pendisk - vfat or ext2?

[Alexxx]

I'd like to use the USB disk to keep my /root directory
Problem is I created the filesystem as ext2, whereas /etc/fstab lists it as vfat

Is it right that I use an ext2 fs? I believe so, since /root makes strong use of symlinks. How do I modify fstab in the remastering phase?

Thanks!

alessandro

[WSC-fsl]

Alexxx,

I am curious are you running KNOPPIX from cd and saving your settings to a thumb drive? Or do you want to remove the root directory component from the image and put it on your thumb drive? Or are you running from harddisk?

There are reasons I ask and will wait for a an answer but let me add this...
When remastering KNOPPIX you should not have to worry about what fstab says. What makes KNOPPIX so powerful is that it has the ability to rewrite the fstab after it auto-detects your computers hardware. Are you understanding why I am confused now? I simply don't understand why fstab in causing you a problem unless you are using the "save your personal settings" KNOPPIX feature. If that is the case then what you need to do is de-select (or do not select) the "o" setting for saving "Other system configuration" ... this should keep your fstab dynamic.

Hope this helps,

[Alexxx]

Hi, thanks for the reply.
What I'd like to have is the following:
- a remastered CD (with some soft added, some deleted)
- me logging in always as root from the CD
- my /root home dynamic, saved on pendrive, holding my settings

BTW, I even tried the PersistentHomeHOWTO, and got problems: it mentions in thre readme the use of the file knoppix.sh - a file not present at all in the 0.4 distribution (I posted this problem in the forum too, but if you have any hints...)

Anyway... as I told you I mkfs -t ext2 the USB pendrive, copied all of root on it made a symlink from /root to /mnt/sda1. It didnt work and I'm working on it, but what puzzles me most is that after bootup the system's fstab mentions sda1 as vfat.

I hope to have it clarified .... Thanks!

Alessandro

[horo]

Hi,

if you use ext2 on a memory stick you should mount it with the "noatime" option (man mount). If you mount without this option every time you _read_ your file the access time is _written_ to the directory on your flash device.

Ciao Martin

[mightydavefish]

Alessandro,
If you are sticking with linux only I don't see any problem with formatting your thumb drive to ext2, as long as you never need to access that usb drive under windows.

What do you mean when you say "it doesn't work"? Do you get messages of any kind? Is the drive actually mounting? Have you tried modifying your fstab to say that the drive uses ext2?

[Alexxx]

yep, it IS formatted ext2!
What doesnt work is the fact that - after booting - fstab lists it as vfat - so that if I just do: mount /dev/sda1 I get a big mess (wrong filenames, erroneous sizes,...)
Of course It's OK with mount -t ext2 /dev/sda1

[ghstridr]

yep, it IS formatted ext2!
What doesnt work is the fact that - after booting - fstab lists it as vfat - so that if I just do: mount /dev/sda1 I get a big mess (wrong filenames, erroneous sizes,...)
Of course It's OK with mount -t ext2 /dev/sda1

Try fdisk /dev/sda and check the partition type (option p). If it's not 'Linux' that is most likely the problem. Upon bootup, one of the things that is checked is the partition type, it doesn't care what the actual formatting is. The partition table states what the file system is. For that reason you can have ext2 and ext3 formatting and some others all under the Linux partition type. Later in the boot/mount process is when the actual formatting is determined before you start reading files from the partition.
This is all just a guess, so I wish you luck.

[Alexxx]

Try fdisk /dev/sda and check the partition type

FAT16????????? Damn.
I got confused between partition type and formatting, you're right.
Anyway - I never knew you could have EXT2 on FAT16, live and learn...

Thanks

Alessandro