Wannabe_Seasteader

Just a follow-up for anyone that encounters a similar problem... I got the display manager to work again after searching for "Lightdm fails to start" and found this link from the Manjaro forums: https://archived.forum.manjaro.org/t/solved-lightdm-fails-to-start/27058 and this Ubuntu page on LightDM: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LightDM At the command prompt I ran: sudo lightdm –-test-mode --debug and saw that the LightDM "greeter" wasn't being found (the apt-get upgrade seemed to have changed some config). From the "Changing the Greeter" section of the Ubuntu page I saw that my /usr/share/xgreeters directory contained two files: lightdm-greeter.desktop (a link to /etc/alternatives/lightdm-greeter) and lightdm-gtk-greeter.desktop From the Ubuntu page I created a file /etc/lightdm/lighdm.conf (with rw privileges for root and world-readable mode; e.g., -rw-r--r-- mode) which consists of only: # lightdm.conf - I put in some comments about it being my hack-work # (another example comment line) [Seat:*] greeter-session=lightdm-greeter I then rebooted and the graphical interface is working again. ^_^

The latest apt-get upgrade on my board running Focal updated all but two (described below) of the following packages: armbian-firmware armbian-focal-desktop-xfce armbian-zsh bluez bluez-obexd libbluetooth3 libnss-myhostname libpam-systemd libsecret-1-0 libsecret-common libsmbclient libsystemd0 libudev1 libwbclient0 linux-dtb-current-meson64 linux-image-current-meson64 linux-libc-dev linux-u-boot-odroidc4-current python3-samba samba samba-common samba-common-bin samba-libs smbclient systemdsystemd-sysv udev This generated a new initramfs and uboot updates so I rebooted afterwards to make sure everything was ok. Now, the Light Display Manager has a "failed to start" message and it prompts to see "systemctl status lightdm.service'. The output from that command is reproduced here: http://ix.io/3qc2 . (It tries to start the service five times and then gives up and gives the command-line login only). When I try to run $ sudo apt-get update again, the output now shows that : armbian-config and linux-focal-root-current-odroidc4 have been kept back. Any suggestions on how to get that glorious desktop happening again? I'm trying to get more experience with C, systems programming, drivers, scripting, (also interested in the Berkeley Software Distributions, have a working Linux From Scratch built [but haven't delved into https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/ much yet], have compiled a couple kernels with Gentoo, and have done some hobbyist work w/ assembly programming). In short, I like this project and want to contribute after improving my skillset more and (also getting more freetime) -- but my system stubbed its toe on this latest update. should I revert (somehow) to an earlier version of a package? (I'm not sure which one or ones from that list of updates goofed the lightdm service up.) Thanks in advance for any assistance.

After getting past those prompts with no real input (just hitting enter a few times) - I'd thought perhaps that might be all that was required. Additionally, at shutdown, there was a series of messages displayed about waiting for unexpected input (each message repeated the same line or three and referenced its own independent process-id) before it finalized shutdown. Those messages are probably stored in a log somewhere in the filesystem. However, I wasn't initially able to get past the prompts on turning on the system today (thirty enters later and it was still asking). It is the openvpn service at bootup -- it only asked once for the Auth Username then stalled until I plugged the ethernet cable in. So, I unplugged the board and I was preparing to reinstall when I noticed that I had write access to the eMMC via the USB-to-eMMC reader (I did a duckduckgo search for the "Enter Auth" phrases and "openvpn" and found the askubuntu link that Heisath posted). In /etc/default/openvpn I removed the comment out so that AUTOSTART="none" is the behavior at boot. This time there weren't those "Starting OpenVPN connection" messages shown in the screen shot nor the validation brick-wall questions. I'm writing this message via the Armbian system and I'm able to turn the OpenVPN on or off in userspace so things are good. I might tinker around with the kernel arguments (I've had mixed success trying to get crashkernel working on an Ubuntu machine with them) and see about getting that rescue shell. A rescue mode would be useful. Also, I want to see if I can finally get minicom or some other serial interface connected with a laptop and the board's UART. Thanks to both of you for the help.

