14.04 LTS install on external HD today, some problems

[sonicwind]

After 2 months of using the Live DVD and reading everything I could, I installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS today on my external hard drive. It took 5 hours and didn't exactly go smooth, but it is installed and I've booted from it again.

I have two remaining issues:

1) The default suspend is set to 5 minutes. Software Updater popped up the first time I logged in, so I started them. I came back to find it frozen up because the screen blanked. Software Updates didn't and won't finish now. I rebooted and tried again, and also tried a "partial update" option that came on the screen. It keeps freezing. When I click to cancel it it says the window became unresponsive.

It has gotten stuck at the point of "resolving dependencies" and the second time "configuring grub-pc". What can I do? Should I start all over? How long should Software Updater take the first time?

2) I also have a data partition (NTFS) on the external drive. I used GParted to format/partition because I couldn't figure the Ubuntu installer one out. It looks like my Ubuntu ext4 partition mounted at /media/john.

For mount points for the data partition, my choices were blank, /dos and /windows. I picked /windows. I wasn't sure what the blank option would do. The mount point is now at /windows. For consistency I'm thinking I should have the same mount area as the Ubuntu partition (in /media/something). Is it too late to remedy this?

I just solved the third issue myself. Thank you so much guys. This forum has been a tremendous resource.

[yancek]

Five hours is excessive for an install, generall it takes 20-30 minutes but if it new to you it would take longer. You might post some info on your hardware. The time it takes to do update after an install will vary. 14.04 was released almost two years ago so you will have 2 yers of updates.


The mount point is now at /windows. For consistency I'm thinking I should have the same mount area as the Ubuntu partition (in /media/something). Is it too late to remedy this?

Is this for your windows data partition? Shouldn't be a problem. For Ubuntu the mount point for the install is "/", the forward slash symbol. Where are you seeing ubuntu mounted as /media/john? Are you on the installation medium?

[sonicwind]

Thanks for replying yancek.

The five hours was start to finish getting the install done with the handful of issues I ran into. Lots of that time reading from my notes. I didn't mean to say the computer was busy for five hours. Sorry.

Let me get back to the mount point issue tomorrow. My brain is fried for tonight. You're right, I did mount the Ubuntu ext4 partition at /. Let me use some commands like mount -l and maybe fdisk -l tomorrow and make sure I'm giving accurate info. Garbage in --> Garbage out.

If anyone has ideas for the Software Updater problem, please offer them.

[Bucky Ball]

Ubuntu installs to /, swap to /swap. Both those mountpoints are defaults in the 'Something Else' section of the partitioner during install. You are not forced to choose the default mountpoints for any other partitions. The defaults are only there for convenience.

You can call the mountpoints anything you like (did you try typing in your own???). For instance /fishandchips is fine. /sandshoecollection. Doesn't matter. The defaults are only there for examples. The only one you MUST use are / and /swap. The rest are up to you ...

Just a word. I didn't take much notice of the Win you are running but NEVER resize a modern Win (7 and later) with Gparted. Vice versa: never attempt resizing of Linux partitions with Win disk manager tools. Just thought I'd mention it. :)

[sonicwind]

Thanks for replying Bucky. I didn't do any resizing. It had been a data drive (NTFS) only. I blanked the whole thing and started fresh for Ubuntu and added the new data partition. Nothing on it was important.

Re: mount points - I took a look at things with blkid, mount -l and cat /etc/fstab

My Ubuntu partition is /dev/sda1 on / so that looks good. I did see a "errors=remount -ro" but another thread on here says "It's not an error. It tells the os to mount the root partition read only IF there are errors." so I think that's OK.

My data partition is /dev/sda3 on /windows. Where would the usual place for this be? I thought it should be /media/something ? Maybe I just leave it be but I'm wondering where others have it.

Finally, is Software Updater something I can try uninstalling and reinstalling?

[yancek]

My data partition is /dev/sda3 on /windows

Mounted at "/windows" would indicate that it is in the / (root) of the filesystem which is not common. Generally, additional partitions are mounted under the /mnt or /media directories but this shouldn't cause any problem. You can configure the software updater which is nicely explained at the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C9ANF_KH_Q

[Bucky Ball]

Mounted at "/windows" would indicate that it is in the / (root) of the filesystem ...

No, it's not yancek. Read earlier posts. Just a novice mountpoint name choice during install. Windows is not there, either. It's a partition called 'windows' (if I understood the first post). ;)

So, yea. Everything is looking fine. As long as you're aware your data partition is named 'windows', which is unusual but doesn't make any difference to the overall operation of the thing (after all, what's in a name?), then you're good to go.

As for the Software Updater question, it has nothing to do with this support request. Please post a new thread for that and state why you would want to remove and install it (you're obviously having a problem you haven't mentioned here, which is a good thing, as mentioned).

Link back to the new thread if you want.

So where are you up to with this issue?

[sonicwind]

Bucky is correct. Windows isn't and never was on this external hard drive. It's a mount point called /windows. Whichever it was that I used (I think this was done in GParted), it gave me three mount point choices - /windows, /dos and blank. Maybe I could have just typed something else in or maybe blank was for that but I wasn't sure. Whatever happened, it's what I have.

If I wanted to change that mount point to /media/ExtHD , how would I do that?

I'll open another thread for Software Updater. yancek's link doesn't address a corrupted Software Updater.

Thank you so much guys.

[yancek]

Windows isn't and never was on this external hard drive

I was referring to the mount point you indicated for the windows data partition you stated was on your external drive not the windows system partition. A partition mounted as "/windows" would mean the mount point is in the / (root) of the filesystem and if you ran: ls / you would see it there. As stated above, more common locations for mount points are in either the /mnt or /media directories but it doesn't really matter.

To change the mount point you would put an entry in the /etc/fstab file and you can find numerous sites that explain that for windows partitions depending upon the parameters you want. An explanation at the link below with some examples.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MountingWindowsPartitions

[sonicwind]

OK thanks yancek. Yes I'm familiar with that MountingWindowsPartitions page. I thought there might be more to it. I'll mark this thread closed now. Thanks to both of you.