I just checked, it seems KDE Plasma has a tool called "Device Auto-Mount" under system settings that allows you to do the same.
Solved Want to try linux again but had a not too happy experience last time i tried
- Thread starter Huxoslos
- Start date
Solved issue
Seems i found the likely cause to my 1. problem.
Did some asking of chat gpt earlier and chat gpt did say "Yes, it's possible for the drive to be fully hidden in the GUI if it's marked as dirty.".
So in short it seems to be issue with the filesystem which i kind of suspected to begin with as i mentioned NTFS in initial post. As of in EXT4, chatgpt claims its more automatically fixed. If power loss or hard resets.
Another thing i remembered was i did have general mounting issues with the 2nd drive to begin with.
From all info i think problem was mainly NTFS and if i want to use linux and this not happening again i'd need to use linux friendly filesystem. Which from my understanding is EXT4 is best option.
Again thanks a lot for you guys input, i really appreciate the time, truly.
Also think i will be using arch next. Found distro with amazing terminal and good and simple package manager, no fancy images and all that, just simple overview. Terminal had auto complete when you start typing which will be helpful if i forgot full commands etc... It allegedly has better performance for gaming as well over ubuntu based distro which i used before, i did notice some performance loss vs windows before, but i kind of expect it with linux in general, maybe not always very much.
Did some asking of chat gpt earlier and chat gpt did say "Yes, it's possible for the drive to be fully hidden in the GUI if it's marked as dirty.".
So in short it seems to be issue with the filesystem which i kind of suspected to begin with as i mentioned NTFS in initial post. As of in EXT4, chatgpt claims its more automatically fixed. If power loss or hard resets.
Another thing i remembered was i did have general mounting issues with the 2nd drive to begin with.
From all info i think problem was mainly NTFS and if i want to use linux and this not happening again i'd need to use linux friendly filesystem. Which from my understanding is EXT4 is best option.
Again thanks a lot for you guys input, i really appreciate the time, truly.
Also think i will be using arch next. Found distro with amazing terminal and good and simple package manager, no fancy images and all that, just simple overview. Terminal had auto complete when you start typing which will be helpful if i forgot full commands etc... It allegedly has better performance for gaming as well over ubuntu based distro which i used before, i did notice some performance loss vs windows before, but i kind of expect it with linux in general, maybe not always very much.
theLegionWithin
Well-Known Member
that reminds me of an issue that I'd run into a few months ago when I was still in the transition phase between winOS and linux - I had purchased a new, larger external ssd for my long-term data storage (mainly media - music, videos, etc as I dont keep any of that on the boot disk) and then after copying the data to the new hardware I wanted to use the older ssd (half the size of the new one) as dedicated timeshift storage (having no real use for it otherwise).
- the older ssd had been used with winOS prior to my transition to linux and was formatted to NTFS
- I experienced difficulty with it, much as you describe with the disk being "dirty". I didnt investigate the issue at the time, I just killed the existing filesystem and reformatted to ext4.
researching a little bit now that I see that someone else had similar issues, it appears that the "dirty bit" phenomenon (when the filesystem on that disk was not properly unmounted or shut down) is a mechanism implemented by various file systems to maintain data consistency and recover from unexpected shutdowns or crashes. winOS's "Fast Startup" and hibernation can prevent NTFS partitions from being cleanly unmounted, leaving them in a dirty state even after a seemingly normal shutdown. it's not neccesarily NTFS's fault, but rather a consequence of the need to protect data across different operating system environments and their respective shutdown procedures.
anyway, glad to see that you got past it
- dont forget to mark your thread as "solved". are you switching over to vanilla Arch or something else?This was internal drive for storage though, but guess its the same with NTFS. So EXT4 all they way i guess. For external drive i'd always use exFAT tbh, but that is me. Unless it will be strictly used for linux. Storage i just have internal drive, prefer that. And usb stick for moving stuff elsewhere.that reminds me of an issue that I'd run into a few months ago when I was still in the transition phase between winOS and linux - I had purchased a new, larger external ssd for my long-term data storage (mainly media - music, videos, etc as I dont keep any of that on the boot disk) and then after copying the data to the new hardware I wanted to use the older ssd (half the size of the new one) as dedicated timeshift storage (having no real use for it otherwise).
- the older ssd had been used with winOS prior to my transition to linux and was formatted to NTFS
- I experienced difficulty with it, much as you describe with the disk being "dirty". I didnt investigate the issue at the time, I just killed the existing filesystem and reformatted to ext4.
researching a little bit now that I see that someone else had similar issues, it appears that the "dirty bit" phenomenon (when the filesystem on that disk was not properly unmounted or shut down) is a mechanism implemented by various file systems to maintain data consistency and recover from unexpected shutdowns or crashes. winOS's "Fast Startup" and hibernation can prevent NTFS partitions from being cleanly unmounted, leaving them in a dirty state even after a seemingly normal shutdown. it's not neccesarily NTFS's fault, but rather a consequence of the need to protect data across different operating system environments and their respective shutdown procedures.
anyway, glad to see that you got past it
Tried CachyOS, seemed nice vs kubuntu. Also the alleged better gaming performance is nice, currently just playing around in vm checking distros rather than do install. I know i can run live version but want to try install stuff and so on before cleaning main drive and trying linux fully again. Which one do you use or prefer?
theLegionWithin
Well-Known Member
distro hopping in a vm is my preferred method as well, though I do maintain a "testbench" laptop that is currently running Liya - https://liyalinux.gitlab.io/ (relatively lightweight). the testbench is also a failover should my main rig ever catastrophically fail (not that I expect it to but I like to be prepared) and for testing interesting distros on physical hardware. I havent tried Cachy yet, but I prefer Arch derivative distros.
on my main rig, i started with vanilla Arch and then installed the packages I want (avoiding bloat) - currently using KDE for the pretty gfx/ui (wayland), and zsh for the shell.
