Is there a simple point/click way to make Mythbuntu/Xubuntu/Ubuntu 8.04 automount hard disks formatted with ext3, preferably during OS install or immediately after the OS install with a simple GUI/control panel applet?

I tried setting mount points in the Mythbuntu install wizard for the second and third hard disks (all IDE) in another build I'm doing this weekend. The boot disk is an 80GB WD disk, with a 200GB Seagate slaved to it on the Primary IDE channel, and a Samsung SpinPoint 120GB slaved to the DVD-RW on the Secondary IDE channel. No issues recognizing or partitioning in typical partition tools, except for an MBR bug in Gparted, discussed below.

I tried to set the 200GB HD to /home, and left the 120GB with no mount point, expecting to address that drive after I had the base system up and running.

However, the Install Wizard craps out with either the 200GB or 120GB drive set to a mountpoint. So, I had to set the 200G or 120G drives without any mountpoint in the Mythbuntu 8.04 install wizard for the install to complete. Looks like a bug in the install wizard and/or Partition tool in the wizard.

Yes, I know I could edit fstab and set mount points after the install, but playing devil's advocate for XP refugees, why doesn't *buntu auto-mount ext3 volumes?

If I plug in a FAT32 or NTFS hard drive, whether on an internal SATA or IDE connector at boot, or via USB/Firewire after boot, they appear on the desktop.

But if you boot with extra hard drives connected via IDE, for example, and they are already formatted/partitioned via gparted/Partition Magic/Acronis as ext3, they *don't* appear automagically in your file manager/desktop (i.e. auto-mounted). I don't think ext3 disks auto-mount via USB exteranl enclosures either (but I haven't verified).

I don't know why the *buntu devs thought this difference in behaviour (mount behavior of physical drives based on filesystem type) would be a "good thing", especially for the hoards of people coming from XP.


Another issue I found was that Gparted doesn't handle the MBR/boot sector properly. The 80G boot hard disk had XP Pro on it. I booted the latest System Rescue CD and used Gparted on it to delete the XP NTFS partition, and created a new ext3 partition plus 2G swap partition on the 80G drive. Gparted did it's thing, then I rebooted with the Mythbuntu 8.04 CD.

At about 95% through the install, it crapped out with a "can't install GRUB" error. I suspected a munged MBR, so I rebooted into the "DOS" mode Acronis Director (much better than Partition Magic as far as commercial stuff goes). Right clicking on the 80G drive and selecting "edit", I could see the raw MBR data, which still had NTFS/XP identifiers there, even though the partition format was clearly ext3! So, I deleted all the partitions and made new ones in Acronis this time-ext3 and swap like before in Gparted. Then I checked "Edit" disk again, and the MBR looked good this time with only Linux/ext3 identifiers. Acronis correctly updates the MBR/boot sector, while Gparted (at least the version I used) does not.

Moral of the story- Beware of the Gparted/parted! This is the second big, obvious functional bug I've found in Gparted/ Parted Magic. The other functional omission (unless I've missed it) is the lack of the ability to set the "Active" flag for a drive/partition, which has been a basic feature in Partition Magic for probably over 10 years. The Active flag makes a partition bootable for Win98/XP, but appears to be distinct from the "boot" flag *parted uses.

I always use fdisk and I never put hard and optical drives on the same cable.

As for automounting, fstab is the way to go -- I don't sugar-coat it. It's easy to edit and doing so shows off the raw power of Linux.

I always use fdisk and I never put hard and optical drives on the same cable.

As for automounting, fstab is the way to go -- I don't sugar-coat it. It's easy to edit and doing so shows off the raw power of Linux.

But if FAT32 and NTFS hard disks, USB sticks, etc, don't need any intervention to access, why do ext3 volumes?

They should at least pop up a dialog that says "You have connected an ext3 volume. Do you want to automount it?" and if you say "Yes", it updates fstab and anything else needed, prompting for the sudo password if required.

I use Gentoo, and I've never used Ubuntu, but provided it uses Udev you can 'easily' set it up so that your specific devices are auto-mounted at the particular mount points you wish. It used to be that anything you wanted to mount needed to be done manually on the command line or setup through fstab, but the "modern" Linux system is quite impressive in this particular respect. I've not had to do anything manually in regards to mounting removable storage for quite some time.

