Bug 79264 – error running env-update --- INVALID TOKEN (NOT "=") .....

• Product: Gentoo Release Media
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description frank m 2005-01-23 14:24:29 UTC]

This is a Pentium Pro 200 (i686). Went through all the instructions for installing gentoo, downloaded stage2-i686-2004.3.tar.bz2. I did not modify anything nor CHOST, CFAGS or CXXFLAGS. Got to the part to chroot and do a "env-update" and was greeted with ..........
!!! invalid token (not "=") is 
!!! ParseError: invalid token (not "="). //etc/make.conf: line 6 in //etc/make.conf
!!! Incorrect multiline literals can cause this. Do not use them.

All previous work is lost. It is as if I did not do anything prior to the env-update, except boot from CD.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.LiveCD minimal
2.go through the instructions on install
3.attempt the env-update

Actual Results:  
All previous work is lost. It is as if I did not do anything prior to the
env-update, except boot from CD.

Expected Results:  
I expected a working gentoo base.

[Comment 1 Chris Gianelloni (RETIRED) 2005-01-23 15:06:58 UTC]

Did you check line 6 of your make.conf?

All previous work to that point would be lost, as it is all done in a ramdisk.  Doing a reboot resets everything.

[Comment 2 frank m 2005-01-23 15:28:06 UTC]

I did try to look at line 6 - make.conf appears to be a large compiled file, nothing to read.
I did not reboot. Does the ramdisk get cleared at the chroot point?

[Comment 3 frank m 2005-01-23 16:26:38 UTC]

I did try to look at line 6 - make.conf appears to be a large compiled file, nothing to read.
I did not reboot. Does the ramdisk get cleared at the chroot point?

[Comment 4 Chris Gianelloni (RETIRED) 2005-01-24 04:16:47 UTC]

The ramdisk does not get cleared at chroot.  Also, I meant the make.conf within the chroot, since that would be the one that env-update would be complaining about.  Did you use mirrorselect as the manual said, or did you skip that optional step?

[Comment 5 frank m 2005-01-24 07:05:45 UTC]

It appears that the ramdisk did get cleared - because nothing I have done remains. How do I check? I don't believe I am in chroot.... The prompt still says LiveCD.
I did the mirrorselect step - took a while (157 sites).

[Comment 6 Chris Gianelloni (RETIRED) 2005-01-24 07:24:53 UTC]

The prompt does not change when you are in the chroot.  If you did not get an error at the chroot step, then you are in the chroot.  Also, the ramdisk did not get cleared.

Anything that you edit outside the chroot has no bearing on what is inside the chroot.  For exmaple, if you edited /etc/make.conf and not /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf, then you didn't actually change anything.

[Comment 7 frank m 2005-01-24 16:20:48 UTC]

ok - with the help of someone infinitely better than I am at this... It looks like the mirrorselect step appended A LOT of out garbage to the make.conf. There was approx 50,000 lines of garbage. Did a "head" on the file and re-saved. I am emerging system as we speak. So far so cool.

[Comment 8 Chris Gianelloni (RETIRED) 2005-01-25 04:19:08 UTC]

Cool.

Yeah, since the release, we've updated the handbook to reflect the broken nature of mirrorselect.  Unfortunately, it looks as if it still is not behaving properly.

I am going to reassign this to the docs-team, so hopefully we can get the documentation fixed by 2005.0.

Docs-team: if we can't figure this out, I'd just assume either remove it from the docs completely, or add instructions for the user to check make.conf for extra garbage before trying to chroot.

[Comment 9 Sven Vermeulen (RETIRED) 2005-02-07 11:15:06 UTC]

Ah bleh, another mirrorselect bug. This is resolved with the current fix in bug #80699 (and it's either that fix, or no mirrorselect at all :)

[Comment 10 Sven Vermeulen (RETIRED) 2005-02-25 01:02:12 UTC]

The install instructions now inform the user to verify make.conf after running mirrorselect.