About Busybox - NOW solved!

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T J Tulley
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About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by T J Tulley »

So many times Grub dumps me in Busybox I determined to discover whether it might be used.

I found an article in Wikipedia [NOT Mint Wiki] at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BusyBox which gives history and how it is used.

I tried to see whether it could be accessed from within Elyssa now that is open (after another struggle today!) - a command $ man Busybox gave no manual, nor did $ man busybox - then I tried a command $ busybox, which produced the response:
theo@TJT4Elyssa / $ busybox
The program 'busybox' can be found in the following packages:
* busybox
* busybox-static
Try: sudo apt-get install <selected package>
bash: busybox: command not found [End of response].

I shall be grateful for offers of any more advice. I am puzzled by the * preceding those package names.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 5 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Yours hopefully -

Theo Tulley.
Using a PC with 2GB RAM, 3 hdds and a 1.7 GHz Celeron cpu.
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Re: About Busybox - NOT solved!

Post by T J Tulley »

Thanks Ryawn:

That method didn't work for me: in fact after that change BusyBox appeared every time I tried to boot, and ultimately I had to use Supergrub - several times before it was successful. Now I have undone that edit, but generally I avoid re-booting and instead hibernate.

That works in Elyssa although it reports failure. It works even better if you install the package hibernate and use the command line $ sudo hibernate
Yours hopefully -

Theo Tulley.
Using a PC with 2GB RAM, 3 hdds and a 1.7 GHz Celeron cpu.
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Re: About Busybox - NOT solved!

Post by T J Tulley »

Thanks again Ryawn: Yes I was careful about the editing!

It would be difficult to change my hd connections - as well as messing up all sorts of addresses written into software and I suppose what in Windows would be Registry. It's bad enough having Elyssa suddenly deciding in /boot/grub/device.map that hdd0 = /dev/sdb et c.

My boot problems are currently aggravated by a card reader which I've just installed - I have come to the conclusion that the PC won't boot with the reader connected - but if I connect it after booting, it mounts itself nicely to a directory which I created for it. There remains a problem that I can't write to it, and it refuses to $ sudo chmod 666 - at present it's 644, owner & group are both root. But that's a discussion in another forum.
Yours hopefully -

Theo Tulley.
Using a PC with 2GB RAM, 3 hdds and a 1.7 GHz Celeron cpu.
teoh

Re: About Busybox - NOT solved!

Post by teoh »

This did wonders for my boot ;) thanks a lot!
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Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by T J Tulley »

Thanks , tech, for your reply to this - it alerted me to go back to the beginning of the topic and I tried again Ryawn's tweak of the /boot/grub/menu.lst entry - this time it has worked wonders for me too: two of my installations are booting happily after having been disabled by BusyBox. I've edited the topic to "Now solved!"

Thanks especially to Ryawn.
Yours hopefully -

Theo Tulley.
Using a PC with 2GB RAM, 3 hdds and a 1.7 GHz Celeron cpu.
flintstone

Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by flintstone »

I was going to try this, but my "sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.list" attempt pulls up a blank page?.....nothing to edit? (note: I have very little experience at this sort of thing).

I opened up terminal, pasted in sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.list, typed in password....menu list opens (except it's blank?)

What did I do wrong?
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Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by T J Tulley »

Hi Flintstone:

1) Filename in /boot/grub is menu.lst, not menu.list
2) If it won't open from command, try navigating to it - but you may need to change the ownership/permissions - then double-click to open and edit. This also applies to editing by command.
3) I find it useful to go to View (in File browser) and set Visible columns to include octal permissions, owner and group. I move them to follow Date modified.
4) I think safest way to display files in / is double-click on Computer on Desktop, then Filesystem.

Hope this helps.
Yours hopefully -

Theo Tulley.
Using a PC with 2GB RAM, 3 hdds and a 1.7 GHz Celeron cpu.
flintstone

Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by flintstone »

T J Tulley wrote:Hi Flintstone:

1) Filename in /boot/grub is menu.lst, not menu.list
2) If it won't open from command, try navigating to it - but you may need to change the ownership/permissions - then double-click to open and edit. This also applies to editing by command.
3) I find it useful to go to View (in File browser) and set Visible columns to include octal permissions, owner and group. I move them to follow Date modified.
4) I think safest way to display files in / is double-click on Computer on Desktop, then Filesystem.

Hope this helps.
Thank you, that does pull up the info after typing "lst" in place of "list"

I haven't changed anything yet...I have found something else strange. If I re-boot and let boot up timer count down, and then boot....my system does not go past the first load screen....the little bar just keeps going back and forth?

If I hit enter, and not let the timer count down....mint-5 loads right up every time?......no problem?.....seems kinda strange?
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Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by T J Tulley »

Yes there was a stage at which I found it would boot if I clicked but not if it timed out - didn't last long, and hasn't recurred.

One of my installs would show the reciprocating bar "for ever" - ultimately it would go to BusyBox.

Now I have 2 installs working - I shall only use one; the other will be over-written when Felicia appears.

You can try pasting in the replacement for "splash" suggested by Ryawn and see if it is saved on closing - if not you'll have to tackle the permissions. I copied the required text straight from Ryawn's post in this topic.

If necessary, you can look at man chmod in the terminal. See also: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FilePermissions
I printed both of these for frequent reference.