Essentially, with a little tweaking I'm sure you can get your particular distro to behave as you wish, that's one of the greatest things about Linux anyway.

I use Gentoo, and I've never used Ubuntu, but provided it uses Udev you can 'easily' set it up so that your specific devices are auto-mounted at the particular mount points you wish. It used to be that anything you wanted to mount needed to be done manually on the command line or setup through fstab, but the "modern" Linux system is quite impressive in this particular respect. I've not had to do anything manually in regards to mounting removable storage for quite some time.

Essentially, with a little tweaking I'm sure you can get your particular distro to behave as you wish, that's one of the greatest things about Linux anyway.

Again, the Ubuntu family automounts FAT32 and NTFS formatted disks, however they are attached (internal/external). But ext3 formatted disks are not automounted. Just wondering why the behavior is different depending on the filesystem.

I always use fdisk and I never put hard and optical drives on the same cable.

As for automounting, fstab is the way to go -- I don't sugar-coat it. It's easy to edit and doing so shows off the raw power of Linux.


What version of fdisk are you using?

IME, in recent years with modern hard disks and optical drives, I haven't had any issue connecting both on the same IDE cable. Of course with SATA, this issue is moot. Besides, the 120G hard disk I shared the optical drive with won't be sued for anything critical, just routine document storage and periodic backups.

Unless there are Ubuntu developers hiding somewhere, I really doubt anybody here can tell you that. So... at this point I figure the 'why they opted to not automount ext3' isn't relevant, the choice now is to complain about it or fix it.

To answer my original post, I found a nice GUI fsatb utility in Synaptic.

I searched "fstab" and found "pysdm".

It has a nice modern GUi that fits well in Xubuntu/Mythbuntu.

The Assistant button appears to have all the fstab options I am interested in, and most users here would probably need.

The attached IDE drives are shown in a file-manager-like tree on the left, just pick the drive(s) and set the "mount filesystem at boot" option in the Assistant dialog.

Still don't know why something like this doesn't pop up when you attach an ext3 volume.

Unless there are Ubuntu developers hiding somewhere, I really doubt anybody here can tell you that. So... at this point I figure the 'why they opted to not automount ext3' isn't relevant, the choice now is to complain about it or fix it.

Well, I've complained, and posted a fix (at least a workaround) ;)

But yes, I need to go over to the ubuntuforums or file bug reports against the Mythbuntu partition/mountpoint install wizard issue, the MBR update bug in gparted, and a feature request for the Ubuntu devs to automount internal ext3 volumes and/or pop up a dialog when a new internal ext3 volume is detected at bootup.

What version of fdisk are you using?

Prolly an older one on my Gentoo box: v2.12r

Does this apply to ext drives, too? Automounts ntfs, but not ext3? (don't have one yet)

For Linux lurkers/noobs getting scared by this thread, I just want to clarify a few issues-

gparted is not Linux- it is a free utility program for partitioning disks. It generally runs under Linux, but has nothing to do with the quality/stability of Linux. The MBR bug is a problem in gparted. For commercial alternatives use Partition Magic or Acronis Disk Director, or free alternatives:

http://wiki.fdos.org/Installation/Partition

"To work with partitions, several tools are available for different Operating Systems. FreeDOS comes with its own version of FDisk which is similar in interface to the MS-DOS utility of the same name, but has been reported to have serious bugs. These bugs will not affect most people, but if you are unsure, use an alternative. On linux, some partition tools commonly available are Fdisk, CFdisk?, Parted, and QTParted. Parted or QTParted are recommended if resizing of a partition is planned to make room for FreeDOS. Alternate partition tools available on FreeDOS are XFDisk, SPecial FDisk, Ranish Partition Manager, FIPS, and Presizer. For resizing partitions in DOS, FIPS or Presizer are recommended. "

The Mythbuntu install wizard mountpoint issue is minor- just don't assign mountpoints to additional internal disks when you install Mythbuntu (the OS disk will be / and swap of course), then use the "pysdm" GUI in Add/Remove Programs or Synaptic to make additional hard disks automount wherever you want after you get to the desktop;

