Filesystem Root and EFI Now Showing as Removable Drives in Nemo

[brad]

As you can see in the image, the filesystem root and efi drives are showing as removable drives in Nemo (and as in the panel applet). This was not the case a few days ago.

Also, USB drives are not auto-mounting anymore.

Any ideas why this is, or how to get things back to normal?



System Info:

OS: Ubuntu 18.04
Desktop: Cinnamon v4.2.4
Kernel: 5.3.0-22-generic

[SMG]

Earlier this week someone posted on this forum with filesystem root and efi on their desktops and it was determined they had a failing hard drive. The failing hard drive corrupted the install and that was the result. So check your hard drive and/or your file system integrity because it appears you are running as root and not as an admin user.

Also, I would recommend you update to a kernel that is receiving support. Support for the 5.3 kernel ended nearly a year ago in December 2019.

[Moonstone Man]

Also, I would recommend you update to a kernel that is receiving support.

OS: Ubuntu 18.04

I don't know if that's relevant though it might be.

[brad]

I don't understand the difference between root versus admin user. Can you explain this?

How would I check my hard drive and file system integrity?

[SMG]

I don't understand the difference between root versus admin user. Can you explain this?

See if this thread helps. Root vs. Admin?

How would I check my hard drive and file system integrity?

Those are two different things. This is a Linux Mint forum and I do not have Ubuntu 18.04 experience, so my ability to tell you what apps you can use for these checks is limited.

File system integrity can be checked with fsck How to Use fsck Command to Check and Repair Filesystem, but the partition must be unmounted. You could boot into a live-session of Ubuntu and thus have your hard drive unmounted so you could run the checks.

The condition of your hard drive (any bad sectors, etc.) is a separate issue. Here is the other thread I referenced in my earlier post How do you diagnose unknown problems?. Kadaitcha Man recommends installing and using smartmontools and check the SMART values of your hard disk. I know some of those values are available in the Disks App in Mint, but I do not know what Ubuntu might have.

[brad]

Things are working as expected again. I made no configuration or preference changes. The drives shown in the original post are no longer showing in Nemo and USB drives are once again auto-mounting. My only assumption is showing and then hiding of these drives was due to updates. I'm sorry to waste everyone's time, but I do appreciate the help.

[SMG]

Things are working as expected again. I made no configuration or preference changes. The drives shown in the original post are no longer showing in Nemo and USB drives are once again auto-mounting. My only assumption is showing and then hiding of these drives was due to updates. I'm sorry to waste everyone's time, but I do appreciate the help.

You are not the first person to have indicated this happened and then went back to normal. That also happened in this thread Why do I see EFI & Root on Desktop?.

You should still change to a supported kernel in order to get security and patch fixes. I do not know what the recommended supported kernels are for Ubuntu 18.04, but I know 4.15 and 5.4 are LTS kernels and are being updated.

[brad]

I wouldn't mind updating the kernel if I could find a tutorial that wasn't overly complicated. All the ones I can find have various "be careful or you might burn it to the ground" type warnings. Do you know of any good ones?

[SMG]

I would suggest checking Ubuntu forums for help with that, especially since I'm not sure how you ended up with the 5.3 kernel.

Linux Mint has a GUI app (Update Manager) that makes changing kernels easy and quite safe. Maybe you should consider Linux Mint.

[brad]

I used to run Mint. I have been thinking of switching back. I originally made the move as Mint's apt repos seem to lag behind with updated software. It's been a few years since I've checked, is this not the case anymore?

As for the 5.3 kernel, it is what shipped with Ubuntu 18.04. I found an article explaining why some distros have unsupported kernels in their LTS releases: https://itsfoss.com/why-distros-use-old-kernel/. Although, I couldn't find any official Ubuntu documentation to back this up.

[brad]

I've got an old laptop running Mint 18.3. I checked the Kernel updater in Update Manager. Mint 18.3 is still supported till April 2021, but I can't update to any actively supported kernel via the GUI.

[SMG]

I used to run Mint. I have been thinking of switching back. I originally made the move as Mint's apt repos seem to lag behind with updated software. It's been a few years since I've checked, is this not the case anymore?

I'm not aware of what "used to be" so I probably am not the best person to answer the question. It is my understanding, however, that what is available for Ubuntu is available for Mint so I would not expect much difference between the two.

As for the 5.3 kernel, it is what shipped with Ubuntu 18.04. I found an article explaining why some distros have unsupported kernels in their LTS releases: https://itsfoss.com/why-distros-use-old-kernel/. Although, I couldn't find any official Ubuntu documentation to back this up.

I did find an article that said Ubuntu 18.04.4 (I think that was the patch number) came out with 5.3 earlier this year. That's why I suggested using an Ubuntu forum to get more information because I do not know how Ubuntu handles support for their releases. I am only aware of Ubuntu supporting the LTS kernels of 4.15 and 5.4 because those are the ones currently being used in Mint.

Mint 19.3 came out with the 5.0 kernel, but that is no longer supported. If anyone posts with that kernel the first recommendation is to change to one of the two LTS kernels. Nearly all the time, that fixes whatever problem the person posting had.

[SMG]

I've got an old laptop running Mint 18.3. I checked the Kernel updater in Update Manager. Mint 18.3 is still supported till April 2021, but I can't update to any actively supported kernel via the GUI.

Click on 4.15 at the bottom of the left panel. The available kernels (if you are connected to the Internet with that laptop) should appear in the center. You will need to click on the topmost one (I think the latest version is 4.15.0-122-generic) in order for the "Install" button to appear. You can install and be running with a supported kernel after you reboot.

[brad]

According to the wiki, version 4.15 support ended in April 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_ker ... on_history

Found a thread about updating software. It says you have to use PPAs to get the latest versions as they are not avaliable from Mint repos. It's from the olden days of 2015, but I fear it's still relevant: viewtopic.php?t=188689

[SMG]

According to the wiki, version 4.15 support ended in April 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_ker ... on_history

According to Ubuntu, 4.15 and your 5.3 (for the 18.04.4 release) appear to be supported. Ubuntu kernels from Canonical . Scroll to the "Kernel and OS releases" section.

The LTS kernel for Ubuntu 20.04 is the 5.4 kernel.

Found a thread about updating software. It says you have to use PPAs to get the latest versions as they are not avaliable from Mint repos. It's from the olden days of 2015, but I fear it's still relevant: viewtopic.php?t=188689

You have Ubuntu right now. How is that different from what is stated for Mint?

Quite a bit of software has flatpaks available which you can download and install from the the software's web site, so you do not have you use only what is available in Software Manager or Synaptics.

[agrax]

This might be helpful to someone.
I just stumbled on this topic/problem, because of the same issue I had with Mint 19, 19.x.
In my case it turned out that I had Floppy enabled on my motherboard and I did not have it connected to the MBO. Just disabled it in BIOS and everything works perfectly now.

[quickblack]

i'm having the same problem, so what i do is i remove the second hard disk that have linux mint 19 in it... and it works... i guess having two linux mint as OS not good...