Arch Linux

kaesehoch

Member

Registered: 2023-06-18

Posts: 5

[SOLVED] sh: arch-chroot: not found

Hi,

Background:
My laptop got unplugged during an update, so it does not boot anymore and directly goes to maintenance mode. As the root password is not working there, I wanted to chroot into the environment for fixing. So far so normal.

After booting on a stick, I mounted /mnt and /mnt/boot. When it came to chrooting into the environment with "arch-chroot /mnt", I got the error "sh: arch-chroot: not found".

Steps I tried to resolve the issue:
- running "/bin/bash arch-chroot /mnt" with the same result
- running "which arch-chroot", nothing is returned
- running "whoami" which returned "sh: whoami: not found"
- putting a different iso on the boot stick and try it, with the same result

I couldn't find any solution online, maybe somebody here knows the reason behind it.

Thanks for any help!

EDIT: The issue was Ventoy, it was solved by flashing the image directly on the USB drive.

Last edited by kaesehoch (2026-03-19 21:14:16)

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,712

Re: [SOLVED] sh: arch-chroot: not found

What ISO are you using?

kaesehoch

Member

Registered: 2023-06-18

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] sh: arch-chroot: not found

What ISO are you using?

archlinux-2026.03.01-x86_64.iso, downloaded from a mirror today.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,712

Re: [SOLVED] sh: arch-chroot: not found

That should be using zsh, not sh. Something is weird here, what does `uname -a` show? Was there maybe an error and you're in the initramfs?

Last edited by Scimmia (2026-03-19 14:55:41)

Everything2067

Member

Registered: 2025-06-29

Posts: 105

Re: [SOLVED] sh: arch-chroot: not found

Are you using multiboot USB solutions like Ventoy? They can sometimes cause problems.
Try using the traditional method of flashing the entire USB drive with the ISO.

---

How it feels to run shred/wipe in a COW system

kaesehoch

Member

Registered: 2023-06-18

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] sh: arch-chroot: not found

Are you using multiboot USB solutions like Ventoy? They can sometimes cause problems.
Try using the traditional method of flashing the entire USB drive with the ISO.

This was the issue, I was using Ventoy. It caused the image not fully copied to RAM (which went unnoticed by me). When I directly flashed the image on the USB drive, everything worked as it should.

Thanks to everyone!