Help and Configuration for v6.2

[krishna.murphy]

I agree, re: the cause of the mount; in fact I mentioned that as the probable cause.

I disagree, re: automounting without warning. I've made extensive use of the r/w auto-mounted NTFS drive with only minor problems, and never any data loss not caused by me. The worst problem I had is when usage went beyond a certain threshold, it maxed out processor usage and sometimes forced me to shut it down with the power switch "Grand warnings" would frighten people for no good reason IMHO.

Krishna, that /dev/sda1 mount's probably from the cheat code, not from the OS. The device containing the Knoppix files (either the Live CD or the fromhd= device) is always mounted at /mnt-system as far as I can tell (apparently that directory used to be called /cd-rom before USB and HDD boots became common). That is, if you're able to mount it at all >_< (see my own thread of distress!)

That said, I don't know enough about GNOME to figure out why it's mounting everything at startup (sounds like a "just works"/windows copycat feature), but if you want tight control over filesystems I feel like the command line's the best way to do it, HelpPleas. I know that's kind of a cop-out since GUI functionality existed in the past, but honestly I prefer the command line myself for delicate work. It's less intuitive than the GUI but once you get used to it the extra control is well worth it, especially for things like this where the default GUI behavior is not what you want. Once you know what you want better than the GUI does, it's definitely time to "trust yourself"

I completely agree. And I think we have at least two serious bugs from this thread, if reports are correct:

1. Auto-mounting rw (PCman/GNOME)
2. Mounting NTFS rw without grand warnings - even if it is just to rw-access the persistent image.

I think both should be fixed. RO-mounting is an entirely different issue - doing that automatically is fine with me, even though I prefer a somewhat more lazy system. PCman could be set up with reasonable defaults, I think.

[Capricorny]

....
I disagree, re: automounting without warning. I've made extensive use of the r/w auto-mounted NTFS drive with only minor problems, and never any data loss not caused by me. The worst problem I had is when usage went beyond a certain threshold, it maxed out processor usage and sometimes forced me to shut it down with the power switch "Grand warnings" would frighten people for no good reason IMHO.
....

OK, this was Windows... NT4,2000,XP,Vista,7? It's all 'NTFS', and I don't know if that example you give is not something that should warrant a warning. But 'grand', that may be a bit too much - at least if most users have experiences similar to yours. I just wonder why it is not more broadly recommended if it is as safe as you experience?

[krishna.murphy]

....
I disagree, re: automounting without warning. I've made extensive use of the r/w auto-mounted NTFS drive with only minor problems, and never any data loss not caused by me. The worst problem I had is when usage went beyond a certain threshold, it maxed out processor usage and sometimes forced me to shut it down with the power switch "Grand warnings" would frighten people for no good reason IMHO.
....

OK, this was Windows... NT4,2000,XP,Vista,7? It's all 'NTFS', and I don't know if that example you give is not something that should warrant a warning. But 'grand', that may be a bit too much - at least if most users have experiences similar to yours. I just wonder why it is not more broadly recommended if it is as safe as you experience?

It's XP SP3, when it's not knoppix. Not sure, but it might be due to OLD problems, or maybe the problems I experienced would have been worse for others.

[Capricorny]

I have just looked a little bit around, and it seems that using ntfs-3g for writing may now be considered acceptably safe. I don't think the Open SUSE wiki entry, http://en.opensuse.org/NTFS , which has been recently edited and reviewed, would have recommended it , also for ordinary users, otherwise. SUSE is much focused on interoperability. But they advise against mounting damaged systems rw.

From the descriptions of NTFS 3.1, it seems that changes with new OS versions mostly have to do with metadata use, so while writing may imply a risk of getting impaired functionality in some respects, the likelihood of messing up the whole file system is much less. And, in particular, when using NTFS only for the KNOPPIX structure with the persistent image, almost all updating happens inside that file - which ought to minimize the risk of file system damage. So, at least, "installing" the Knoppix files on NTFS seem to be relatively safe. A small warning would still be in place at such "installs", as it is not foolproof, but I think I agree with your considerations

Edit: Fixed link, it should work now.

[krishna.murphy]

I have just looked a little bit around, and it seems that using ntfs-3g for writing may now be considered acceptably safe. I don't think the Open SUSE wiki entry, http://en.opensuse.org/NTFS, which has been recently edited and reviewed, would have recommended it , also for ordinary users, otherwise. SUSE is much focused on interoperability. But they advise against mounting damaged systems rw.

From the descriptions of NTFS 3.1, it seems that changes with new OS versions mostly have to do with metadata use, so while writing may imply a risk of getting impaired functionality in some respects, the likelihood of messing up the whole file system is much less. And, in particular, when using NTFS only for the KNOPPIX structure with the persistent image, almost all updating happens inside that file - which ought to minimize the risk of file system damage. So, at least, "installing" the Knoppix files on NTFS seem to be relatively safe. A small warning would still be in place at such "installs", as it is not foolproof, but I think I agree with your considerations I

Okay, cool. I appreciate the research you did and the time you give. FYI, in my experience it's confusing for newb-z if you send a link like that; the comma at the end caused a "page not found" error when I clicked it. No problem for me, of course, but others may see it and get frustrated when it doesn't "just work."