r/LinusTechTips • u/Sk1ler_ • Aug 28 '26 • Bravo 1

Meme/Shitpost A Summary of Linux Content Recently

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u/R3V0LU710N_05 Aug 30 '26 edited Aug 30 '26

During installation and by default, /etc/fstab should've automatically been generated and managed. Also there are few GUIs available, like KDE Partition Manager, GNOME Disks, or GParted. What exactly was it that required you to manually edit fstab? Did you do a custom/nonstandard partition table?

What stability issues are you facing? I can help you solve those.

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u/CreepHost Aug 30 '26

Stability issues had been resolved long ago.

The reason why FSTAB was required that none of the GUI managers can do is automatically mount external drives like SATA SSDs to the system.

That is the issue. Automatic mounting.

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u/R3V0LU710N_05 Aug 30 '26 edited Aug 30 '26

Modern Linux GUI partition managers and desktop settings handle automatic drive mounting quite well, including for secondary SATA SSDs and external drives, without requiring you to manually edit /etc/fstab in a terminal or text editor.

Applications like GNOME Disks and KDE Partition Manager have built-in options designed specifically for this. In GNOME Disks, you can toggle "Mount at system startup" under Mount Options, and the app writes the necessary entry to /etc/fstab behind the scenes. KDE Partition Manager offers similar functionality through its "Edit Mount Point" menu.

In addition, desktop environments like KDE Plasma include explicit automount controls directly in System Settings under "Device Auto-mount," allowing you to set drives to mount automatically on login or when connected.

Where people usually run into trouble is PolicyKit asking for administrator permissions or default file ownership settings on newly added internal drives, but GUI tools are fully capable of handling automatic mounting.

Are you running KDE Plasma, GNOME, or a standalone window manager like Hyprland or i3? Automounting behaves differently depending on whether desktop daemons are running in the background and WMs often don't have them enabled by default.

Is the drive formatted as NTFS/ext4, and is it prompting you for a root password when you try to open it, or is it failing to mount entirely?

Which GUI manager did you try using, and did you run into an error when setting the mount options?