Fstab entry changes device name

Jonathan Paul Martin

5/4/24, 9:29 PM

Pulling my hair out with this one (although I have learned a lot about maintenance mode!)

I install Lubuntu onto my notebook hard drive, and the partition gets the label /dev/mmcblk0p1.

I add an internal SD card. It gets the label /dev/mmcblk1p1, and is mounted at /home/<userid>/<uuid>.

I can unmount it, and mount it at /mnt. Everything is good.

If I add a line to /etc/fstab to mount the SD card, it switches to /dev/mmcblk0p1, with the root partition now being /dev/mmcblk1p1. Naturally a bunch of things stop working.

Doesn't matter whether I reference the SD device name (*) or the uuid in fstab, nor whether I put it at the start or the end of the entries.

I don't understand what's happening. It doesn't matter whether I install Lubuntu with or without the SD card in place (I have tried several routes).

*** UPDATE ***

Lubuntu 22.04.

Having gone back to the original fstab, and taken out the SD card, the boot partition remains at /dev/mmcblk1 and I still have issues with PulseAudio, for example (exclamation mark in the system tray and upon opening PusleAudio I get "Establishing connection to PulseAudio. Please wait ...")

It all seems highly non-deterministic, but I have no doubt it's just about finding the right config file or doing things in the right order.

I notice I also now have a new version at the grub loader, which appeared without any action on my part (computer was in sleep mode and the new version was there upon restart).

Original fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a device; this may
# be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices that works even if
# disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system>             <mount point>  <type>  <options>  <dump>  <pass>
UUID=73BA-4094                            /boot/efi      vfat   umask=0077 0 2 
UUID=525a30ce-ac82-4ab3-9ded-38a4b5cc6f80 /             ext4    defaults,discard 0 1 
tmpfs                                     /tmp           tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0

Revised fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a device; this may
# be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices that works even if
# disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system>             <mount point>  <type>  <options>  <dump>  <pass> 
UUID=73BA-4094                            /boot/efi      vfat   umask=0077 0 2 
UUID=525a30ce-ac82-4ab3-9ded-38a4b5cc6f80 /             ext4    defaults,discard 0 1 
tmpfs                                     /tmp           tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0 
UUID=26ADD53F795460BB                     /mnt           ntfs    defaults 0 0

123

0 + 5

fstab

mount

waltinator

5/5/24, 12:13 AM

Read `man blkid fstab`. One can mount via UUID, and not worry about device names.

Organic Marble

5/5/24, 12:24 AM

Please edit your question and include the full text of `/etc/fstab` after you added the partition. Odds are, you made a mistake in there (mount point, or whatever).

guiverc

5/5/24, 1:33 AM

FYI: The *device* points can vary on a number of factors as they are set largely by your machine *firmware* or hardware and not the OS itself. That's why the unique IDs (UUIDs) are used as they are controllable (*as long as they're unique*) and not impacted by the order of insertion into your hardware. You didn't mention what release of Lubuntu (*it likely makes no difference here, but gives a huge clue as to the software stack you're using & any other details that may come into play*).

Organic Marble

5/6/24, 11:53 AM

Do you really want to mount the last partition at /mnt? On my systems that has other stuff mounted below it, like /mnt/timeshift. I would make a mount point for your partition under /mnt, like /mnt/data. I don't know if the way you have done it is actually causing a problem - I have not done it that way - so posting as a comment.

Jonathan Paul Martin

5/6/24, 4:40 PM

I actually wanted to mount it under /home (it's basically my personal data, music and stuff), but that's when I started having these problems. I thought it was interfering with /home references elsewhere - Firefox lost my profile etc. So this was an attempt to get the SD card mounted properly, anywhere, and then look into the /home issues. But then I discovered the /dev/mmcblk keeps changing

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Fstab entry changes device name

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