modified features.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hello, all.
Here is a little script that will help you maintain your partitions / disks in tip-top
shape. The script is well remarked, so I won't repeat myself!
Main features:
- a cinch to install and use; almost no intervention required on your part once the pet is installed;
- keeps your partitions running at optimal speed;
- runs four times a month, unobtrusive on other days; can also be run "standalone";
- easy browsing of fsck reports in the CLI window to spot any issues;
- NEW, March 25 2014:
-----> check partition types separately or one after the other;
-----> ANSI colors used;
-----> complete check each time.
- NEW, March 27 2014:
-----> CD/DVD types totally excluded, as well as add'l non-Puppy file systems.
-----> new longer, easier to read, window.
~~~~~~~~~~~
I am sharing this script in the hope of making everybody's computing life easier.
Even if the ext* partition systems are among the most stable, partition checking
must still be done from time to time, to maintain the health and speed of your
system. Now you can run this script to "defrag" your drives and properly align
their nodes, check superblocks, etc., and forget about the repetitive typing part.
That said, there are two reasons this script uses the "verbose" mode:
a) you can consult the log that shows up for each drive. If a problem show up, you
will know;
b) each user has his/her personalized partition or drive configuration, which is why
I didn't favor a batch check for partitions.
Please note that this script is not a cure-all for partitions. You may still have to use
the more arcane fsck parameters on partition x or y, if it seems to have problems
like bizarre superblocks, etc.
~~~~~~~~~~~
A little how-to note is in order.
1) On the first boot of your Puppy after the script is installed, the script will run automa-
tically. It takes a few minutes, unfortunately, 'cause there is no hurrying the partition
correction process. Once it has finished, though, you should notice some speed
improvement in the general operation of your Puppy if you had never done a fsck of
your partitions before, or in a long time.
After that first time, though, the script will run automatically once a week. Six days
out of seven, then, a rectangle shows up at launch, towards the top-left of your
screen, saying that the script is active, but that it does not need to run.
If you need to run the script anyway between that time interval, click on the
"automverif" entry in your File System sub-menu, and follow the prompts.
2) The script checks ext2, ext3, ext4 and vfat partitions ONLY. The reason for
this constraint is as follows:
* ntfs partitions can only be checked reliably from a WhineDose OS. The ntfs utilities
on Linux allow the user to read-write on ntfs partitions, but it can only set the check
flag on the ntfs drive, not actually check it.
* there are reports on the Internet that the fsck.reiser utility is the "closest thing to
file system Lotto" http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Filesystems/reiserfs.html. I'm not
all that familiar with reiser fs (except on a KNOPPIX full install), so I decided to play
it safe and NOT offer the choice to use it, even if the utility is included in some
Puppies. Maybe a Puppy-ist with wide reiser fs experience will come up and offer
good advice on this subject, and then the reiserfs choice could be added, but until
then, I'm playing it safe.
* Puppies present a limited choice of file systems (which is OK for our needs, IMO).
If on your computer you have other Linuxes using other file systems, those distros
no doubt have proper partition checking utilities, so use those. The present script
leaves those partitions un-touched until you boot into that other distro to check
the partition(s) it resides on.
3) Don't overuse this script or fsck generally. Using fsck every day -- or worse,
every hour... -- doesn't improve the disk speed.
4) Other scripts are included in this pet, that you may find of use:
* Createfstab -- Populates the default Puppy fstab with whatever partitions blkid
shows up with. For meaningful results, it is important that you mount all your
partitions BEFORE you use this script.
Creating a static fstab comes in handy when you wish to mount or unmount
all your inactive partitions at once. With a static fstab, you can simply enter a terminal and type
Code: Select all
mount -a
Code: Select all
umount -a
as many mount or unmount commands as you have partitions.
* rep-to-mnt -- Again based on blkid, this script creates a sub-directory in /mnt
for every partition you have on your system, if the proper corresponding sub-folders
are not already in /mnt.
* tunefs25.sh -- This script allows the user to set the mount count (how many times
a partition has been mounted) before fsck does anything. Can be set between 25
and 35 mounts. The "automverif" script ignores it and does a forced fsck anyway,
but it's good to have the option of setting the frequency of fs checks independently.
5) Following a picture hint by some1, starting with version 11, I have excluded
checking all CD / DVD file systems (audiocd, iso9660, udf). In previous versions,
only the iso9660 system was being excluded from the check. (Forgive me, some1!)
Enjoy! Any constructive comment welcome.
musher0
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NB's. 1) Long list of version changes now condensed in attached zip.
____ 2) The free Monaco TTF font used in this script was taken at
http://www.eaglefonts.com/monaco-ttf-15 ... tompreview
It's a TTF Mono font, that is, a very nice non-proportional font usable in a
terminal.