I can't boot into slackware 14.0. As I have been installing and uninstalling, I'm presuming I'm to blame somehow.

What happens:All fine starting, remounts / rw, up to line 259 of /etc/rc.d/rc.S when it starts throwing 'Permission denied' errors for things like /bin/rm, and /bin/chmod. Every line throws an error. /bin is executable, and no major libs seem to be missing. No packages seem to be missing. The files are 64 bit executables

That continues to line 394 of rc.S (the end?) and INIT announces we're entering runlevel 3. I then get a screenful of 'Unable to execute /sbin/agetty' errors, and it shuts that up because it's respawning too fast. Init subsequently goes down in flames. but it won't execute /sbin/shutdown.

I booted from an old install disk, and _I_ could execute /sbin/sgetty, and don't get this at all. I don't really know my way around slackware's init Off now to check the disk. Any ideas welcome.

If no other OS is on the computer, you may want to wipe the hard drive and start over. Take a look at DBAN. Runs from a live cd.

Put it in and reboot.

If everything goes okay up to line 259, then line 208 must have been executed ok:

206: # Remount the root filesystem in read-write mode
207: echo "Remounting root device with read-write enabled."
208: /sbin/mount -w -v -n -o remount /

Since this mount command does not mention the device, it must read the /etc/fstab for
more information.

I suspect that there is something wrong with the /etc/fstab file line where it lists the root device and root directory "/".

Is the root device correct?

Are there any mount options "-o ..."?

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks - I haveother OS options & a backup, and I HATE setting up a reinstall.

@ comet.berkeley:

Congratulations and thanks my friend, there was a stray 'user' option in /. Your detective work was spot on. I find Fedora very messy to use because the print is miniscule and it doesn't help my eyes. Thank you for the trouble.