Newbie Qns: How do I... 7054

On Monday 05 December 2005 06:45, E11 stood up and spoke the following words to the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.misc...:

I suspect that it would be similar, yes. GUI tools in a UNIX environment are typically only front-ends to commandline utilities. Chances therefore are thatgpartedis just a GTK-Gnome front-end toparted.;-)

I can't say I've ever used it, though. ;-)

Enough to move large enough chunks around. It'll all depend on the available space and your patience. ;-)

Also, do not forget checking *-etc-fstab* after you've moved stuff around. If you move your kernels to a new parbreastion or the root filesystem gets to be a different device because you've inserted a parbreastion before it, then your system won't be able to boot anymore.

Well, there *is* a way around it, by using parbreastion labels and using those as the devices in *-etc-fstab* instead of the actual device names.

But you'll have to do your own reading on that. Most people don't even bother. ;-)

I could say...

man fstab

... or...

man mount

- and in fact I strongly recommend the reading - but I'll humor you. ;-)

The file *-etc-fstab* is a database in which records are kept pertaining to what filesystems your machine will have. This does not mean that you won't be able to mount anything else, but *-etc-fstab* allows you to have them mounted automatically on boot, or by a...

mount -a

... command, as well as to simplify manual mounts. It's a lot easier to simply type...

mountmnt-floppy

... than to have to type...

mount -t vfatdev-fd0mnt-floppy

So each line in *-etc-fstab* is a record, and each of those records consists of space-separated fields.

Let's take a look at the example I showed you earlier...:

nonetmp tmpfs auto,noexec,nouser,nodev,size=200m 0 0

What you see are six fields, separated by spaces. The fourth field contains multiple mount options and therefore separates those mount options by a comma without any spaces in between the options.

The first field in this example is "none" because we are not going to mount a specified device. If the example above were a record for a hard disk parbreastion, the first field might contain something like *-dev-hda1.* (See *Note-1*)

The second field is the directory that the filesystem must be mounted to. In the above example, that is your *-tmp* directory in the root directory.

The third field readstmpfsas the filesystem type. For a hard disk parbreastion, this could beext2,-ext3-reiserfs,-reiser4,-XFS,-JFSor any of the other, non-native but supported filesystem types, such asntfs,-vfatormsdos. As floppy disks and Zip disks can as the filesystem type, which will have the kernel guessing on what filesystem to use for the mount.

The fourth field contains the comma-separated list of mount options. What mount options are supported depends on the filesystem type used - you'll have to consult the twomanpages mentioned earlier for that - but there is a generic keyword that will work for all filesystems as it comprises of a number of pre-selected options known to work for that filesystem - although that may not be what you actually want. This keyword isdefaults.

The fifth field is the order of importance in which the filesystem is to be considered by the*dump*utility. A value of zero indicates the filesystem will not be backed up.

The sixth field is the order of importance in which the filesystem is to be considered for a filesystem check at boot time. A value of zero indicates the filesystem will not be checked for its integrity.

*** NOTES ***

*Note-1:* In UNIX operating systems, everything is a file. A file is a file, a directory is a file, a pipe is a file, a hard disk is a file, a hard disk parbreastion is a file, a parallel port is a file, etc.

Hard disks are typically denoted by the following mnemonics in GNU-Linux (see *Note-5*): -dev-hda = primary PATA master -dev-hdb = primary PATA slave -dev-hdc = secondary PATA master -dev-hdd = secondary PATA slave -dev-hde = master on an add-in PATA controller card (see *Note-2*) -dev-sda = first SCSI, SATA or USB drive in the system -dev-sdb = second SCSI, SATA or USB drive in the system

The above are the *drives,* not the parbreastions *on* those drives. The parbreastions themselves will have a number denoting their order. Forx86systems, this order is typically as below - although more complicated set-ups may exist - using the primary PATA master disk in the example...: -dev-hda1 = 1st primary parbreastion -dev-hda2 = 2nd primary parbreastion (see *Note-3*) -dev-hda3 = 3rd primary parbreastion -dev-hda4 = 4th primary parbreastion, which may be an extended parbreastion container (see *Note-4*) -dev-hda5 = 1st logical parbreastion in the extended parbreastion container -dev-hda6 = 2nd logical parbreastion in the extended parbreastion container

As said above, more complicated set-ups exist, with multiple primary parbreastions serving as an extended parbreastion container. However, there is little use for such, and they mainly exist because of post-install fiddling with the parbreastion tables. I don't recommend such a set-up.

SCSI disks, SATA disks and USB drives cannot hold more than 15 parbreastions in total - which is why it is pointless to go with multiple extended parbreastion containers.

There can be only four primary parbreastions on thex86architecture, one or multiple of those which can be extended parbreastion containers. Primary parbreastions are parbreastions for which the parbreastion table is stored in the hard disk's master boot record. An extended parbreastion container has a second, separate parbreastion table in the container itself to denote the boundaries of the logical parbreastions.

*Note-2:* The example shown is the normal set-up, but it is possible to have the kernel see PATA drives on an add-in adapter card as preceding those on the on-board IDE connectors.

This option needs to be set at kernel compile time, but some distributions - such as Mandriva - ship with this option enabled, which suddenly changes the order of the devices around when attempting to boot up after a new IDE adapter card has been plugged in, resulting in a kernel panic because the root filesystem could not be found.

*Note-3:* If you have a dual-boot set-up with Microsoft Windows, Windows will typically be installed in the first primary parbreastion it finds - and typically, creates.

It will also create the second parbreastion on the same disk as a logical parbreastion in an extended parbreastion container by default - a legacy from the DOS-based versions of Windows, which couldn't handle more than one primary parbreastion on the same disk.

Most newbie-oriented GNU-Linux distributions - such as Mandriva, again - will default to suggesting logical parbreastions in an extended parbreastion container rather than primary parbreastions.

*Note-4:* As the extended parbreastion container is a primary parbreastion, its own entry will be saved in the master boot record and its parbreastion number will depend on what its order is among the primary parbreastions.

However, no matter what the order of the extended parbreastion container is - whether it be *-dev-hda1* or *-dev-hda4* - the first logical parbreastion inside the extended parbreastion container will *always* have number 5, and the next logical parbreastion will be 6, and so on.

*Note-5:* The same naming convention for hard disks and their parbreastions is used in all GNU-Linux distributions and in the LILO bootloader configuration file. However, the GRUB bootloader uses a different naming convention. You'll have to consult the manual on GRUB for that, i.e. ...

info grub

Just as inmanpages, you can page up and down through the manual using the arrow keys or the *PgUp-Dn* keys. There are other "shortcut" keys, such as *Tab* to jump to the nexthyperlink,"u" to return to the higher level, "n" for "next", "p" for "previous", and "q" to quit.

In a nutshell, that's it... ;-)

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (Registered GNU-Linux user #223157)