Boot Menu and Recovery

Boot Problems

It won't boot after an update

Every update keeps the previous image, so:

  1. At the boot menu, pick the (ostree:1) entry. That starts the previous image once.
  2. To keep using it until a fixed update is out: sudo bootc rollback, then reboot. Run it again to undo.
  3. Update again later; a newer image replaces the broken one.

See Rolling back.

It stops at "Installing user applications…"

Your installed packages are failing to reinstall. See Rescue mode.

The update isn't there after rebooting

You updated, rebooted, and sudo bootc status still shows the same image with nothing staged. The new image is written at shutdown, and that step failed. Its log is in the previous boot:

journalctl -b -1 -u ostree-finalize-staged.service --no-pager | tail -n 40
journalctl -b -u ostree-boot-complete.service --no-pager

A successful run ends with "Bootloader updated…" and "Finished writing deployment". Look for an error: line otherwise. Common causes are a full /boot (df -h /boot), or the PC being switched off before shutdown finished.

To fix it, update again (sudo rum system-upgrade) and reboot normally.

RakuOS doesn't use rpm-ostree, so rpm-ostree commands and logs won't help here. Don't delete files under /boot or /ostree by hand.

Secure Boot errors

If the PC refuses to start RakuOS with a Secure Boot error, the RakuOS key isn't enrolled. Turn Secure Boot off once, boot, run sudo rakuos enroll-secureboot-key, turn Secure Boot back on, and finish MOK Manager on that boot. See Secure Boot.