How to recover from invalid inittab file?

[Brian Fahrlander]

On Mon, 2005-02-14 at 06:48 -0800, David Le wrote:
> Dear Linux gurus,
> 
> I'm new to Fedora at system level and encountered the
> following problem with inittab file:
> When I was as root, I accidentally copied the inittab
> file, which is for my target hardware, over the
> innittab file of my host PC running Fedora Core 1.
> Now after I re-boot my PC, it stops at the following
> messages:
>           inittab: missing field
>           Enter run level:
> 
> -How can I recover completely from my invalid inittab
> file?

    Someone who knows how, can edit it.  I'm minutes from my blood-
pressure medicine from putting me to sleep, or I'd ssh in there and un-
mangle it.

> -What should I do to recover from this scenario?
> -Or I have to re-install FC 1?

    Heavens to Betsy, no re-install!  Watch:

[brian at aquila ~]$ rpm -vq --whatprovides /etc/inittab
initscripts-7.93.5-1

    Ah: so I need to re-install "initscripts".

    rpm -ve --nodeps initscripts 
    yum install initscripts
    (done)

    Now, maybe you'll want to replace "yum" with "apt" but the idea's
the same.

> Some other questions about FC2:
> -Is FC2 stable enough to use as an development
> environment?

    I don't _develop_ but I run a lot of rebuilds, etc...since about RH
4.1 all versions of Redhat have been 'stable enough for development'.

> -What kernel version of FC2?

    The most recent, as usual.

> -Where is the easiest way to get FC2 package for
> installation?

    I think it's on an archive somewhere; Google can find it, but I'm
sure someone with more recent knowledge will locate it for ya.  Ya might
want to think about FC3, if you're gonna upgrade...Fedora.org has sites
for getting the disk images...

> Thanks very much for your help.

    Na...'s nuthin'.
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Fahrländer                 Christian, Conservative, and Technomad
Evansville, IN                                http://www.fahrlander.net 
ICQ: 5119262                                          AIM: WheelDweller
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