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Linux mint

Toke

Godless Socialist
Toke
Joined
Jul 28, 2008
Messages
8,171
Location
Denmark
Last month I downloaded a flashdrive version of linux mint and got my laptop started on it.

It did not recognice my internet connection at home, so I did not use it again.
Have just tried again onboard, It works!!!

And the screen looks much better than windows.


Does anybody know what the next step is_:boggled:
Like for getting danish keyboard setup and locating some computer games.
 
Well, I do not have Mint, but Ubuntu in KDE you open System->Preferences->Keyboard and select the "Layout" tab. Probably only the "USA" layout will be displayed, so hit the "Add" button and chose Danish from the popup menu in the dialog box that appears.
 
Yes, danish keyboard asus laptop.
But no change.

Well, thanks for the advice, I will try play with settings.
 
Only problem now is that it refuses to "mount" my harddisk. (Partition_1 ?)

Restarting without flashdrive works fine, windows start.
 
Toke said:
Only problem now is that it refuses to "mount" my harddisk. (Partition_1 ?)

Restarting without flashdrive works fine, windows start.
Click to expand...

Refuses, or simply doesn't do it automatically? Can you mount it manually (mount)? If so, you need to edit the file /etc/fstab to have it mounted automatically (fstab).

To try to mount manually, the command will be

mount -t auto <device> <path>

Where

<device> is the path to the hard drive device (likely /dev/hda0 or /dev/sda0, depending on whether it's an IDE, SCSI or SATA drive)

<path> is a path to an already created directory that will become the 'link' to the data on that drive. (ex. /mount/windows_drive/)
 
It´s called Partition_1, and double clicking it gives an error message with the details:
mount: according to mtab, /dev/sda1 is already mounted on /media/Partition_1

It seems I am logget on as "live session user" and have to be root to mount anything manually.
 
Last edited:
Try sudo <command string>

It will ask you for your password, then perform the command with you as superuser.
 
I managed to log on as root, but still got an error message.
Deleting dev/sda1, 2 and 3 did not help either.

I may have pulled out the flashdrive at the wrong time last month and damaged some file.

So I deleted the flashdrive and tried to recreate it from the downloads still on my desktop. That did not work.

I will just have to wait till I get home and download the linux pendrive files again, And read the instructions more carefully.

Thanks.
 
Toke said:
It´s called Partition_1, and double clicking it gives an error message with the details:
mount: according to mtab, /dev/sda1 is already mounted on /media/Partition_1

It seems I am logget on as "live session user" and have to be root to mount anything manually.
Click to expand...

The error message seems to indicate that the mount has already happened properly, the error is that you can't mount the same drive in two different places.

I don't know how familiar you are with Unix architecture, but everything gets placed somewhere in one large file system. Rather than having each drive separate like windows (C:, D:), each drive gets mounted to a directory in the file system. Hardware, software services, and device drivers all get placed there also.

The message is telling you that the drive (hardware name sda1, the first drive found on SATA/SCSI) is already available at /media/Partition_1. Can you see anything when you navigate to /media/Partition_1 ?
 
I were not able to locate it anywhere.
The film player program I used last month still had reference to 3 videos, but could not find/play them.

I think the "already mounted" was an error, and deleting the appropoiate file would help, /dev/sda1 was not the right file.

I do not have a bootable linux now, but will try next week again.
 
Toke said:
I were not able to locate it anywhere.
The film player program I used last month still had reference to 3 videos, but could not find/play them.

I think the "already mounted" was an error, and deleting the appropoiate file would help, /dev/sda1 was not the right file.

I do not have a bootable linux now, but will try next week again.
Click to expand...

/dev/sda1 isn't really a file. One of the more difficult things about Unix/Linux to grasp is that not everything inf the files system is really an actual file, many things just 'act like one'. 'Files' in /dev are actually pieces of hardware or software emulated devices. They pretend to be files so that programs can simply open them up and read and write to the device the same way they do to a file, which makes programmer's lives much easier.

If the 'already mounted' was an error, deleting a file isn't the way to solve it. You either need to unmount the drive (or at least convince the system that the device is unmounted), or perform brain surgery on the mount table.

The command 'umount /dev/sda1' will unmount it manually, so that you can try remounting it with 'mount -t auto /dev/sda1 /mount/Partition_1'.

The file /etc/mtab contains a list of what Linux thinks are the currently mounted drives. you can see tha tlist by typing 'mount' at a command prompt, or 'cat /etc/mtab'. If that table gets out of sync with reality, you can get these symptoms. Editing that by hand is the brain surgery option. In this case, it's not that hard, as you only need to delete one line, and teh line should be the only one starting with '/dev/sda1 /media/Partition_1'

I may have pulled out the flashdrive at the wrong time last month and damaged some file.
Click to expand...
This can cause a problem like what you're experiencing. The drive was mounted when the OS was last able to see the USB drive, so /etc/mtab still thinks things are mounted. But, the system hasn't really mounted the drive after booting this time, so it's not available from /mount/Partition_1/. Linux can get confused like this when it isn't shut down properly, which pulling out the USB drive before finishing a shutdown can cause.

This is why I think that having a bootable USB drive isn't really a good idea for continual use. It's a problem for any OS, though some recover more gracefully.
 
That makes sense.

And the error message were actually related to the error and could point to it.
Not very windowslike:)
 
Toke said:
That makes sense.

And the error message were actually related to the error and could point to it.
Not very windowslike:)
Click to expand...

Yeah, that takes some getting used to: Actual useful error messages that Google will turn up actual helpful pages to fix.
 
The problem is my internet connection here at home. It is communal for the whole apartment complex.
I just brought "Linux Format" this issue comes with Mandriva 2009 spring and Ubunto 9.04 on a dvd.

Both boot fine and Ubunto found the internet first time around but not the second.
I will just have to play with them when back at work, and see which one works/feels best, then speak with the internet guy for the building.

I have learned from you and the net that there is plenty of help/guidance available, and drivers for laptops.
 
Clement Lefebvre, Mints lead developer has got himself in a bit of a stew regarding comments he made about supporters of the State of Isreal.

"I don’t want any money or help coming from people who support the actions of the Israeli government."

The above seems a bit out of context if you read the full statement.

http://eclelef.blogspot.com/2009/05/palestine_03.html

He has come under a fair bit of criticism though.

Gotta love Linux Mint though.
 
Also note that there is a little caveat if the drive you try to mount is formatted with NTFS. The Linux NTFS driver, ntfs-3g, refuses to mount a NTFS partition if that one was not cleanly shut down in windows. So, if you simply turn off the machine, or otherwise did an "unclean" shutdown, or if there are errors in the filesystem, it won't mount.

In such a case either reboot into Windows, fix the drive/partition if needed and then shutdown cleanly, or use the "-o force" option with the mount command in Linux. I see that error on a more or less regular basis when people come around and i put their USB-Sticks or -Drives with NTFS in my machine.

Greetings,

Chris
 
Christian Klippel said:
Also note that there is a little caveat if the drive you try to mount is formatted with NTFS. The Linux NTFS driver, ntfs-3g, refuses to mount a NTFS partition if that one was not cleanly shut down in windows. So, if you simply turn off the machine, or otherwise did an "unclean" shutdown, or if there are errors in the filesystem, it won't mount.

In such a case either reboot into Windows, fix the drive/partition if needed and then shutdown cleanly, or use the "-o force" option with the mount command in Linux. I see that error on a more or less regular basis when people come around and i put their USB-Sticks or -Drives with NTFS in my machine.

Greetings,

Chris
Click to expand...


Killer tip!

Vielen Dank meinen Freund
 
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