If you cd to a directory, ls -l will show the details of the contained files including their permissions.
Yours hopefully -

Theo Tulley.
Using a PC with 2GB RAM, 3 hdds and a 1.7 GHz Celeron cpu.
flintstone

Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by flintstone »

Ok, I did the edit and it worked :mrgreen:

Thank you ryawn and tully....I now have Mint-5 on my first hard drive working fine, and Windows XP working like it always did, on my second hard drive.....my world is good again.
mindbender9

Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by mindbender9 »

Guys, I'm trying to install Mint v6 on my desktop and the Busybox error keeps coming.

Since I don't know how to modify the menu.lst from the CDROM, how do you install Mint?

Let me add that Opensuse installs fine, so does Fedora. It's impossible to install either Ubuntu or Mint without the stupid Busybox error from appearing.

Please explain how to install this, because I can't see how any Linux distro expects to succeed with this happening.
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Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by T J Tulley »

Hi, mindbender9:
I presume you have an installation of Felicia (LinuxMint-6) which won't open.

In a similar situation I was able to access and edit /boot/grub/menu.lst in the Mint filesystem from an installation (in memory) of PuppyLinux (recommended long ago by Fred) - you might be able to do so from OpenSuse or Fedora if you have one installed as well as Mint, but I've never used those.

Hope this helps.
Yours hopefully -

Theo Tulley.
Using a PC with 2GB RAM, 3 hdds and a 1.7 GHz Celeron cpu.
mindbender9

Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by mindbender9 »

Thanks for responding Theo.

Yes, I've burned a copy of the universal build of Felicia, and I get the Busybox error which dumps me at a prompt of some sort after the GUI stalls. It seems that I'm not the only one who's been experiencing this.

Let's say I was able to grab a copy of /boot/grub/menu.lst from OpenSuse. What do I do with it? There's no way to put it on the CD if I'm burning from an ISO, correct? And I can't install Mint or Ubuntu from the CD to substitute the menu.lst.

Just out of curiosity, why haven't the developers for Ubuntu or Mint done anything to resolve this? There are a number of people out there (I googled) that are asking for assistance but have not gotten anything. There are also a lot of posts everywhere that claim to have an answer, but there's nothing solid to offer people.

I've spent 11 years with SuSE in one form or another, and I've never seen an issue with a Linux distro this careless or unresponsive.

But I appreciate any/all assistance that you could provide.
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Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by T J Tulley »

Hi mindbender: Sorry - I wasn't entirely clear.

Obviously it is necessary to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst in the installed Felicia so that it operates during the boot process for that filesystem. To do this if it won't boot, it is necessary to access it from another working filesystem - I used PuppyLinux installed in memory. Unlike LinuxMint when working from memory, this allows editing access to hard disks.

It's a very compact distro., and not entirely intuitive to operate - however I found my way around and I've only been using Linux - exclusively Mint until then - for about 2 years.

To use OpenSuse or Fedora it would be necessary to have that installed and booted in a different partition.

BTW, have you tried Supergrub? You might get Felicia to boot with that, and then do the edit. Permissions might have to be changed.

Throughout this I am referring to the edit suggested by Ryawn in his reply to this topic dated 16/7/08. I have only experienced the Gnome access version, but the actual edit is the same for all.

Re: why it happens: a puzzle. it is very architecture-dependent. My present installation worked perfectly until I upgraded my RAM from 1 GB to 2 GB - then BusyBox prevented booting until I edited menu.lst.

I suspect it may be related to the software used in the .iso CD - the Install process produces a variable result in the file /boot/grub/device.map - I have posted about this in the Installation and Boot forum.
Yours hopefully -

Theo Tulley.
Using a PC with 2GB RAM, 3 hdds and a 1.7 GHz Celeron cpu.
mindbender9

Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by mindbender9 »

Thank you for replying, as I appreciate your assistance.

I apologize for not being specific about my install problem but I cannot even get Felicia to install because of this Busybox problem off of the install DVD (Universal ISO - Felicia v6). When I boot off the DVD (or a magazine-supplied CDRom just to verify), the boot screen and GUI start and then nothing happens for a while until the Busybox error pops up.

Just to clarify, I cannot install Felicia. I cannot get to the first install screen.

I am using a Gigabyte motherboard with an Intel Celeron 2.0GhZ CPU + 1GB RAM. In addition, I'm using a SATA drive, which I've read is sometimes a cause to the Busybox fault with installed systems, but I can't even get to the first install screen.

So my question is: if I cannot even get to the first install screen from the DVD's menu, how do I install Linux Mint (or Ubuntu)? This is why I've been so critical of Mint/Ubuntu because of this issue. I've even gotten the finicky OpenSolaris to install on this setup, but Mint/Ubuntu cannot be installed.

Should I start a new thread since this is an install problem? Thanks.
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Re: About Busybox - NOW solved!

Post by T J Tulley »

Hi mindbender again.

Your problem is certainly different - I suggest reporting it in the Installation and Boot forum.

The latest mail in it NOW is about a similar problem, with a suggestion in reply. Have a look!
Yours hopefully -

Theo Tulley.
Using a PC with 2GB RAM, 3 hdds and a 1.7 GHz Celeron cpu.
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