I'm using the Desktop (non-cli) image. The first set of prompts is at the bottom of the image (just to show what was happening). Without entering any input, the interface prompts for the password after about a minute of no input. If I'd left it running longer I would have had a series of prompts (that would vary between asking for the username or the password -- not always in that order). I took the screen shot and was going to enter my password and username for the VPN but pressed enter twice and it flushed through whatever the problem was. I'm now at the desktop. The bypass seems to be not trying to enter root, the username, or any password but simply pushing the carriage-return key a few times repeatedly with no other input made earlier. It may very well be because the VPN service is being polled in the boot sequence (as shown in the screen shot) -- though it's not actually connecting until I run a shell script that's: $ sudo openvpn /etc/openvpn/<configuration file> I haven't experimented enough with the USB to UART (haven't got the terminal recognized in my laptop at the moment -- I was trying to do this ). I was getting some minimal dialog via minicom when I was trying to get FreeBSD to boot on the board (but I haven't figured out how to configure the BSD bootloader in u-boot yet -- just read something that involved getting the BSD-world pkgsrc configured on a Linux system).

I did my first install yesterday on a ODROID C4 with the Focal/Xfce Desktop image running the 5.10.27 kernel (Armbian_21.02.4_Odroidc4_focal_current_5.10.27_xfce_desktop.img). I installed it on an eMMC card which I had tested using f3read and f3write earlier (those tests worked). I reset the root password and added a user with sudo privileges. I also did an apt-get update/upgrade and installed openvpn (the openVPN service that I use seemed to be working as with my laptops). I didn't tinker much more and shut Armbian down. I was very pleased with Armbian (and much preferred it to the stock Ubuntu Mate). I was (and still am) looking to use Armbian as my preferred OS for ARM boards (as well as looking at the BSDs). Today, I booted the board up and saw the boot-up services giving their ok's (among them, initial connections to the VPN services). Then it got to the "Enter Auth Username" and "Enter Auth Password" brick wall... I saw another forum post that seemed to suggest entering "root" and the password "1234" followed by two iterations of using the new root password. However, no combination of "root" or the new username and the associated passwords (either 1234 or the new root password) is working. I've tested the couple special characters used in the password in the username field and they seem to be transmitting ok. I'm really stumped (and I'm probably going to have to resort to pulling the plug and resorting to the Mate image to do work with my first ARM board for now -- which is extremely annoying). A few other quibbles (from someone with some C/C++ and x86 and AMD64 assembly-language experience and who wants to improve my skillset in C and ARM assembly-language): there should probably be better feedback from the password handshaking (i.e. if a password received by the OS was incorrect, most *nixes let you know). the timer for the prompt makes one wonder what is happening (what state the interface is in). If left alone -- without typing anything -- the interface alternates between the username and password prompt. It asks for the username, nothing happens (i.e., the "enter" key was never pressed), and a minute or so later it asks for the password of this blank user (and repeats this loop endlessly). Other times when left alone it repeatedly asks for the Username or repeatedly for the Password (something's messed up). That last one is definitely a bug, so is when you enter "root" for the username and then it follows this up by asking for username instead of the password (sometimes five or six times). This is kind of a nuance on the same sort of questionable state the authentication-handshaking is in. For now, I'm putting the Armbian eMMC aside, gathering network information from the Ubuntu Mate eMMC and doing some experiments with FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD. I've been trying to expand my horizons from Ubuntu and Debian forks (Gentoo, Linux From Scratch, FreeBSD, Manjaro, probably Arch and Illumos at some point) on my laptops but am really hopeful about exploring and doing further work with Armbian; my first impression was very enthusiastic -- my second impression... it's buggy (at least if you ever shut the system down).