Enabling Extended Attributes for ext3 filesystem

[theh3brewhammer]

Hi there, here goes my first of many posts. I'm trying to setup beagle on Ubuntu 6.10 and I need to enable extended attributes on my ext3 partition. I found this page, but it's essentially gibberish to me. I located that file (/etc/fstab) but it's read only and oddly formatted. I realize I have to do something in the terminal (gasp!), so some more specific hand holding would be much appreciated. Thanks a lot.

[Thrillhouse]

I located that file (/etc/fstab) but it's read only and oddly formatted. I realize I have to do something in the terminal (gasp!)

In order to edit /etc/fstab, you have to be root. In other words, to edit the file, try executing these commands:

$su -
$gedit /etc/fstab

That will make you become root, from which you can edit fstab and make the necessary changes. Post back here w/ any error messages/bad results you encounter.

[theh3brewhammer]

Ah so it doesn't allow me to edit that file without root privileges, thanks for the tip. I ended up not actually enabling the attributes because some google searches revealed that it's pretty easy to screw things up.

[Javasnob]

All you have to do is add user_xattr to the mount options in /etc/fstab. As long as you give the manpage a cursory look-over, you'll be fine. If you want to post your /etc/fstab file before restarting so we can check it, some of us would be happy to oblige. =D

[theh3brewhammer]

OK, here it is:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
# /dev/hda2			
UUID=f9ee26a3-8f72-4d8a-bee4-8c9726d07112 /               ext3    defaults, user_xattr,errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /dev/hda5
UUID=2a1d9bd3-6bc1-4390-a079-c45d4bc576a9 none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/hdc        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/hdd        /media/cdrom1   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/           /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto  0       0