Kinoite 44: Partition manager says Root is mounted as /etc

[jandemus]

Hi,
I now have 2 laptops with Kinoite 44. I thought why not, it is 7 weeks before the release date and so it must already be so stable that I can use it. Plus when I notice something I can report it and there is time (hopefully) to fix it.
When I opened the KDE Partition-manager on laptop 1 I saw this:

Partition P3 is labeled as ROOT but mounted as /etc. It made me unsure: did I do that? No, it can’t be or the laptop would not run at all.
So, I booted laptop 2 and yes, I see the same thing: Partition 3 is mounted as /etc.

Now I know, something is going on for some time, which is not completely right ,with the partitions:

The top red line should not be there at all.

The issue with / being /etc is new for me.

Is this something I can change myself or do I need professional help?

[ilikelinux]

@jandemus

2 laptops with Kinoite 44

How did you install it? Defaults from Fedora? Is it indeed ext4 the file system?

[hricky (Hristo Marinov)]

Are these systems malfunctioning in any way? If not, what are your concerns? Could you please post the output of the following commands:

lsblk --all --output NAME,PATH,TYPE,FSTYPE,LABEL,SIZE,FSSIZE,FSUSED,FSAVAIL,FSUSE%,MOUNTPOINTS

findmnt --all

[hricky (Hristo Marinov)]

You can also modify the first command from the previous post for more verbose output, as follows:

lsblk --all --output NAME,PATH,TYPE,FSTYPE,LABEL,PARTLABEL,PARTTYPENAME,SIZE,FSSIZE,FSUSED,FSAVAIL,FSUSE%,MOUNTPOINTS

[jandemus]

No, I always use manual partitioning since I had one bad experience with btrfs. I use EXT4 for all partitions, except Efi.

[jandemus]

@hricky

Are these systems malfunctioning in any way? If not, what are your concerns?

No, everything works as normal, I was just wondering about it.

lsblk --all --output NAME,PATH,TYPE,FSTYPE,LABEL,PARTLABEL,PARTTYPENAME,SIZE,FSSIZE,FSUSED,FSAVAIL,FSUSE%,MOUNTPOINTS
NAME        PATH           TYPE FSTYPE LABEL PARTLABEL            PARTTYPENAME       SIZE FSSIZE FSUSED FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
zram0       /dev/zram0     disk swap   zram0                                           8G                              [SWAP]
nvme0n1     /dev/nvme0n1   disk                                                    953,9G                              
├─nvme0n1p1 /dev/nvme0n1p1 part vfat   EFI   EFI System Partition EFI System         600M 598,8M  42,8M    556M     7% /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 /dev/nvme0n1p2 part ext4   BOOT                       Linux filesystem     2G   1,9G 246,4M    1,5G    13% /boot
├─nvme0n1p3 /dev/nvme0n1p3 part ext4   ROOT                       Linux filesystem    32G  31,2G  13,2G   16,4G    42% /var
│                                                                                                                      /sysroot/ostree/deploy/fedora/var
│                                                                                                                      /sysroot
│                                                                                                                      /etc
└─nvme0n1p4 /dev/nvme0n1p4 part ext4   HOME                       Linux filesystem 919,3G 903,8G   378G  479,8G    42% /var/home

 User jan @ Server Kinoite-Lenovo in Folder ~ : Mon Feb 23 - 06:00:44

I wanted to report this since it is not good, it should be / instead of /etc.

[EDIT] When you look at the picture in my first post you see the disk in my older laptop, a serial disk. I am now on the newer laptop with the nvme disk. Both use Kinoite 44 and both computer show / as /etc.

[tqcharm (Mike B.)]

It is working as expected IMO. Root (/) is not mounted from a physical device, but rather composed:

$ mount | grep -e "/dev/vda3" -e " / "
composefs on / type overlay (ro,relatime,seclabel,lowerdir+=/run/ostree/.private/cfsroot-lower,datadir+=/sysroot/ostree/repo/objects,redirect_dir=on,metacopy=on)
/dev/vda3 on /etc type btrfs (rw,relatime,seclabel,discard=async,space_cache=v2,subvolid=258,subvol=/root)
/dev/vda3 on /sysroot type btrfs (ro,relatime,seclabel,discard=async,space_cache=v2,subvolid=258,subvol=/root)
/dev/vda3 on /sysroot/ostree/deploy/fedora/var type btrfs (rw,relatime,seclabel,discard=async,space_cache=v2,subvolid=258,subvol=/root)
/dev/vda3 on /var type btrfs (rw,relatime,seclabel,discard=async,space_cache=v2,subvolid=256,subvol=/var)
/dev/vda3 on /var/home type btrfs (rw,relatime,seclabel,discard=async,space_cache=v2,subvolid=257,subvol=/home)

I guess KDE Plasma’s partition manager picks the first mount entry from the list when displaying the mount point.

FWIW, GNOME Disks on F43 displays the same mount point, /etc.

