How to prevent Dolphin's mounting unmounted partitions

[oshunluvr]

The btrfs wiki says to always "run with the latest kernel." Is this still necessary? If so, how to install a different kernel in Kubuntu? I suppose it would have to be compiled.

Maybe this should be in a different thread.

If you're using Kubuntu, the latest kernel you need will be provided. Ubuntu updates the kernels along with btrfs tools well enough. I've been using btrfs daily for 4 years with almost no issues. Way less than I've had with other filesystems in the past.

[joneall]

The btrfs wiki says to always "run with the latest kernel." Is this still necessary? If so, how to install a different kernel in Kubuntu? I suppose it would have to be compiled.

Maybe this should be in a different thread.

[oshunluvr]

You still have to be able to boot, so if your system needs an EFI partition you'll still need one. Also, btrfs doesn't do swap well so a swap partition is also a good idea. You can use an entire disk without any partitions when using btrfs, but you won't be able to boot to that disk. I have a server that has four drives. 2 of them have partitions for swap and GRUB/EFI but the other two do not.

I suspect Vinny was referring to not needing partitions for multiple installs or a separate home partition. My desktop PC has 3 installs on it along with /home and /data all on the same btrfs file system. In my case, it's two drives pooled together (instant RAID is another btrfs benefit). But again, like my server, these two drive do have partitions because they are also bootable drives and I like splitting my swap across multiple devices.

The benefit (as i touched on before) to having all my installs and home and extra data all in the same btrfs filesystem in subvolumes instead of separate partitions is freespace. All available space is accessible to all the subvolumes so they can expand and contract as needed, which makes it perfect for smaller SSDs.

You can search this forum to find lots of posts by us here that use btrfs and Arch and Funtoo have good wiki's on it. Btrfs is still in development so don't rely on outdated info too much. Actually, it's very easy to use. A few simple commands and you're up and running. Snapshots, using subvolumes, and mounting instructions are the first things to learn about. Ubiquity (the default *ubuntu installer) will automatically create subvolumes for the root install and one for home, labeled "@" for / and "@home" for /home. What I do is (wrote a long post on this forum on how to do so) after install, rename the subvolumes to a unique name so at the next install the defaults are available again. I currently have @Kubuntu_14_04, @Kubuntu_15_04, @Kubuntu_15_10 and all their homes and @data all on the same btrfs file system.

[joneall]

btrfs is just great ,,,,,,,I to have my TB storage drive as a btrfs partition with one OS (netrunner) installed to 2 subvolumes @ and @home .

I already had my system HD partitioned up for 4 installs when I started messing with it ,,,,,,,,,,when I ever decide to redo it all ,,,,,,,both drives will be btrfs drives (no partitions)

VINNY

NO partitions at all? So no EFI and all that? Have a good reference for learning about it? I currently have an SSD disk for my system disk, but if I can use that for everything (It's too small for that with separate partitions), it could be great.

[vinnywright]

I encourage you to try it out if you have some spare drive space and time to read up on it.

btrfs is just great ,,,,,,,I to have my TB storage drive as a btrfs partition with one OS (netrunner) installed to 2 subvolumes @ and @home .

I already had my system HD partitioned up for 4 installs when I started messing with it ,,,,,,,,,,when I ever decide to redo it all ,,,,,,,both drives will be btrfs drives (no partitions)

VINNY

[oshunluvr]

Btw, is btrfs working well?

Yes, very well in fact. Several other KFN members are using it as well. Backups are easy, multi-disk usage is easy, subvolumes are brilliant, I can go on. My primary joy is multibooting to a single filesystem using subvolumes for the installs (instead of multiple partitions) and /home resides on the same filesystem (in it's own subvolume) also. All the free space is available to all the installs and /home - no dividing up of the drive space means no wasted space. Commands - like creating or deleting subvolumes or filesystems happen almost instantaneously.

I encourage you to try it out if you have some spare drive space and time to read up on it.

[Qqmike]

At the top of your Post #1, Thread Tools (on the right side), drop-down list, mark as Solved.

[joneall]

I can't figure out how to mark this thread as resolved.

[joneall]

Sorry for my lack of precision. What I mean by "name" is in fact what the partition editor sees as the label on the partition. It is displayed by Dolphin in the LH window if it exists. Otherwise, Dolphin displays something like "49.0 MiB Hard Drive". So I see a number of those, corresponding to the system partitions of my other Linux systems (I have five, scattered across three drives = paranoia). Some system partitions do have labels, so I also see "Deb82" and "linux-2".

