So this is completely on me:

I installed Arch
I installed the plasma desktop without any additional programs
I installed sddm and told it to launch plasma desktop
I rebooted

And it did what I told it to do perfectly:

I’m now within plasma desktop.
I have no terminal emulator installed, so no way of accessing a command line from within the GUI.
Whenever I reboot, I get put back into plasma desktop.
I tried to switch to a different tty with Ctrl+Alt+F-keys but that key combo seems to be used for additional desktop sessions instead (shows me the sddm login again).
I tried creating a shell script that launches pacman and installs a terminal, but I can’t, since I don’t have a text editor installed.

Help!

[Edit: Solved. I was able to go to a different tty after disabling function keys]

  • EccTM@lemmy.mlEnglish
    27·
    1 year ago

    Launch your installation media again, get your internet connection set up, mount your current install, chroot into it, finish installing the things you forgot, reboot, profit.

    • haroldstorkEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      This. Always have a spare arch usb laying around for times like these.

  • Responsabilidade@lemmy.eco.brEnglish
    15·
    1 year ago

    How don’t you have any tty?

    Maybe your function keys are set to be multimedia at the bios.

    Try ctrl+alt+fn+F{Key}

    Another alternative is to boot from usb, chroot and install a terminal

    • superkret@feddit.deOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Thanks, checked that already. Yeah, booting from USB is a good solution. But now, I’m determined to fix this from within ;)

    • jennifilm@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Absolutely try some function key combos - I did something similar this week by setting my keyboard to “ma” and not “mao” this week and got an Arabic script instead of te reo Māori and all of a sudden none of my keybinds worked, but hitting fn+alt+f2 got me to a tty and saved me.

  • preciouspupp@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    Alt-F2 or similar maybe gets you a run dialog or alternatively pass the “init=/bin/bash” option to the kernel.

    • superkret@feddit.deOPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Alt-F2 launches a program search window.
      It seems the KDE folks have hijacked all the standard key combos.
      But that gave me an idea: I might be able to configure key-combos to launch bash commands from within the system setting tools…

  • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.mlEnglish
    71·
    1 year ago

    I see you got it fixed and other people told you about chroot, so you’re all good for now. FYI, next time you install, follow the wiki. There’s a package that they tell you to install during the initial setup that includes all the basic things you’ll need, like terminal, a browser, etc. If you skip that then you will definitely have issues like this.

  • jkmooney@kbin.social
    4·
    1 year ago

    That Plasma is not letting you move to a new tty is “interesting”…bad KDE!..no cookie for you!

    • pchem@feddit.de
      5·
      1 year ago

      Definitely an issue with their setup, not with Plasma in general. I can move to a new tty without any issues.

      • jkmooney@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        Not super familiar with Plasma but, I’d suspect that has to be the case. Weird they can’t get a new terminal open. At least it’s Arch though…arch-chroot to the rescue ;)

  • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    You should still have vi installed by default. I would go the arch-chroot route, but if you can use alt+F2 to search programs, perhaps you can find vi. If yes, ! executes terminal commands. So either you can leave yourself a line in .xprofile to halt you before x loads sddm (or some other tricky thing like that) OR you could do :!pacman -S <terminal you like>

    I’m a suckless-st guy myself, but you’ll need a browser to get to it one way or another.

    • cloaker@kbin.social
      4·
      1 year ago

      It’s been a long time since I ran arch, forgot how good arch-chroot was for unfucking things I fucked.

  • Whom@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Do you have GRUB or another bootloader that lets you directly set kernel parameters on boot? You could try replacing “quiet splash” or whatever you have there with “text”

  • HollyCat2022@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    Launch Dolphin if you have it installed and press F4.

    Edit grub at boot time if you are using it, wrote emergency at the end of the line.

    If you have installed X, then check to see if you can select another session in sddm to launch X own window.

    There are other ways to do it as well, f.eks. with kdesu and alt + f2