While trying to move my computer to Debian, after allowing the installer to do it’s task, my machine will not boot.

Instead, I get a long string of text, as follows:

Could not retrieve perf counters (-19)
ACPI Warning: SystemIO range 0x00000000000000B00-0x0000000000000B08 conflicts withOpRegion 0x0000000000000B00-0x0000000000000B0F (\GSA1.SMBI) /20250404/utaddress-204)
usb: port power management may beunreliable
sd 10:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page found
sd 10:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
amdgpu 0000:08:00.0 amdgpu: [drm] Failed to setup vendor infoframe on connector HDMI-A-1: -22

And the system eventually collapses into a shell, that I do not know how to use. It returns:

Gave up waiting for root file system device. Common problems:
- Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
 - Check rootdelay= (did the system wait lomg enough?)
- Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)

Alert! /dev/sdb2 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!

The system has two disks mounted:

– an SSD, with the EFI, root, var, tmp and swap partition, for speeding up the overall system – an hdd, for /home

I had the system running on Mint until recently, so I know the system is sound, unless the SSD stopped working but then it is reasonable to expect it would no accept partitioning. Under Debian, it booted once and then stopped booting all together.

The installation I made was from a daily image, as I am/was aiming to put my machine on the testing branch, in order to have some sort of a rolling distro.

If anyone can offer some advice, it would be very much appreciated.

  • ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world
    115·
    2 days ago

    Why are you using multiple partitions ?

    Linux is not like Windows where you can run programs on any partition or inserted media ; you can only run executables on the primary boot partition. Its therefore pointless IMO to have more than one partition (plus a swap partition).

    Have you tried asking ChatGPT or Gemini ?

    This is what Bing said :

    Fixing “Gave up waiting for root device” error in Debian The error “Gave up waiting for root device” in Debian can be caused by missing modules or incorrect partition references. To fix this issue, you can follow these steps: Boot into a live session and list the UUIDs of all partitions using sudo blkid. Check the /etc/fstab file to ensure the correct UUID is listed for the root partition. If the UUID is missing or incorrect, replace it in the /etc/fstab file. If the error persists, you may need to rebuild the initramfs file by running sudo update-initramfs -u after installing the necessary modules with apt-get install lvm2 cryptsetup if you are using logical volumes. 1

    These steps should help you resolve the boot error and restore your system’s functionality.

    source :Ubuntu

    • kumi@feddit.onlineEnglish
      10·
      2 days ago

      Linux is not like Windows where you can run programs on any partition or inserted media ; you can only run executables on the primary boot partition. Its therefore pointless IMO to have more than one partition (plus a swap partition).

      What are you on? You can run executables from any partition (filesystem) as long as it is not mounted with the noexec mount option.

    • qyron@sopuli.xyzOP
      1·
      1 day ago

      Because I like having my disk properly partitioned, to keep things properly separated. Unlike windows.

      And no, I haven’t queried any AI. Because why question a machine when I can ask real human beings and learn from them instead?