Ah that could be convenient, then you can test more properly. VM for me been stuttering audio and horrible framerate, tried installing vm tools but that probably skill issue considering how new i am to linux.
I heard arch isn't too beginner friendly but seems ok the one i found. Heard it also gives you a lot of control, which is what i would want in the end anyway. So maybe best. Not thinking like expert level but more advanced for sure, and over windows you likley have so much control anyway.
theLegionWithin
Well-Known Member
eh, Arch isnt "friendly" but its not that bad if you're comfortable in a terminal. the official guide, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide, is rather daunting but I use archinstall (text based installation wizard) - use, not used because like many of us, I've screwed up my install more that once and have had to rinse/repeat several times (one more reason to have a dedicated testbench).
prior to switching over to it I had been poking around, trying to find something I liked and discovered that the archwiki had the best documentation. being in IT for the last ~20 years, I value documentation over everything so I switched over to Arch and never regretted the decision. any time I have issues (often) or wonder how to do something (often), etc I refer to the archwiki.
what vm client are you using? I've been using VMware Workstation (easy to obtain if, on Arch or an Arch derivative, you have an AUR helper installed - I use yay but there are quite a few of them). it's got a lot of config options.
Figures hehe. I think its ok so far, been learning pacman commands, setting up folders how i like them, even in wine to see how it works. So far migration from windows isnt going to be that bad. I would have to figure out how to copy all my 2nd drive content to 1st drive so i can clean 2nd with ext4. luckly 2nd drive isn't much bigger than total 1st drive so wouldn't be too bad. Small now since last time i tried linux hehe. I guess i could figure out using live version then copy, partition then copy back. But cachy didnt seem to have partition manager default so might have to install.
To be honest i am not really that great with reading hehe. I'll have a look at wiki.arch.
I have using VMware worskation myself.
Arch likely gonna end up being my favorite, happy so far, just got to actually install it to check everything is good and works as i expect.
I've studied a lot about Arch over a fairly long period of time. It is one of the most stable Arch-based Linux distros, if not the most stable. I can't say the same about Manjaro anymore.
Furthermore, since the Arch devs recently made it even easier to install, it is going to be my next Linux OS.
The Arch wiki is one of the best. Other distros (Debian, for one) refer to it in their wiki.
Furthermore, since the Arch devs recently made it even easier to install, it is going to be my next Linux OS.
The Arch wiki is one of the best. Other distros (Debian, for one) refer to it in their wiki.
I did smile at the reference to arch as "stable". Doubtless you are referring the sense of stable in which the operating system doesn't "fall over" or otherwise freeze or crash or "stuff up". That may be the case with arch, however, the sense of stable with debian's stable release is not so much not "falling over", though that sense does apply, but the sense of stability in "not changing much" in its packages and their contents. It's the packages that basically stay the same, being stable, throughout the debian cycle of point releases. Debian does apply security updates and will respond to critical issues with an existing package if they arise which maintains the sense of "not falling over" stability too. Arch, on the other hand, as a rolling release, clearly isn't stable in the debian sense of stability of unchanging packages, but may be stable in the sense of being dependable resisting falling over
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theLegionWithin
Well-Known Member
I had to look that one up as when I personally think of "stability" I refer to "not crashing" - under Debian, stable = predictable behavior and under Arch, stable = reliability. I suppose that's why I chose to go with Arch (unconscious bias maybe?). something I'll have to keep in mind!
my own (albeit little) experience has been that while Arch is pretty reliable, some of the apps arent. I've noticed crashing in Thunderbird with KDE but it feels more like a KDE issue than anything since the email client doesnt seem to be affected (but I never notice the issue in other apps --- edit: it happened in firefox just now! gotta be a mozilla thing, methinks)
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@theLegionWithin :-
Actually, you say about the ArchWiki being as good as it is? Do be aware, it's considered one of the best resources bar none by EVERYBODY in the Linux community.....regardless of their choice of distro, it's that good.
It's saved MY bacon on more than a few occasions, and was very useful a decade ago when figuring out how to flash the BIOS from within Linux (had no Windows available, so the DOS stuff was irrelevant)...
That was my first introduction to the magnificent flashrom utility. A real life-saver for a Linux-only household in a PC world dominated by Windows..!
Mike.
Actually, you say about the ArchWiki being as good as it is? Do be aware, it's considered one of the best resources bar none by EVERYBODY in the Linux community.....regardless of their choice of distro, it's that good.
It's saved MY bacon on more than a few occasions, and was very useful a decade ago when figuring out how to flash the BIOS from within Linux (had no Windows available, so the DOS stuff was irrelevant)...
That was my first introduction to the magnificent flashrom utility. A real life-saver for a Linux-only household in a PC world dominated by Windows..!
Mike.
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