How do I get /dev/hda3 to be my /home directory?

[ironduke]

I had opensus10.1 before but it never worked properly so I thought Knoppix could only improve (I like the beryl desktop too) but it completely ignored my old partitions and didn't give me the option of having home on a separate partition.
the original fstab file doesn't mention /home at all.. it's just a directory under / (root).
Disappointed! I've never had a distro that didn't ask about mount points during install before.

[devils casper]

Try positioning all '/dev/hda*' lines above '/proc' (with '/dev/hda2').

(To a certain degree, the order of the lines is significant.)

as i mentioned earlier, /dev/hda3 partition is created by installer only and there is no need to re-mount it OR change any option in /etc/fstab file.
am i missing something?

[devils casper]

the original fstab file doesn't mention /home at all.. it's just a directory under / (root).

but according to /etc/fstab file, /dev/sda3 line is added by Knoppix installer only and you confirmed that in post #4.

yeah I edited /etc/fstab earlier but it still does not come up as /home automatically. Interestingly the line marked:

# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda3 /home ext3 noauto,users,exec 0 0

was not what I added myself

EDIT:

edit /etc/fstab file and restore /dev/hda3 line to original. reboot machine and execute 'df -h' command. post output here.

[ironduke]

sorry casper.. being a bit reactionary I didn't record what fstab said before so I'm going to have to start again.
it doesn't matter. it's a new pc so there wasn't anything in /home that I can't replace easily. I just want a separate partition for /home (because that's meant to be a good thing) but knoppix-installer doesn't give me that option.

[devils casper]

All distros give Expert Partitioning option including Knoppix. did you try to edit /etc/fstab file?
line should be like this

/dev/hda3 /home ext3 noauto,users,exec 0 0

execute 'df -h' command after reboot. if it lists /dev/hda3 as /home, no need to re-install.

[ironduke]

yeah I tried that and it is as you say but I can't start X. Too hard!
Thanks guys but I really am not that much of an expert with linux. Why do I need to be? Install it and it goes.
I want this system to run my model railway that's all. I'm quite determined to use linux (I know linux. I dun a course an everyfing) but I just need a nice neat distro to come along and do what i want with no fuss. Back to Fedora, looks like.

[devils casper]

in that case, try latest version of Ubuntu, Feisty Fawn. its very user friendly, most of hardware works out of box and easy to manage.

[ironduke]

well that sounds.. er.... feisty.

I 'll keep an eye out for it :^)

[ironduke]

update for those who are interested..
Shortly after my final reply last night I broke linux so I gave up and went to bed.


I think knoppix doesn't work very well from the hard disk. I managed to change the mount point to home (by editing fstab) but then I couldn't get X to start.. it refused to write to the partition.. so I gave up and went to bed. They did say it would be unstable in the instructions. It's annoying that you can't use X as root. root shell and other things requiring root access (like changing desktops or installing software) stopped working.


thanks for all of your help :^)