Turns out what I saw as "swap-b" must have been a former swap space but no longer used for that. I do not know how it got formatted, but now I have deleted it, as well as the other one with a name identical to the production one I use for my own files (jon-files). The second one was hanging around after it had been copied to a new partition on a SSD.

Thanks to all your explanations, I understand what is happening now and have done some appropriate cleaning up.

Btw, is btrfs working well?

[jlittle]

... All my systems have at least one "mountable" file system that is not mounted by default...

oshunluvr I think the OP means "mounted automatically if the user clicks on it", not mounted at log in.

Regards, John Little

[oshunluvr]

Mounting and accessing swap space That's a new one to me. AFAIK, the only way to use a swap partition is as swap. It doesn't have an addressable file system - you can't read and write to it like a normal file system. It doesn't even show up in Dolphin, at least not here, and I've never seen it do so in the 12 or so years I've been using KDE daily. It won't show in the results of df either. Either something is wildly wrong with your fstab or your "swap" partition isn't actually swap at all. Type swapon -s and cat /etc/fstab |grep swap and post the results of both commands.

I never heard of working with mountable file systems that are not mounted by default, unless they are on mountable devices like external disks or USB keys. Not sure I see the usefulness.

All my systems have at least one "mountable" file system that is not mounted by default. Backups, other OSs (multi-boot configuration), dedicated GRUB or EFI partitions, private or project file storage, and others. Usefulness criteria? How about not searching through unneeded file systems when looking for something, keeping backups safer from accidental deletion or unwarranted access, prevent prying eyes, keep boot systems (grub, etc.) safe, there are more. Since I use btrfs as my primary file system I also have subvolumes that are not mounted by default. I would ask: Why mount everything all the time if you don't need access to it all the time? Disk functions - searches, stats, file systems checks, all run faster if you're not wasting time accessing unneeded locations.

I had a second partition with the same name because...

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but I still don't know what you mean by "same name". I realize I'm nit-picking, but it's easier to get assistance if you use correct and precise terminology. For example: my partitions have device names and my file systems have labels, UUIDs, and mount points among other ways to address them. I assume, since it's impossible to have duplicate device names, you're referring to either the file system label, UUID, or both. In this case, it's possible to change a UUID or label to prevent mis-mounting. I've never tried to have duplicate labels/UUIDs and then see them both mount. It seems more likely to me that you'd get an error when mounting rather than both of them mounting.

[joneall]

I had a second partition with the same name because I moved the file system to another partition without deleting the old one. I've deleted it now, which should take care of that problem.

I never heard of working with mountable file systems that are not mounted by default, unless they are on mountable devices like external disks or USB keys. Not sure I see the usefulness.

Dolphin also likes to mount my swap space if I click on that by accident. Is this dangerous? I suppose not as long as I don't try to use it.

[LinkBot]

"an order is an order"

How to prevent Dolphin's mounting unmounted partitions

... Seems to me this is a security problem. In order to use the mount command to do that, I have to use sudo.

How can I stop Dolphin from doing that?...

The Dolphin is only following orders - Polkit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polkit

Polkit (formerly PolicyKit) is a component for controlling system-wide privileges in Unix-like operating systems...

An older 'how to': authentication for (removable) drives - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1435044
- now it is the org.freedesktop.udisks2.policy

[oshunluvr]

I guess I'm unclear on what or how this exactly happens. I use Dolphin every day and it's never once mounted anything on it's own that I can recall. It will mount a file system if I click on it and have the permissions to view it and it will mount removable media when I insert it - when I click on the media item in the left column, but it doesn't mount it on it's own.

Maybe if we had more information? Like when you say you have partitions with the same "names", what exactly does that mean? They're labeled the same or mounted to the same location? BTW, both inadvisable IMO. If we're talking about hard drive partitions, are they in your fstab?

[joneall]

Ok, I was wrong on security. But I still don't want it mounting things on its own because, in this case, it is mounting an outdated version of the file system. Can this be changed?

Or do I have to delete or rename the file system (partition)? (My wife is always telling me to throw out things I don't need any more -- unless they're hers!)

Thanks for your input.