MAKE AT LEAST ONE BACKUP COPY FIRST then this
is Stretch's notes on the process:
https://www.debian.org/releases/stretch/amd64/apds03.html.en
Important to note is that's labeled specifically for AMD64. If that's
not what you're using, you'll need to dig around until you find an
appropriate match. In the end, it may turn out to be similar
instructions for all, but you just want the comfort of having
confirmed that for sure.
To get started with what you have so far, you could skim through just
for fun and terminology/process exposure until you get to:
D.3.4. Configure The Base System
Some of those next steps may already be completed because of how you
started the install. Just play along to make sure no important steps
were missed by the glitched installation.
Hopefully things like "# editor /etc/resolv.conf" (under "D.3.4.4.
Configure Networking") will already be filled in k/t piggybacking off
chroot's host. In that case, the time spent will be about either
learning where those basics lay in the system or refreshing one's
memory if that was already old knowledge.
You're STILL not done once you get through that page. You still have
to pick out your window manager, desktop environment, xinit-family
yada-yada, before you actually have a fully operational system. It's
an involved process, that's for sure. Very rewarding and empowering if
you can actually log in once you're gone through the whole process.
*grin*
An afterthought: Does "uname -a" get you any feedback? That's also
about seeing "WHAT" your install attempt deems as "basic utilities".
I've never thought to try running "uname -a" before installing the
kernel so I don't know what, if anything, it gives prior to the
kernel's installation.
Deboostrap hasn't changed much in a long time. I'm still using
condensed personal notes I garnered from Wheezy's copy of the same:
https://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/mipsel/apds03.html.en
Hope some part of that helps. If it leads anywhere, have fun! It's a
nice, simple, condensed peek at what's going on under the hood.
DISCLAIMER: While re-reading one more time before sending, it occurs
to me that this could be something like a single hard drive residing
within a laptop or something. My exposure has been that I move hard
drives around in external docking stations to accomplish the above.
I've never tried networking two computers of any type to accomplish
anything similar to this... :)
Stating that further reminded me that: One problem I have to this day
regards GRUB and successful first boots after that, especially since
working with GPT partition table'ish drives. My record is ONE
successful first boot up out of dozens and dozens of debootstrap runs.
Hopefully you'll have better luck IF you decide to attempt this route.
If your first step really was a successful basic setup, your user
accounts might still need tweaking, too. Give root a password as soon
as you can so you don't accidentally get locked out somehow. It's been
a long time since that happened to me, but I think it was just a minor
pain about having to reboot back into my old setup to then go back
into chroot again to correct it.. or something.... ? :)
Cindy :)
--
Cindy-Sue Causey
Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA
* runs with birdseed *
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