[jandemus]

@tqcharm

Root (/) is not mounted from a physical device, but rather composed:

Sorry, but this is way over my head. Can you explain what you mean with this? It’s not mounted but composed?

[hricky (Hristo Marinov)]

This is not a direct answer to your question, but hopefully, it explains the cause. See Don't show / as full or report underlying partition free space (was: df tool shows / is a 32MB partition) (#85) · Issues · Fedora / Fedora Atomic Desktops / SIG Issue Tracker · GitLab.

[tqcharm (Mike B.)]

What I meant is that there is no physical device/filesystem that gets mounted under /, as is the case with the non-atomic Fedora systems. The actual root filesystem tree resides under /sysroot IIRC. OSTree then mounts the other filesystems. / is overlayed, more recently using the ComposeFS technology. Others more familiar with ComposeFS could give you more details.

[hricky (Hristo Marinov)]

@tqcharm

Others more familiar with ComposeFS could give you more details.

See:

A few questions about bootc and composefs

Hello Fedora administrators and developers! I have a few questions about bootc and composefs: I saw the discussion about Renewing the Fedora bootc initiative. If I understand it right, there will be a beta version of a new version of Fedora Silverblue with bootc and composefs during the release of Fedora 44? Will Fedora Silverblue also get a new name? When released, will it also support updating the system by downloading a new layer (for efficiency)? Maybe a stupid question, but a layer is ju…

[tqcharm (Mike B.)]

I saw that topic, thanks.

I didn’t think of linking that thread, as it’s referring to bootc. Since the official Fedora Atomic images are still created with ostree, maybe this page could also be relevant.

[hricky (Hristo Marinov)]

AFAIK, there are no official Fedora bootc and Atomic Desktops disk images built from bootable containers. At least in my experience, with composefs-native storage backend enabled, the disk image builds but the system doesn’t boot completely. I’m probably doing something wrong, as with OSTree it boots fully, but that’s a bit off topic anyway.

[jandemus]

I have started to read the page you linked, Mike, but it’s not for me. Tooooo complicated.

I will just use Kinoite and everything under the hood is necessary (I’m sure) but it’s not for me. I am just a simple computer user who sometimes see things which are different than what it used to be and so I start writing and ask questions. Hope that’s still okay, I mean so much changes lately, please let that not change.
Thanks.

[ilikelinux]

I would like to share my toughs thinking about as a computer (/etc):

Partition Manager is showing the different partition and has exactly one row for each one. It shows the first/last entry
compairing with lsblk showed above

@tqcharm

I guess KDE Plasma’s partition manager picks the first mount entry from the list when displaying the mount point.

Looking the other names, I would display /etc as it is a common directory in the “Linux File System” and contains config files which are important for a lot of programs and services etc (remembering that atomic-desktops are immutable). The user has no direct access to it (just over the /var directory).

It is also starts with the lowest letter in the alphabet (in an alphanumeric sense).

@jandemus

The top red line should not be there at all.

This indicates the EFI partition which you as person also not have access to it. This is reserved for the apps like fwupdmgr, to write firmware data to it. Which the boot process needs to read your hardware to correctly boot the system.
It is red as it indicates “do not touch me”

[tqcharm (Mike B.)]

@jandemus

I am just a simple computer user who sometimes see things which are different than what it used to be and so I start writing and ask questions.

That’s the great thing about atomic desktops. The user benefits of a working system, without having to know the ins and outs of the underlying file system structure… except when curiosity drives them to dig deeper .

[ilikelinux]

@hricky

but that’s a bit off topic anyway.

While being a bit off topic it seams to be interesting new technology. and we might have the discussion in a own topic.
So we could bring important information together which would help someone to start with.

Please feel free to continuing the discussion … if you like to have something moved just tell me (if you need assistance), or you as TL4 could do it on your selves.

[jandemus]

@ilikelinux

This indicates the EFI partition

That is hard to believe because my efi partition is 600MB, this red line shows, when I hover the mouse over it, this:

34.5MB is unknown in my system, or it should be a part of the 600MB. Just on the right side of the disk icon you can see the /, as if it is the root folder. (the old root folder that is, not the new one)
It is all very complicated compared to the old fashion folder structure, I’m glad though that it works so well. Great achievement by the people involved. Thanks.

[tqcharm (Mike B.)]

@jandemus

this red line shows, when I hover the mouse over it, this:

You’re noticing the issue discussed here.

[hricky (Hristo Marinov)]

One of my previous posts refers to the explanation of why this is so, and I suggest you read it if you haven’t already.

Kinoite 44: Partition manager says Root is mounted as /etc

This is not a direct answer to your question, but hopefully, it explains the cause. See Don't show / as full or report underlying partition free space (was: df tool shows / is a 32MB partition) (#85) · Issues · Fedora / Fedora Atomic Desktops / SIG Issue Tracker · GitLab.

If you don’t want to read it, here’s the upstream issue, which is also rather long:

Mainstream DEs need to be taught to ignore filesize on composefs.

We should probably at least mention this in our official Atomic Desktops docs.