Start with the man pages. Running the command man followed by a space and then followed by the command you’re using will almost always give you a man page of the basics of how that command works. The fstab has its own man page too. An internet search “man fstab” or whatever command you’re interested in should also net many mirrors of the those man pages as well.

For me at least, it’s not that you’re asking questions. I answered, so obviously I’m sympathetic to confusion in this area. I’m just trying to encourage you to seek your answers in the documentation and manuals FIRST. The way your question was worded led me to believe that you had not read the manuals at all and were simply copying snippets of code and commands from some random question and answer style forum that did not teach you anything about the fundamentals of what those commands and code actually did. That’s fine too, lots of people started off that way, myself included. Reading the manuals gives you the context to step back and understand how those commands work and what they’re really doing. If you do, you’ll be much better able to troubleshoot your own problems, you’ll be able to ask better questions in forums like this, and you’ll get better and more useful responses.

With all due respect, RTFM. Mount and umount are two sides of the same operational coin. You mount the drive to use it and unmount it when you’re done. fstab is just a file system table used to remember and consistently apply the options used whether you’re mounting the drives manually or telling the system to do it at boot.

Deleting a line from fstab is not the same as unmounting, it is just a shortcut to tell the system how you want that drive mounted when you or the system run the mount command. Mount directories (usually the folders in /media/ or /mnt/ ) also do not get automatically deleted just because you “yanked the drive”. Again, those directories are just where your system is expecting to mount the drive. When the drive is mounted they will be the root path to its contents, when the drive is unmounted they will be empty but they still exist. If your planning on mounting the drive again leave them there. If you’re not planning on mounting them again, delete them.

If you’re not planning on regularly mounting a particular drive, it probably shouldn’t be listed in fstab and you should just run the mount command with the appropriate options (again fstab is just a table for remembering those options for the mount command).

Many desktop Linux distros are also capable of automatically mounting new removable drives in such a way that the user can access them and doesn’t have to worry about touching fstab or the mount directories.

I wonder whatever happened to Knoppix. All I’ve been able to find online is speculation and questions.

Lars ruined Napster. BitTorrent came around some time later after Limewire, Soulseek, and DirectConnect. Lars might have had something to say about Bit Torrent, but by that point no one was listening.

Besides, back then, we really were using BitTorrent mostly for Linux ISOs. At the time it was more reliable than http. It really sucked having to download an entire ISO again because it failed the checksum. BitTorrent alleviated that.

In my experience, 2 devices will ultimately save you effort and frustration. Anything you choose as a good NAS/seedbox will be unlikely to have a good from the couch interface or handle Netflix reliable and easily. A small Android TV box may have a much better interface, simple app setup, and support all the streaming services, but probably won’t be very powerful or convenient to use as a NAS. The NAS is always on, plugged directly into the Internet access point, and tucked away out of sight and sound. The Android TV or Apple TV box is silent, small, and can be mounted directly to the Beamer/Projector.

Yes, Kodi exists and it’s add-ons can bridge this gap. But I still think that a SBC NAS running Jellyfin or plex + an Nvidia shield with jellyfin, Plex, Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, amaon, etc. will be so much easier to setup, manage, find support for, and upgrade.

I have a similar setup even though my server has a direct HDMI link to my TV. I’m not a fan of viewing using the server it from the couch. Setting up IR remotes sucks always. And it’s confusing for anyone but me to use. But if my Nvidia Shield dies or I’m having network trouble, VLC a pretty good backup.

Maybe they are illuminating their living room with the front end of a BMW.

Better yet, it’s a Pimp My Ride style makeover that replaces those unused turn signals with a projection system for an instant drive-in movie experience.

The amount of downvotes on this comment is a symptom of how toxic this community has become.

Like every system? What’s the actual distinction you’re trying to point out?

I think the more nuanced take is that we should be making “piracy” legal by expanding and protecting fair use and rights to make personal copies. There are lots of things that are called piracy now that really shouldn’t be. Making “piracy” legal still leaves plenty of room for artists to get paid.

However, the issue is that I have to use sudo when using these commands and as a result after mounting I cannot make changes to my files in the drive(s) without using sudo.

This isn’t because you’re using sudo to mount, that is the way to do it. This is because you’re mounting to a directory for which your regular user does not have write access. Create a directory owned by your user and make sure you have write access with sudo first. Or make it owned by a group that your user is a member (I use media) and give that group write access. Then mount the drive to that directory in the usual way (I prefer to clutter up my fstab with entries I rarely use). You should now have access without sudo.

9 out of 10 times new users are struggling with access, it’s not a problem with the software, but a problem with permissions.

I’m just curious how much RAM you think that is.

Docker compose is just a setting file for a container. It’s the same advantage you get using an ssh config file instead of typing out and specifying a user, IP, port, and private key to use each time. What’s the advantage to putting all my containers into one compose file? It’s not like I’m running docker commands from the terminal manually to start and stop them unless something goes wrong, I let systemd handle that. And I’d much rather the systemd be able to individually start, stop, and monitor individual containers rather than have to bring them all down if one fails.

You don’t need to get too complicated with scripts if you let Picard do all the tagging and renaming. In my experience it works pretty well with the default out of the box configuration. Just don’t try to do your whole library at once, just go album by album and check each one is matching with the correct release. I was in the same boat about a decade ago and did the same, just a few albums a day getting tagged and renamed into a fresh music directory. And of course, make a backup first, just in case.

Lately I’ve been going through this process again because I messed up configuring Lidarr and many files got improperly renamed. Since they were all still properly tagged, fixing them has been easy, especially with Picard. I haven’t really bothered to find all the stray files yet (they’re still roughly in the right location) because Plex ignores the paths and just reads the tags so the misnamed files aren’t even noticable in Plex

When you say Plex interface remotely, are you referring to the Plex app or PlexAmp app? I feel like PlexAmp fixed all of my complaints about listening to music through Plex (the same app I use for videos).

Easytag works pretty well for me on Linux, when I’m not just using Picard. I use EasyTag mostly for fixing and normalizing the tags on audiobooks these days.

I’m barely rebuilding my server once a decade, so that’s all pretty irrelevant. I do use docker a bunch for programs I’d never interact with in the terminal, but that’s not really my issue with immutable; it’s flatpaks and the CLI, bash wrappers or aliases and all that noise. Too much trouble till they sort that out better.

Immutable distros sound great for desktop users, distro hoppers, and system admins maintaining a fleet of desktop Linux machines in the wild. They sound more than a little annoying for homelab server users that mostly interact with their machine via the terminal and are more likely to want to run unpopular software on unpopular hardware in a niche distro.

I was hesitant to buy into the whole nitrous thing when getting dental work done. What’s a little discomfort? I can take it. But holy fucking shit does it make a difference for the better. Especially for something like a cleaning; I’m calmer, more relaxed, and even though I can still feel what they are doing in there I just don’t care as much. It feels like a zero calorie beer for breakfast. And paired with actual numbing agents during a more involved procedure, it helps them as much as me. It’s like a hypnosis drug. I just focus on breathing through my nose and follow their instructions without any stress and the drunken feeling passes before I even leave the chair so I can go on with my day.

Moreover, I can’t exactly make whipped cream with carbon dioxide. Are they going to outlaw Guinness in a can with the nitrous widget next?