ERROR: Root device mounted successfully, but /sbin/init does not exist.

[81909ce2298f99ddafa37936ba43eaac]

Submission type

• Bug report
• Feature Request

KaOS ISO date you are having issues with or have a request for

20170217

How did you create the Live Media?

GnomeBaker

Did you check the md5sum of the downloaded ISO?

yes

Describe the issue you encountered

After installing KaOS sucessfully with separate partitions for "/", "/usr", "/var" and "/home" the first start from hard disk drive failed with the following error message:

ERROR: Root device mounted successfully, but /sbin/init does not exist.

"/sbin" in KaOS (and Arch Linux) is a symlink to "/usr/bin" (btw: I hate this change). This means that unless /usr is mounted, /usr/sbin/init will not exist. The installer doesn't take care of this fact when creating the initial ramdisk.

The problem can be fixed by changing the hooks and modifying "/etc/fstab":

1. In "/etc/fstab" the partion "/usr" has to be mounted with a passno of 0.

For the users, who are not so familiar with linux: The passno (fsck order) is the last column in "/etc/fstab" in each row. Hence the corresponding line should look like

UUID=a304512f-e1ce-499e-920f-5c18cd53969d /usr ext4 defaults,noatime 0 0
...

2. In "/etc/mkinitcpio.conf" the HOOKS line has to be extended with "usr" and you have to make sure that "fsck" and "block" are in this list, too.

3. Rebuild the initial ramdisk by executing: mkinitcpio -p linux

Steps to reproduce the problem

Install KaOS with a separate partition for /usr

Include the installation.log:

Sorry, I don't have a log file.

[demmm]

You seem to be confused what distrubution you wanted to install. This is not ArchLinux or any of it's many derivatives. KaOS certainly does not use any symlinks to /usr. If you had planned to install Arch, make sure to select another distribution than KaOS

If you do not have the installation.log then this install has many more issues thne just /usr not mounted, log is always copied to /var/log.
With this install using an unsupported way to create live media and with no logs, this bug report is not usable.

Make sure to read what KaOS is and is not, see the website and check the About, Download and Documentation sections.
https://kaosx.us/

[81909ce2298f99ddafa37936ba43eaac]

I know which distribution I have installed. I only mentioned that the file system layout seems to be identically because of the problem which occurred and the solution, but you're right: I didn't check if /sbin is symbolic link or not. My fault. When I wrote the bug report I just described the facts from memory ;-)

I don't think that I used an unsupported way to create the dvd media. https://kaosx.us/docs/dvd/) don't mention this.

I know that I didn't submit a log file. The reason is simple. It was just a testing system without internet access and I didn't have an usb media to transfer the log file.

Let's go back to the problem: I don't have access to the system at the moment. Hence I can't do further checks, but I'm absolutely sure that the system didn't boot the first time after the installation and that it boots after making the changes described above. And I'm absolutely sure that there was no "usr" in the HOOKS option right after the installation.

[demmm]

Again, nothing that can be done without logs, and as mentioned in your other report, start with correctly booting install media. Don't start with hacks.

[demmm]

Your own words to make the broken media boot:

I took a look at the file system and there wasn't a directory "/dev/disk/by-label/". I was able to fix the problem by entering the following commands:

mkdir /dev/disk/by-label/

ln -s /dev/sr0 /dev/disk/by-label/KAOS_20170217

exit (Shell)

Having to do some hacks to make it boot is clearly broken, what else do you want me to say?
Unless you can show you use install media that just boots there is no use to keep continuing with this bug report.
Re-open if you have issues and an installation.log of an install that was created with live media that boots without hacks/symlinks.

[81909ce2298f99ddafa37936ba43eaac]

Having to do some hacks to make it boot is clearly broken, what else do you want me to say?

I want say that there's most probably a bug in the installer. When creating the intial ram disk, the installer does not respect a separate /usr partition and does not extend the HOOKS.

Now you are telling me that's because of my broken DVD media (#77) despite the fact that I have installed KaOS from this media and got it up and running after solving the problems described here. As already mentioned in my other bug report (#77), this DVD media may broken or not, but from my point of view I have proven that it's not broken. You have made no attempt to prove your presumption that it is broken.

If you don't want to care about the problem without a log, my only chance is to reinstall the system from dvd.