Difficulty switching to linux-current kernel

jrsilvey

I had an issue which broke my wifi capabilities on my laptop which I outlined in this forum post.. This issue has been a problem for some time. However since I no longer use this laptop outside of my house and connect to the internet using a Gigabit USB-to-Ethernet connector the inability to use wifi is irrelevant and I would like to update from linux-lts to linux-current.

Last week I started Solus up in * com.solus-project.current.5.11.9-* (can't recall the exact kernel as I upgraded to 5.11.12-177 on Friday) and then typed sudo clr-boot-manager update and after a seemingly very long pause the command was issued.

I thought nothing of it until yesterday when I ran uname -r and found, to my surprise, that I was still running the linux-lts kernel at 4.14.

I went through the various clr-boot-manager commands multiple times. At every time when I ran sudo clr-boot-manager update in the 5.11.12-177 kernel and then typed sudo clr-boot-manager list-kernels this was displayed:

* com.solus-project.current.5.11.12-177

The * denotes that this is my selected kernel, correct?

Yet every time I restarted I would boot up into 4.14.

I even deleted the linux-lts kernel by running sudo eopkg rm linux-lts linux-lts-headers and now when I run sudo clr-boot-manager list-kernels I don't see any options for 4.14 in the listed kernels.

However when I restart I get to the lightdm login manager and as soon as I use the mouse everything freezes. When I restart and hit the space bar to select a kernel, the linux-lts kernel 4.14 is still there and it is the selected kernel. I have to manually select the 5.11.12 kernel in order to successfully boot into Solus.

Any idea how to fix this?

SuperJC710e

jrsilvey Perhaps check what is in your /boot/loader/loader.conf file, as that is what is set to be booted by default.

Here's the contents of mine:

timeout 4
default Solus-current-5.11.12-177.conf

Also, you can check what is in: /boot/EFI/com.solus-project with regard to kernels and initrd files, and the conf files in /boot/loader/entries

You may need to mount your boot partition first. Also, it's a good idea to back it up before making changes.

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /boot (for example)

tomocafe

I noticed this too, but haven’t had time to dig further.

SuperJC710e

That’s great, but shouldn’t the clr-boot-manager update command take care of this for me? At least, the documentation seems to indicate this is all we need to do to switch the default boot kernel. Did something change, or did we do something that led us astray?

(This is an open question, not addressed to @SuperJC710e specifically)

tomocafe

SuperJC710e

Same experience with OP:

$ sudo clr-boot-manager list-kernels
* com.solus-project.current.5.11.12-177
  com.solus-project.lts.4.14.226-170

So clr-boot-manager sees current as default. But I am still booted into lts.

$ uname -r
4.14.226-170.lts

Thanks for the tips about checking the boot partition. Everything looks like it should be pointing to current. Any further tips?

$ cat /boot/loader/loader.conf
default Solus-current-5.11.12-177.conf

$ tree /boot
/boot
├── EFI
│   ├── Boot
│   │   └── BOOTX64.EFI
│   ├── com.solus-project
│   │   ├── initrd-com.solus-project.current.5.11.12-177
│   │   ├── initrd-com.solus-project.lts.4.14.226-170
│   │   ├── kernel-com.solus-project.current.5.11.12-177
│   │   └── kernel-com.solus-project.lts.4.14.226-170
│   ├── goofiboot
│   │   └── goofibootx64.efi
│   └── systemd
│       └── systemd-bootx64.efi
└── loader
    ├── entries
    │   ├── Solus-current-5.11.12-177.conf
    │   └── Solus-lts-4.14.226-170.conf
    └── loader.conf

7 directories, 10 files

Any ideas why I am still getting the lts kernel?

tomocafe

Looks like this might be what the problem is: https://dev.getsol.us/T9327

but efivar shows I am using goofiboot?

Name: "LoaderInfo"
Attributes:
	Boot Service Access
	Runtime Service Access
Value:
00000000  67 00 6f 00 6f 00 66 00  69 00 62 00 6f 00 6f 00  |g.o.o.f.i.b.o.o.|
00000010  74 00 20 00 35 00 31 00  00 00                    |t. .5.1...      |

DataDrake

@tomocafe

Make sure boot partition isn't mounted

# Unmount /boot/efi if it was loaded from /etc/fstab
sudo umount /boot/efi

# Unmount /boot if it was loaded from /etc/fstab
sudo umount /boot

Remove /boot or /boot/efi from /etc/fstab

# open file as root
sudo <editor of choice> /etc/fstab

# remove line with /boot*
# save and close

Find out what your boot partition is:

lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT

nvme0n1     259:0    0   477G  0 disk 
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0 488.3M  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0   3.7G  0 part [SWAP]
└─nvme0n1p3 259:3    0 472.8G  0 part /

In my case we can see / is on nvme0n1 and that /boot will be /dev/nvme0n1p1

Install systemd-boot

# Install systemd-boot to /dev/nvme0n1p1
sudo bootctl install /dev/nvme0n1p1

Then follow this: https://dev.getsol.us/T9327#177371

tomocafe

DataDrake Sorry for late reply, but for #1, I have neither of those mounted, nor are they in my fstab. (I had manually mounted it for the previous post just to peek inside.) For #2, my boot partition is also nvme0n1p1.

nvme0n1              259:0    0 465.8G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1          259:1    0 488.3M  0 part
└─nvme0n1p2          259:2    0 465.3G  0 part
  ├─SolusSystem-Swap 253:0    0   3.7G  0 lvm
  └─SolusSystem-Root 253:1    0 461.6G  0 lvm  /

But the bootctl command doesn't work.

$ sudo bootctl install /dev/nvme0n1p1
Too many arguments.

Also tried it without the disk argument:

$ sudo bootctl install
Couldn't find EFI system partition. It is recommended to mount it to /boot or /efi.
Alternatively, use --esp-path= to specify path to mount point.

Any ideas? BTW, I installed Solus way back in 2017. Not sure if this makes any difference here.

tomocafe

Got it to work by remounting /dev/nvme0n1p1 to /boot and then running sudo bootctl install. Then I followed these instructions to remove goofiboot, and things are working great now! I had to boot into current, run sudo clr-boot-manager update and now it always boots into current!