On Sun, Aug 10, 2025 at 04:14:16PM -0400, Default User wrote: > Hi guys. > > I just got back, and saw there was some question > about how /etc/fstab looks after the upgrade. > > Here is what happened: [...] Thanks for the thorough analysis. Very much appreciated. > I have had to do Timeshift restores before. As I recall, > Timeshift restores the system fine, with one minor > exception. Instead of restoring the exact same /etc/fstab > file, it insists upon replacing it with a "stripped" > version of /etc/fstab, which does NOT include the /mnt > entry, and so the /mnt partition is not mounted. You mean /tmp up there, not /mnt, right? > After the upgrade, the new Debian 13 system did seem to be > working okay. Since I had read in the release notes that > using a /mnt partition seems to be deprecated in favor of > using tmpfs, I inquired about removing the /mnt partition. ...again? > First, as suggested I did try: > > "Such files can be accessed using a bind-mount (see mount(1)): > running mount --bind / /mnt will make the underlying directory > accessible at /mnt/tmp (run umount /mnt once you have cleaned > up the old files)." > > That did not seem to work for me, the files in question just kept > re-appearing and would not go away. I don't quite understand that part: the files under /tmp keep reappearing? > So I took a deep breath, and re-booted into a debian-live session, > downloaded Gparted into it, and used that to: > 1) delete the /mnt partition > 2) increased the size of the adjacent swap partition to include the > freed-up space. OK. > Then I re-booted into the new Debian 13 system, and it seems to work. > > Sorry for the long explanation. No, no -- thanks for it! > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > P.S. - maybe I should have just done a fresh install of Debian 13 > (perhaps trying out lvm, as suggested). > > But although a basic installation can be done in an couple of hours, I > dread the couple of months it takes to get the application programs, data, > and customizations set up properly. > > P.S.S - next time I will do what I really should have done this time: > used Clonezilla to back up the whole drive, so I can do a bare metal > reinstall if necessary. > > But I guess I was just too impatient to try out the new Debian release! I'd actually recommend bypassing all that GUI fluff and doing the upgrade from a terminal. Once you get the hang of it, it's much faster and mostly hassle-free. Cheers -- t
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