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I have read the other related articles, but have not been able to resolve this issue. Either the scenario is not applicable, or I do not fully understand the subject matter, as one who has been a microsoft guy for 25 years.

I have decided to venture into the Linux pool, but I have to say that after 2 weeks of reading and loading and configuring a working FOG server, only to have it rendered unusable by a software update, has put a kabosh on some measure of my enthusiam. A trust issue right out the door is not a good thing. Anyway-

Im running a fresh load of 18.04LTS with FOG 1.5.6. Neither are upgrades from prior versions.

Today (18.June.2019) the system had another batch of software updates to load. After reboot, the system goes straight to GNU GRUB menu. Nothing in this menu will get me past it.

Linux 4.18.0-22 generic tops the Grub menu

Please advise. (in beginner dialect) Very much obliged.

qweequeg
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    Does the grub report any error? – schrodingerscatcuriosity Jun 18 '19 at 16:59
  • Thank you Guillermo.. How would I view errors? Im only seeing a menu. – qweequeg Jun 18 '19 at 17:25
  • On the grub screen what do you see, and what type of update where these? – George Udosen Jun 18 '19 at 17:35
  • See: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/Troubleshooting for help. Please always use a VM to test out these kinds of installs as recommended on the site before going life. – George Udosen Jun 18 '19 at 17:38
  • It's possible that your grub didn't reflect the change of kernel, and tries to boot with the old one. To make things easy, can you boot with a live system and check /boot/grub/grub.cfg (in your sda1)? – schrodingerscatcuriosity Jun 18 '19 at 17:42
  • See also: https://askubuntu.com/a/1044518/459561 – George Udosen Jun 18 '19 at 17:46
  • How do I boot with a live system? – qweequeg Jun 18 '19 at 20:08
  • Welcome to AskUbuntu! I admit it's a shot in the dark without a full report, but did you try to reboot and hold the Shift key (Escape if you are on UEFI, on most systems afaik) to access the GRUB (not recovery) menu, and selecting your previous kernel? – Alessandro Flati Jun 18 '19 at 17:03
  • Thank you, Alessandro.. I just did (UEFI). I don't get a menu. I get what appears to be a terminal. Hitting 'Tab' reveals a long list of 'Possible Commands'. from the first grub menu, I can select 'Advanced Options for Ubuntu'. Choosing that option will bring me to a list of what I assume are kernels. None of them will boot when selected. – qweequeg Jun 18 '19 at 17:18
  • Then I'm afraid you'll save time reinstalling the whole thing from scratch, rather than trying to repair it. If you really need to debug, you could try posting here the result of (in GRUB> rescue mode): ls: this should show you a list of HD devices (where hopefully your initramfs is stored). You can navigate through them as in a normal shell, like ls (hdX), and you should find one that contains the path (hdX)/boot/grub. If so, please type set root=(hdX) followed by set prefix=/boot/grub (or set prefix=(hdX)/boot/grub), then lsmod normal (or insert normal) and normal – Alessandro Flati Jun 18 '19 at 17:33
  • OK.. I just found a message that flashes on the screen so fast, that I had to take a video of it, and go frame-by-frame on playback, to read it. The reads:

    System Boot Order not Found. Initializing defaults. Creating Boot entry Boot002E with label "Ubuntu" for file "\EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi

     – qweequeg Jun 18 '19 at 17:39
  • That means - unsurprisingly - that you don't have a well configured boot. If you can start from a Live Distro and mount your disk (how did you partition it? LVM? LUKS? Simple partition?) then you can try a ’grub install’... But I think that's really out of the scope of the question, now. – Alessandro Flati Jun 18 '19 at 19:03
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    RESOLVED Thank you all, for your willingness to assist me in this issue. Amazingly enough.. this issue was caused by a plugged-in USB headset. Because I was unable to perform any of your suggestions, I felt it had to be either a damaged disk, or something incredibly stupid. So, after a successful disk check, I unplugged all USB devices from the PC as a last measure before doing a reload, and it booted-up perfectly. How can this happen??? I would be very interested in hearing how a USB headset can interfere with the reading of a system boot order. Amazing.. – qweequeg Jun 19 '19 at 13:33

1 Answers1

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The issue was caused by a plugged-in USB headset. Because I was unable to perform any of your suggestions, I felt it had to be either a damaged disk, or something incredibly stupid.

After a successful disk check, I unplugged all USB devices from the PC as a last measure before doing a reload, and it booted-up perfectly.

double-beep
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qweequeg
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  • Some USB-stuff does tricks; e.g. at least one USB-to-ETHERNET adapter brings up not only the USB-thingie, but also a DRIVE containing the Driver software (brand names: Dell, Realtek) – Hannu Jun 20 '19 at 08:53