/home transistion gone awry

Forum: HD Install
Topic: /home transistion gone awry
started by: v00d00

Posted by v00d00 on July 21 2005,02:42

Well i installed everything and it went fine, but originally when i partitioned this 4gb hdd, i made 3 partitions (1x512mb for swap, 1x2gb for / , 1x1500mb for /home). I did the hd install without a hitch, and did some installing of various things. No problems up until then.

I sorted out the swap partition without to much fuss and it mounts ok at startup.

At this point i decided to try and get the /home partition mounted up and in use.

So I formatted the /home partition, mounted it, and proceeded to move /home/dsl to /mnt/hda5/dsl.

After this i dropped to a root console and edited fstab to make everything work (or so i thought), the line i added in at first was what i thought it should be (after reading some guides).

/dev/hda5 /home ext3 defaults 0 2

This didnt work out so well, so i changed it after reading a knoppix guide on adding new partitions.

It now looks like this:

/dev/hda5 /home auto rw,auto,user,exec 0 2

It still refuses to mount at startup.

If nothing else works i suppose i can fallback to adding a mount command in my rc.local file, to mount it after everything else is done with, but i'd prefer it was done automatically by fstab.

On a side note, im slowly realising how different debian/knoppix based distros are to fedora core, but im perservering.

Im gonna hit the sack now, and have another go at it in the morning, but if not any ideas would be appreciated on how to overcome this.

Thx in advance.

Posted by mikshaw on July 21 2005,15:14

Use the persistent home feature...it's much easier.
First you'll need to move hda5/dsl to hda5/home/dsl, then use the boot option "home=hda5".

EDIT: I didn't notice this was the HD install forum.
Will the persistent home not work?

Posted by v00d00 on July 21 2005,15:42

Is this where ive gone wrong.

Should i have created the /home directory on hda5 then mounted it to /home on / instead of just creating the user account.

Persistent home feature i havent found yet, but i havent played with dsl for a good year or so. I was trying to do this as purely as possible. Like i would if i was on slack.

But i'll try it and see where it leads. As a workaround i had it mount from rc.local and it worked, but somewhere along the line i screwed up my fluxbox menu, and the copy i did from the original home wasnt as recursive as id liked.

So ive gone for a new install, and i'll try everything again from the start.

I think ive discovered what the problem was. I hadnt updated mtab, just fstab, so there was no way of detecting the new partition.

Thx Mikshaw

Posted by v00d00 on July 21 2005,17:23

Hmmm, didnt work to well.

On knoppix does everything have to be done via the cheat codes, or is it possible to get things to work like in other distros!!

I have to say i give up, i'll make it into 1 big partition, and be done with runaway processes. Its a machine for someone else to use, and i have neither the time nor energy to expend messing with it all.

Posted by fpd on July 22 2005,02:47

Have you tried making a new user? DSL will make a hdax/home/newuser directory.

I understand that you want a hard partition to contain different functions of the o.s., but does a point-and-click user really care? DSL is made compact for LiveCD use (or HDD) and works on legacy equipment. If you want your user to have a full-blown Linux, there are too many to count on DistroWatch.Com... and don't forget; Gentoo would love to have you emerge-till-you-drop.

Posted by v00d00 on Aug. 12 2005,04:55

Sorry to reopen this thread, but ive just got back from cuba, and decided to have a look at it again.

The reason i was after the dsl install, fpd, was for the sheer speed. Its already cutdown, and with some slight modification could be usable on my current machine (just needs a current kernel and a few things upgrading). I currently run fc4 on my main machine with gnome, which uses a fair amount of resources. Im not after gentoo, ive already been there before and i hated it. But you're probably right, i should maybe look to another distro, or maybe just stick with fc4. Unlike most of the people who no doubt run dsl, im running a pretty decent spec system (amd xp2400, 2gb ram, 1tb hdd), and im just wanting the most cutdown system for gaming/programming on.

Ive looked a bit more at the persistent home feature and i now understand it, but it raises a new question. Is it possible to create other partitions beyond /opt and /home, such as /var, /tmp, /usr/local and mount them the same way? I will get the p3 600 that i was originally messing with last month and setup the persistent home feature, hopefully that will take care of the original problem. It technically doesnt need it setup as its only there as a dedicated folder as part of my farm, but im totally anal about getting things working properly. :laugh:

Thanks for all your help.

Posted by friedgold on Aug. 12 2005,10:55

A suggestion - if you want DSL to behave like a traditional distro when it comes to the fstab try using the command update-rc.d mountall.sh defaults to add the script whcih mounts fstab partitions to your startup. Then use the cheatcode nofstab to prevent the fstab being rebuilt each time you reboot. I believe that should be enough to allow you to add partitions to the fstab and have them mounted at boot.

Posted by v00d00 on Aug. 12 2005,15:19

Thanks friedgold,

Thats the answer ive been looking for. The fstab being rebuilt was the main pain in the ass, i tried everything to stop it but without success.

Cheatcodes can be so useful, and such a pain in the ass.