"Graphical Storage Device Manager
PySDM is a PyGTK Storage Device Manager that allows full customization of hard disk mountpoints without manually access to fstab. It also allows the creation of udev rules for dynamic configuration of storage devices

This application is provided by the Ubuntu community."
http://pysdm.sourceforge.net

The (lack of) first-time-automounting of internal ext3 volumes (IDE drives other than the boot drive) is an Ubuntu-specific feature issue, not a bug (I think ;) )

Does this apply to ext drives, too? Automounts ntfs, but not ext3? (don't have one yet)

my external ext3 drives all automount, and this is on edgy. I end up setting up different default mount points in fstab anyway though, because I want them to mount to the same place all the time.

my external ext3 drives all automount, and this is on edgy. I end up setting up different default mount points in fstab anyway though, because I want them to mount to the same place all the time.

Thanks. I'm sure I'll do the same. Been planning to backup to ext, add a couple of drives, and restore to raid0 xfs; but I'm having to drop about $900 into my car, so it's delayed for now. TMI, I know... :)

Does this apply to ext drives, too? Automounts ntfs, but not ext3? (don't have one yet)

I just tested a 40G Maxtor IDE drive, in an external USB-IDE case, freshly formatted to ext3 in Acronis (Primary partition type, ext3, formatted when connected to internal IDE connector)

I plugged it into this Mythbuntu 8.04 box with all Auto Updates through today, and it auto-mounted to the desktop! It mounted to /media with the Volume label I gave it in Acronis Disk Director.

Maybe the lack of auto-mount of internal IDE drives (don't know about SATA) is an unintentional omission in the *buntu's?

So much for ext3 on USB drives-

the default permissions on a hot plugged USB connected hard disk formatted to ext3 appear to be:

Owner: root
Access: Read/Write

Group: root
Access; read only

Others: read only

It's not clear how to change the Others permission to read/write in pySDM for hot plugged drives.

So, if you plan to just plug in a USB hard disk previously formatted to ext3 (to avoid any MS-ness ;) ), you can't just plug and copy files onto it- fstab editing required, unlike FAT32/NTFS external drives...

IRIC, I just recursively chmoded the permissions on the drive and then every automount after that I was able to read and write to the drive with any further action (for drives I don't have fstab entries for). In the little 20GB ext3 drive I carry around with me I never have to do anything other than plug it in to the Linux computer I write to it from (I use it exclusively for HD files that I copy from one of my myth backends for use on a networked dvd player in my garage that only has a wireless connection to my network which doesn't get a high enough bit rate for streaming HD - one day I'll run wire there....).

As I've mentioned in other threads, I'm triple-booting until I'm convinced that everything I need is working in Hardy.

So I have the following drives
an 80G IDE formatted NTFS with XP;
an 80G IDE formatted as ext3 with Fiesty;
and a 500G SATA formatted as ext3 with Hardy.

Both of the ext3 drives have mountpoints that were automagically created by both the Fiesty and the Hardy OSes. But, they don't actually automount because mounting a partition that contains an OS, from a different OS is considered a security risk (and can create all kinds of "ownership" nightmares if you create files). However, all I have to do to mount any of those volumes is double-click and enter my password and they mount right up without any hassles.

BTW, my IDE connectors also have a pair of optical drives (additionally, I have an external USB optical and a 500G USB external) All of which automount fine for me (OTOH, having applications recognize all the drives is a major cluster-f*ck).

Anyway, I don't know what's causing your issues, but I don't think it's the combination of opticals and HDs on the same IDE port.

IRIC, I just recursively chmoded the permissions on the drive and then every automount after that I was able to read and write to the drive with any further action (for drives I don't have fstab entries for). In the little 20GB ext3 drive I carry around with me I never have to do anything other than plug it in to the Linux computer I write to it from (I use it exclusively for HD files that I copy from one of my myth backends for use on a networked dvd player in my garage that only has a wireless connection to my network which doesn't get a high enough bit rate for streaming HD - one day I'll run wire there....).

I'd like to set up Xubuntu/Mythbuntu to automagically mount any random ext3 volume, particularly via USB, as writable by the current user.

This means any USB stick or hard drive, without prior knowledge of its chmod status.

