Attempt to Set Ext3 Journaling Option Breaks X11
I just installed the latest released version (version 7) of Linux Mint on my Acer Aspire One Notebook computer. Things seemed to be going pretty well until I tried to protect my flash drive (there is no real HDD on this model: only flash) by setting the "data=writeback" option in /etc/fstab on the ext3 filesystem.
Once I did that, everytime I boot, I get the following message (both from generic boot and from 'recovery-mode'): "Could not start the X server (your graphical environment) due to some Internal error. Please contact your system administrator or check your syslog to diagnose. In the meantime this display will be disabled. Please restart GDM when the problem is corrected." Then what gets printed is: "Linux Mint 7 Gloria - Main Edition mejohnsn-netbook tty1mejohnsn-netbook login: and a little later *Stopping anac(h)ronistic cron anacron" twice. So the obvious question is: how could this break X11? It even did an fsck the first time I rebooted after the change, and it passed. Next obvious question: is there something else I have to change other than the <options> column in /etc/fstab to make this change? Could omitting that "something else" explain the failure? Or is it just coincidence? |
Did you make a backup of /etc/fstab before you changed it? If so, revert back and see if that changes your xserver problems. Otherwise, go into the file and undo what you did. I'm assuming, of course that you are getting to a login prompt at a terminal screen. If you want more detailed help, post here, and I'll try to give more complete instructions.
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Somehow, I suspect it would do the same thing if I had made a backup and tried to restore it using 'cp'. It does the same thing, after all, when I boot in a non-graphics recovery mode (I forget the exact name of the option). As I type this, I am at another system, so more details are not available. Since I can read the filesystem, if I really have to, I can backup up what few new files and packages are on that system and re-install. But I really want to understand why such a simple change, one that makes perfect sense based on the man page for 'mount' and 'fstab', could have such an effect on the system. I want to know, for example, whether this is a peculiarity of the Mint distribution, or is this common to all Debian based distributions, or even all Linux. Remember: the only change was to add ",data=writeback" to the end of the options column for the sole ext3 device in /etc/fstab. Everything else is Mint 7 installation defaults. |
I'm guessing it has something to do with the flash disk storage in your netbook, something is stopping ext3 running, which manifests itself as X not starting. Only a guess mind!
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Can you post output of
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cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log |
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1) the error message I get while trying to modify /etc/fstab as superuser from vi is "E303: unable to make swap for /etc/fstab". But I am still typing that from memory; I am sure of the E303 part, and the general wording of the rest. Earlier, I got this message whether I booted from LiveCD or from recovery mode. But now I cannot even find the mount table entry when booting from LiveCD. Wait: upon retrying, /dev/disk appeared, and now I can edit /media/disk/etc/fstab! This makes no sense to me! But now I have removed my change, so that the line reads: UUID=27d4b1ef-0894-4b86-8af0-a202f2586d66 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1 I'll try this and see how it does: but all this unpredictable behavior does not commend the Mint distribution! |
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Wasn't I clear enough? I was booting from a LiveCD because a normal boot from the image on disk failed, and the recovery-mode boot would not allow me to edit /etc/fstab. I have no idea why I was finally able to edit /media/disk/etc/fstab as superuser when booted from the LiveCD. But that finally did work, and now I have the system working again. Nor do I understand why I could see /media/disk only after executing 'mount' from Terminal for about the 3rd time! But in any case, this time, before I modify /etc/fstab to try to get data=writeback working, I would like for someone to verify that I am following the right procedure: this time, instead of appending to the end of the options, I am going to replace the line: UUID=27d4b1ef-0894-4b86-8af0-a202f2586d66 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1 with the line: UUID=27d4b1ef-0894-4b86-8af0-a202f2586d66 / ext3 data=writeback,relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1 since I am guessing that when I appended "data=writeback" to the end, it thought I was modifying "errors=...". What do you think? Should this work? I have seen so much conflicting advice about how to make this change, (in various Linux forums), I can't count on any of them. But from reading the man page on 'mount' and 'fstab', this LOOKS correct. |
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But wait! The root filesystem IS in /etc/fstab. So then shouldn't you do both? Or will all filesystems hung off of root inherit the setting from bootflags? I see nothing at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs8.html that answers these questions. |
May I ask what it is you are trying to achieve? I'm glad your machine is back up and running, but I'm still puzzled as to the reason for what you are doing. Is it to protect the flash drive by limiting the number of write backs? An option is just to use a network share as a main documents folder.
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Yes, I am trying to protect the flash drive by limiting the number of write backs (I have also thought of the 'commit' option, but one thing at a time). Now why would using a network share accomplish that? And how could I use one on a netbook computer in the first place? The whole point of having a netbook is portability. I don't even always have network access, depending on where I have carried it to. |
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As I mentioned before, the wording of the above sources makes it sound like I really should have the corresponding change in fstab, too. Should I? |
Hi there again, was away for a few days. I took a quick look around some netbook forums, found this: http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:tweakmountparameters, it may shed some light on this situation for you. I have a netbook, with regular HDD, but I use some online services like googledocs in order to protect the machine, and make it last longer. However, from the above link, I think the amount you will extend the lifetime of your SSD is limited enough anyway, but is worth it. Personally, I might buy a couple of extra SSD's and make an image of your current one! Better protection in the long term!
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Curious, though, that it does not address the basic question I had: do I need the change in both kernel flags and fstab, or is just kernel flags good enough? |
As I understand it, and I am no hacker, what is important is the options passed at mount time, which is dictated by the fstab. The ext3 filesystem is just a protocol that is supported by the kernel, so I don't understand what you mean by 'kernel flags', unless you mean
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BTW, you may find the article here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EeePC and here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EeePC/Installation helpful. The author talks about wanting to reduce amount of writes to a SSD, hence suggests using ext2 instead of ext3. It has drawbacks, mainly if your netbook crashes. Very strong on not having a swap partition, suggests using a swap file instead.
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