[lug] Booting issue. Deb Etch

[Hugh Brown]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 01:48:41PM -0600, Gary Hodges wrote:
> Gary Hodges wrote:
>> I attempted an upgrade (Sarge -> Etch) on a AMD K6-III machine, and was 
>> having an issue during the boot process.  I finally gave up and just 
>> reinstalled.  Same problem.
>>
>> The problem:
>> During the boot process it gets to a boot message saying udev is being 
>> fully populated.  Then I get two messages about the BusLogic adapter being 
>> successful, then...
>>
>> INIT: Cannot execute /sbin/getty
>> INIT: Id 1 respawning too fast: disable for 5 minutes
>> INIT: Id 2 respawning too fast: disable for 5 minutes
>> INIT: Id 3 respawning too fast: disable for 5 minutes
>> INIT: Id 4 respawning too fast: disable for 5 minutes
>> INIT: Id 6 respawning too fast: disable for 5 minutes
>> INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel
>> INIT: Id 5 respawning too fast: disable for 5 minutes
>>
>> If left it seems to repeat in some sense.  If I hit Ctrl C after the 
>> second BusLogic message it sometimes completes the boot process.  It 
>> sometimes produces those INIT messages too.  I don't know if Ctrl C does 
>> anything, but it gives me something to try.
>>
>> I have the 2.6.18-6-486 kernel installed.  I tried the 2.6.18-6-686 kernel 
>> but it segfaults during the boot.  Once running the machine seems to be 
>> OK.
>
> A little research later...  I'm gathering from some web searching that 
> maybe I should comment one or more, or maybe all, of the following lines 
> from the /etc/inittab file.
>
> 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
> 2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
> 3:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3
> 4:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4
> 5:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty5
> 6:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6
>
> Does this sound right?

If you disable all of them, then you'll have no virtual console's to flip to if X doesn't work.

I'd try and find out why /sbin/getty is telling INIT "Cannot execute"  Boot to single user mode and look in /var/log/boot.log and /var/log/syslog for info.

Hugh