Lubuntu No Bootu

[Piyono]

A friend of a friend 9000 miles away is running Lubuntu on an ancient Packard Bell netbook.
During an update (today?) the machine kernel-panicked and won't boot. My friend's friend human-panicked; I got the call and a bunch of screenshots.

I would gladly muscle through this if I was there in person but given the continental divide and my woefully underdeveloped Linux intuition I think my best option is to probe the collective mind at StorageForum for likely solutions that could be administered by command-line illiterates (and me, remotely).

Do the attached screenshots suggest a troubleshooting trajectory?

I've already instructed the concerned party to download the latest live image and get it onto a USB flash drive.

 

[Chewy509]

The very first screen shot indicates either a corrupt initrd or corrupt primary filesystem... (... filesystem doesn't have requested /sbin/init ).

 

[Chewy509]

Sorry for the short reply, was in a rush...

Anyway, it's most likely a corrupt initrd image or filesystem. If it's a corrupt initrd, simply selecting one of the kernel versions (eg 3.3.13-032) should get the system booting... If it doesn't then you've got a corrupt filesystem.

In that case boot into the live environment, find the correct partition via 'lsblk', and run 'fsck' against it. (lsblk should give the sizes of the disk and partitions, so should be easy to pick out the right partition). fsck should tell you what is going on with the filesystem... If it's really bad, then simply wipe clean and restore from backup...

Alternatively, it could be a failing HDD, in which case check the SMART values via 'smartctl' (or if in a GUI, you could use Disks Utility - https://askubuntu.com/questions/528...-a-ssd-or-hdd-on-current-versions-of-ubuntu-1 )

Additional information on alternative methods for fsck against the filesystem (if the recovery initrd is setup and available): https://www.tecmint.com/fsck-repair-file-system-errors-in-linux/

Hope this helps...

 

[sedrosken]

What release of Lubuntu is that? Kernel 3.13 is ancient, just how long have they been procrastinating on updates?

Anyway, I second what Chewy said. Though, if they're freaked out by this, then maybe these steps are a bit too much for them.

 

[Chewy509]

What release of Lubuntu is that? Kernel 3.13 is ancient,

My guess would be 14.04LTS...

 

[Piyono]

What release of Lubuntu is that? Kernel 3.13 is ancient, just how long have they been procrastinating on updates?

Anyway, I second what Chewy said. Though, if they're freaked out by this, then maybe these steps are a bit too much for them.

My guess is that the netbook became unusably slow with Windows installed (which was par for the course with those machines) and someone installed Lubuntu in, like 2010, and it was never updated.
My hope is that I will be able to walk them through it on a voice call.

 

[Piyono]

Sorry for the short reply, was in a rush...

Anyway, it's most likely a corrupt initrd image or filesystem. If it's a corrupt initrd, simply selecting one of the kernel versions (eg 3.3.13-032) should get the system booting... If it doesn't then you've got a corrupt filesystem.

In that case boot into the live environment, find the correct partition via 'lsblk', and run 'fsck' against it. (lsblk should give the sizes of the disk and partitions, so should be easy to pick out the right partition). fsck should tell you what is going on with the filesystem... If it's really bad, then simply wipe clean and restore from backup...

Alternatively, it could be a failing HDD, in which case check the SMART values via 'smartctl' (or if in a GUI, you could use Disks Utility - https://askubuntu.com/questions/528...-a-ssd-or-hdd-on-current-versions-of-ubuntu-1 )

Additional information on alternative methods for fsck against the filesystem (if the recovery initrd is setup and available): https://www.tecmint.com/fsck-repair-file-system-errors-in-linux/

Hope this helps...

Thanks, Chewy,

Now I have reason to brush up on my Linux skills.
I'll keep the thread posted on developments.

 

[Stereodude]

How did you get roped into tech support for someone 9000 miles away?

 

[Chewy509]

How did you get roped into tech support for someone 9000 miles away?

It's because he was the last "IT nerd" to touch it (even though that was years ago), the failure is his fault, and he now has to fix it... (lots of sarcasm).

My guess, family member or close relative.

 

[Piyono]

It's because he was the last "IT nerd" to touch it (even though that was years ago), the failure is his fault, and he now has to fix it... (lots of sarcasm).

LOL Nope!

My guess, family member or close relative.

Yup!
It's what I get for being the only member of my social circles who solves problems and fixes stuff, and for not finding someone to deflect to before I left.

 

[Piyono]

As it turns out, friend-of-friend either gave up on the laptop or disappeared back to Paris so situation over.