I want to be Microsoft free by the end of the year, and I want all the disks I own formatted ext3 (a non-MS format), as well as anyone I know. But I want them to behave like FAT32/NTFS hot-plug drives behave- i.e. plug them in and start reading *and* writing/erasing.

I'd like to set up Xubuntu/Mythbuntu to automagically mount any random ext3 volume, particularly via USB, as writable by the current user.

This means any USB stick or hard drive, without prior knowledge of its chmod status.

I want to be Microsoft free by the end of the year, and I want all the disks I own formatted ext3 (a non-MS format), as well as anyone I know. But I want them to behave like FAT32/NTFS hot-plug drives behave- i.e. plug them in and start reading *and* writing/erasing.

I hear you. I was just pointing out that fstab editing isn't required, that you could just chmod.

I hear you. I was just pointing out that fstab editing isn't required, that you could just chmod.

Thanks for the chmod tip- I was just clarifying in case someone had a "secret sauce" blanket solution.

I use ext3 usb drives all the time. I've not had any issue with them. I rotate them between three of my computers and I am not sure what your issues might be. I have installed pmount and autofs and maybe these help, I know I had some issues last year but I think I also added this to fstab:
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=1001,devmode=666 0 0
which mounts them to my user number (1001) and has I type this I have two usb units hooked to my main computer. YMMV.

I use ext3 usb drives all the time. I've not had any issue with them. I rotate them between three of my computers and I am not sure what your issues might be. I have installed pmount and autofs and maybe these help, I know I had some issues last year but I think I also added this to fstab:
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=1001,devmode=666 0 0
which mounts them to my user number (1001) and has I type this I have two usb units hooked to my main computer. YMMV.

Whoa- does "devmode" ="Devil Mode" :D

I forgot to mention pmount and autofs in my first post- I actually found them in Synaptic and installed them from there before my first post.

I'm not sure if they are active- whats the best way to auto-run them or find out if they are working (other than System Monitor or ps)

Looks like you may have the "secret sauce" fstab line I was looking for...

Whoa- does "devmode" ="Devil Mode" :D

I forgot to mention pmount and autofs in my first post- I actually found them in Synaptic and installed them from there before my first post.

I'm not sure if they are active- whats the best way to auto-run them or find out if they are working (other than System Monitor or ps)

Looks like you may have the "secret sauce" fstab line I was looking for...

I had an auto mount problem plus I was using virtualbox and vmware. I think the fstab may have been for the vbox stuff but it and the other two apts seemed to fix the problem. Make sure you have volume manager in your sessions flagged to start - this I believe is the gnome manager for removable media. I use ubuntu on all my machines not to mention a few businesses and I some times get confused on what fixes what due to using dapper, gutsy and now hardy (on my eeepc). :eek:
I just muck about and sometimes I get lucky! ;)

UPDATE-

I continued to have USB removable drive (hard disks and memoery sticks) mounting problems on this build, including mount permissions error dialogs and other issues, so I decided to start over and wipe the OS drive and reinstall Mythbuntu 8.04 from scratch. IME, this is nearly always the quickest way to fix low level issues- the reinstall took only 10 minutes from the boot CD (not including plugin and app installs afterwards), far less than a couple of hours I spent mucking around with fstab settings and /media and /dev permissions.

That appears to have done the trick- at first boot after the install, I plugged in a FAT32 USB stick and an ext3 formatted 40G USB hard drive, no issues- both came up on the desktop, and both could be read/written to.

I'm not exactly certain what caused all the hot plug USB mounting problems and permissions issues, but I strongly suspect that some Auto Update mucked things up, though it could have been something I clicked in pySDM and/or the Mythbuntu Control Center, under ArtWork & Login Behavior-> Automatically start MythTV standalone session upon boot, which I unchecked, thinking that would prevent the Myth Frontend from auto starting at bootup.

To disable the MythFrontend from auto-starting at boot, just go to Applications->Settings->Settings Manager->Autostarted Apps and turn off the things you don't want to start automatically at boot.

Moral of the story- TURN OFF AUTO UPDATES in the Autostarted apps pick in the Settings Manager (Control Panel) in Mythbuntu 8.04. This is the second time the Auto Updates broke a working Myth setup for me. Not a strike against Linux or Mythbuntu- it's just the nature of Software Engineering (really, the engineering of any complex system, mechanical, electrical or software)- IF IT AIN'T BROKE- DON'T FIX IT :D

Seriously- no need for Auto Updates on a working media-centric machine- if a specific issue arises, do the research here, on ubuntuforums, and google, and fix that specific issue. Don't blindly apply kernal updates and random patches if you don't know what they're for and/or have no issue you're aware of in the first place.

