ArmBook won't shut down

A plea for help. My ArmBook (PineBook) will not shut down properly from the Manjaro desktop. It exits the desktop and then produces a huge number of messages. The last one I noted was ‘closing down kvm’. It does not turn itself off; I have to do that manually by keeping my finger on the on/off button. It can be started. Any suggestions what I should do to bring it back to normality?

Hi Gavin,

Did you sort this out as my Armbook, running Manjaro, now exhibits this same issue following the install of the latest updates.

Did you sort this out ….

No, but I think I know some more about it. It is guesswork on my part, but the machine is not closing down because there are still running processes. A Linux expert could probably read off what was wrong immediately from the mass of messages that appear at shutdown. The systemd-shutdown message is Waiting for process systemd-udevd . I think this concerns stuff plugged in a USB socket. In my case I have two devices: a wireless mouse and a TPLINK dongle that provides wifi connection to my router. There is also a message kvm: exiting hardware virtualization. Failed to finalize file system ‘/oldroot’ .

In fact I can still use Manjaro. It is slow to start up, and I have to switch the machine off eventually by keeping my finger down on the on/off button. Let us keep in touch about further progress.

22 minutes later —
Google Failed to unmount /oldroot Device or Resource busy
It looks like this is an old thorn in the flesh of ArchLinux.

Doug, my file /etc/systemd/system/systemd-rfkill.socket appears to have zero bytes, which looks suspicious to me. What does yours contain? If mine is empty by mistake then knowing what yours contains could be helpful.

I have altered the line
#KillUserProcess=no
in /etc/systemd/logind.conf to
KillUserProcess=yes
but it seems to have made no difference.

Let us keep in touch about further progress.

Hi Gavin,

Agree , hopefully the next updates will resolve the issue.

I don’t have anything plugged in when in Linux but it still looks to be waiting for something and states it is unable to dismount a drive as well.

states it is unable to dismount a drive as well.

Would that be /oldroot I wonder? When I first got my ArmBook from RComp Andrew gave me two emmc cards to try out, Ubuntu and Manjaro. I liked Manjaro better but its version was too old to upgrade properly, as Manjaro had just changed the address of their repository. The ArmBook had to go back to RComp briefly and Andrew installed a later version of Manjaro, for which updating worked. Later wifi stopped working on it, and I am pretty sure this is a hardware problem, because insertion of the TP-LINK dongle restores it again.

Once I had an Rpi4, and could boot it from a USB3 device, I bought another drive for it so that I could run either Raspbian or Manjaro on it. I tried to keep the Manjaro settings on the ArmBook and the Rpi4 identical. I have had no problems with the upgrade on the Rpi4. So the hardware differences between the two must be playing a role.

Hi Gavin,

Just a quick update on this issue.

I factory installed KDENeon again and then updated to Manjaro 20.12 and finally then installed all the updates again but I still get the same error codes on booting and a hard power off is required to shutdown still.

So it looks like something in the latest builds does not like the Pinebook.

It isn`t a big issue but will see if any further updates correct the issue.

One other thing is that the reason I had to go back to the factory install is that I had run out of disc space and Manjaro would not install any further updates.

Now i have no additional files on the Linux side so either the kernal panic files ae being stored or the updates files are stored somewhere and erode in to the available disc space over time.

Not sure how you clean up updates or panic files.

I do know how to do this on Raspian but not Manjaro, so any Linux experts advice would be welcome.

Thanks Doug. I have only been using the ArmBook for RISC OS since the shutdown difficulty appeared, which works fine. However I have just tried Manjaro again and have done a big update. It does not seem to have improved the shutdown behaviour which still says it is waiting for two processes (systemd-udevd) to terminate. So I use the power button to stop it.

PS The ArmBook reported that the update would take 4 minutes. The Rpi4 reported 12 minutes. OK the Manjaro distributions on the two platforms are not identical, and I may have one or two packages on one that I don’t have on the other, but even so I was taken aback by the factor of 3×.

Do you people use ArmBooks for any particular reason? Is it because you enjoy using something that has an ARM processor — I mean, that the fact that it has an ARM processor is what’s important to you, or is it because you appreciate that it can run RISC OS?

For me, it is because it runs RISC OS on an ARM processor. Using RISC OS on an x86/x64 processor is possible, and using an ARM processor for a different OS is possible, but the ARMbook does both at the same time.

Do you people use ArmBooks for any particular reason? Is it because you enjoy using something that has an ARM processor — I mean, that the fact that it has an ARM processor is what’s important to you, or is it because you appreciate that it can run RISC OS?

For me it’s because it’s a full mobile modern RISC OS system. In non-pandemic times I used to travel a lot, and having an actual RISC OS system that is mobile was very handy indeed. I did not use it much during this last 2 years. However, today I am using it and it’s always a nice system to use (the only thing I did not like of it was the trackpad and solved the problem using a nice same-white Logitech USB mouse).

Hopefully soon there will be the RISC OS port to the PineBook Pro which is going to be even better than the ARMBook :)

I could use it more.

- QWERTY keyboard is a problem here. I have some ideas to get a real international keyboard based on QWERTY, but it would need a suitable tool (IKHG or equivalent).

- Trackpad driver is working, but really not perfect. With a few changes, it could be much more usable.

- Still no RISC OS 5.28 on it.

On the other hand, this is a very usable system. With full support (WiFi, emmc, trackapd, keyboard) it would be just perfect for me. It’s small, with very long battery life.

Hi Gavin,

Latest Manjaro kernal updates , dated 18th Jan 2022, seem to have cured the kernal panic reports on my Pinebook and it successfully starts up and shuts down correctly now.

There is a slight odd effect on start up where the screen gives a nice green hue before the main desktop comes on but I can live with that now it switches off correctly :-)

Thanks for that, Doug. I am updating right now.

Done! As you say, shutting down correctly now.

There is a slight odd effect on start up where the screen gives a nice green hue before the main desktop comes on

Possibly a bit of POST code visual?