Re: Partition unreadable [was: Re: Debian Stretch broken !]
On 4/4/20 11:57, Bernard wrote:
> Le 04/04/2020 18:16, Andrei POPESCU a écrit :
>> On Sb, 04 apr 20, 11:00:06, Bernard wrote:
>>> Thanks a lot for this reply
>>>
>>> The output of the proposed tests are shown on the following screen
>>> picture :
>>>
>>> http://bdebreil.free.fr/IMG_0906.jpg
>>>
> ......................
>>
>> Please post also the contents of /etc/fstab.
>
> http://bdebreil.free.fr/IMG_0907.jpg
>
>From the various postings it seems somewhat clear that the system, as
such, is not broken. The initial message indicates, I think Felix Miata
noted, that there is a problem with gdm starting (probably) gnome. It
also indicates that the boot completed almost normally (or almost
completed normally).
There is no obvious problem with the disks or partitions. It is unusual
to put a file system on an entire raw disk, as with /dev/sdb, but I do
not know of a reason it would not work, or that one should not do it if
the entire disk is to be used for a single file system.
As for /dev/sda: /sda1 is the partition containing everything, including
/boot and / (the root file system which, in this case contains all files
that are not on /dev/sdb, including /home). There is nothing
fundamentally wrong with this either; I find it increasingly hard to
justify to myself my old custom of putting /boot, /, /usr, /var, /tmp,
and /home on separate partitions. As Felix Miata also noted, sda2 is the
"extended" partition, and sda5 is the swap partition, created during
installation.
By the indications given, both disks are healthy, or considered so by
the Linux kernel.
The message string does not say directly whether you received a login
widget, and then the "Oh, no ..." after trying to log in. That would
indicate that GDM (or the display manager was in use, maybe lightdm)
worked, but gnome could not start.
I have seen a similar problem with gdm/gnome on occasion, but do not
remember the exact problem or its solution. It appeared to have
something to do with corruption in one of the files under
/home/<user>/.gconf. I think my answer might have been to throw away
that directory and let it rebuild as it liked. There are times when I
have little patience with files for which I have trouble finding
detailed documentation and which were created as side effects of
application or subsystem operation. I haven't burned myself yet, but
hesitated to recommend it for others where I have no skin in the game.
Others (almost everyone here) who know more than I about the innards of
the display manager and gnome may provide useful information, but
worrying about the disk looks to me like missing the mark.
>>
>> It's curious that fdisk shows sdb has no partition at all. Is this
>> expected or does sdb contain your /home?
>
> There is no mystery about sdb ; I should have mentioned it before. This
> is an additional disk ; my desktop has two hard drives. This extra one
> had no part in the install process, I only used it later on as an
> extension to save files, I mount it manually every time I want to use
> it. I didn't see any point to partition it. I successfully mounted it in
> my recovery boot, and everything seemed to be OK at first sight.
>
> Regards,
>
> Bernard
Regards,
Tom Dial
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