Still need to test the additional internal ext3 formatted IDE hard drives, which I disconnected during the OS install. I plan to shutdown and reconnect them. So, for at least USB connected ext3 volumes- you should be golden on *buntu 8.04- just plug and read/write, the same as you've always done with FAT32 and NTFS USB devices (Most drives you've probably ever used or bought commercially, which are usually pre-formatted with FAT32 or NTFS). At worst, you might have to do a

sudo chmod 777 $MOUNTEDDRIVE

in a terminal the first time you plug in a USB ext3 volume. You would navigate to the mountpoint, which is the folder where the drive is mounted in the filesystem, ( /dev or /media in Mythbuntu 8.04) either in the terminal, or in Thunar (= Win Explorer), and right click and pick "Open in terminal", then chmod the mounted drive, which appears like a directory (folder) in the filesystem, the standard Linux convention. The drive should then be writable on any machine you plug it into thereafter. Yes, this may be obvious/trivial/old hat to a lot of you, but when I post here, I like to cover the basic details for the noobs and liberated Win people.

The dream of being entirely MS-free is at hand- OS, file formats and filesystems, the whole kit and kaboodle. Free at last, Free at Last, FREE AT LAST :D

UPDATE-

...

Moral of the story- TURN OFF AUTO UPDATES in the Autostarted apps pick in the Settings Manager (Control Panel) in Mythbuntu 8.04. This is the second time the Auto Updates broke a working Myth setup for me. Not a strike against Linux or Mythbuntu- it's just the nature of Software Engineering (really, the engineering of any complex system, mechanical, electrical or software)- IF IT AIN'T BROKE- DON'T FIX IT :D

Seriously- no need for Auto Updates on a working media-centric machine- if a specific issue arises, do the research here, on ubuntuforums, and google, and fix that specific issue. Don't blindly apply kernal updates and random patches if you don't know what they're for and/or have no issue you're aware of in the first place.
...
:D

Control over updates is one of the major reasons that I got serious about switching from Windows to Linux a little over a year ago when MS started pushing down "updates" which were impossible to block. It's my machine and I demand to have control over what gets loaded into it!

Just to confirm- yes, one of the first sets of updates that show up in a fresh Mythbuntu 8.04 install is "mount", so I think that may have affected the mount behavior before I reinstalled and shut off the updates.

I had an interesting "mount" issue on my laptop (changed from windows to Ubuntu 7.10 and updated to 8.04). I had it set up to use my several USB drives (one of which has my backups). BTW, until now, I have never run into a Ubuntu software "update" that didn't just work.

After one of the recent 8.04 "updates" it wouldn't recognize the USB drives (auto-mount). I got concerned, because one of the 4 USB ports on the HP laptop is defective (after a years use), and I was wondering if another had failed. A double check with my USB mouse, showed all of the remaining 3 ports were still working - now I was "in trouble" with no USB drives able to mount.

I solved the problem! I shut down the laptop and then booted with a USB drive (FAT32) already plugged in. It worked and the all my USB drives now auto-mount (like they did originally) without a problem - even when hot-plugged. Obviously, it was a software bug in one of the updates, which self corrects (rebuilds one of the data tables?) with a restart from the power off state.

PS -- My USB drives are formatted as FAT32 or NTFS (for MS compatibility or because they were originally used on my old XT PC). Only one is dual partitioned as ext3/FAT32. Because of this, I'm going to do a cold boot, with attached hardware, if I run into another "update problem".

Addendum: It's too bad that this behavior seems to be migrating from MS to Linux (Ubuntu at least). I get very frustrated whenever I have to switch back to Windows, for any reason. It looks like I may have to reinstall some of our Scanner, Photoshop, and Defrag software following the latest push of SP3 for Windows XP - a worse problem than I've ever run into in my ~1 year use of Ubuntu.

Before installing OS updates, you should image the drive as discussed before.

See recent post with Ghost test at
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1023551