My Fedora box cannot enable swap on itself.

TruongAn · 01-23-2008, 12:34 AM

Hi guys.
I have install Fedora 8 for while and everything went fine until I decided to try out Ubuntu 7.10. When I installed ubuntu, I have to create some new partition thus and Fedora start complain about my /etc/fstab file. So I decided it delete /etc/fstab file and re-write it.
Before rewrite it is:

Code:

LABEL=/                 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
/dev/sda8               swap                    swap    defaults        0 0

# /dev/sda5
UUID=0bc114b7-5500-493e-8b08-da78a4e3f388 /mnt/ubuntu               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1

# /dev/sda1
UUID=74C7834C38D332C0 /mnt/vista     ntfs    defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0       1

# /dev/sda7
#UUID=16330797-6313-4328-bd90-4cad5746eecf /media/sda7     ext3    defaults        0       2

#/dev/hda        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/sda9       /mnt/lindata     vfat    rw,user,umask=0000      1       1
/dev/sda2       /mnt/windata     vfat    rw,user,umask=0000      1       1

I delete the swap partition to make space for ubuntu, and the recreate a new swap partition at /dev/sda9. So now, my fstab look like:

Code:

LABEL=/                 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
/dev/sda9              swap                    swap    defaults        0 0

# /dev/sda5
/dev/sda5 /mnt/ubuntu               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0  1

# /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1 /mnt/vista     ntfs    defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0       1

# /dev/sda7
#/dev/sda7 /media/sda7     ext3    defaults        0       2

#/dev/hda        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/sda8       /mnt/lindata     vfat    rw,user,umask=0000      1       1
/dev/sda2       /mnt/windata     vfat    rw,user,umask=0000      1       1

It boot up file with that fstab. But I cannot enable the swap and cannot run fschk for those ext partition either.
The error message I noticed when it boot up was:

Quote:

Checking file system
WARNING: couldn't open /etc/fstab: Permission denied.

I check the file's permission, it is:

Code:

-bash-3.2$ ls -lh /etc/fstab
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 932 2007-12-28 23:29 /etc/fstab

The weird things is that, after Fedora load and I get a console, I can run

Code:

swapon -a

To enable the swap partition without anny erros.

Please show me how to fix that. I am tired of typing swapon everytime I start my computer.

Drakeo · 01-23-2008, 01:54 AM

any line with a pound mark in front will not load ok the swap thing is wierd because that is what grub and lilo look for. so open a terminal and sudo cfdisk /dev/sda this will show you all your partitions on the sda disk.

v00d00101 · 01-23-2008, 02:12 AM

Or try:

fdisk -l as root. It lists all partitions on all drives.

Try adding swapon -a to rc.local to automate it.

Also should these highlighted drives, be like this.

Code:

LABEL=/                 /                       ext3    defaults        1 1
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
/dev/sda9              swap                    swap    defaults        0 0

# /dev/sda5
/dev/sda5 /mnt/ubuntu               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro 0  1

# /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1 /mnt/vista     ntfs    defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0       1

# /dev/sda7
#/dev/sda7 /media/sda7     ext3    defaults        0       2

#/dev/hda        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/sda8       /mnt/lindata     vfat    rw,user,umask=0000      1       1
/dev/sda2       /mnt/windata     vfat    rw,user,umask=0000      1       1

Or have you swapped the lindata and swap partitions around?

TruongAn · 01-23-2008, 07:03 PM

I have deleted the swap partition and then recreated. Here is my partition table:

Code:

$ sudo /sbin/fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000876dc

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        5099    40957686    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            5100        8924    30723072    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda3            8925       19457    84606322+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5            8925       11473    20474811   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           11474       14023    20482843+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7           14024       15718    13615056   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           15998       19457    27791360    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sda9           15719       15997     2241036   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

I think fedora do try to enable swap but I state that it cannot open /etc/fstab due to permission denied.