I made a copy of the Fstab file in my Downloads folder and added ,rw to both drives.
Now if I can write it to the /etc folder.
Is this correct or is there something else in here not set right?
by default /etc/fstab requires root permissions to edit. So my guess is that error means you arenāt logged in as root (which is good), and itās not giving you an option to upgrade your permissions. Iām not sure how Mint typically handles this. In Gnome for example it would typically use GKSudo to prompt you for the sudo password to enable editing of the feature.
If you open up a terminal you could probably try entering sudo nano /etc/fstab enter your password, and then try and edit it from there. That will use a console based text editor, you could also use sudo nameOfGUITextEditorHere /etc/fstab, but I donāt know what GUI Text editor Mint comes with.
Nothing else there immediately strikes me as abnormal
You have to be root to edit /etc/fstab file.
āsudo vi /etc/fstab" is one typical way to get there. I tend to use āsudo su -ā to get to a root shell, then go from there e.g āvi /etc/fstabā
Perhaps there is a vifstab command, like vipw or other vi* admin commands.
And if course not every is facile with vi, so there is that.
And I thought the knowledge needed to work with PLCs was on the arcane side lol.
Exiting vi is easy, everyone does it the same way:
-
realize you canāt figure it out
-
borrow someone elseās terminal, or start a new terminal
-
āps xww|grep viā to identify the vi process ID
-
kill -9 <that PID from step 3>
Easy peasy 
Damnā¦Iāve been doing it the complicated way ESC :wq!
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I tried the sudo nano /etc/fstab and it works in Zorin.
Right now I removed the Mint HDD and put in an empty and am installing Ubuntu 25.10 to try that.
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Ubuntu is weird.
First off it doesnāt recognize the NTSF second drive every other distro has used so far. Disks says the partition needs formatted. If I keep after a good trial run it Iāll have to get another 4TB drive and format it to Linux and copy all the files over.
When I open Apps the window constantly flickers, but Ubuntu is seeing the graphics card and both monitors are working OK. Videos play normal not like Mintās 3 FPS.
Canāt ungroup the taskbar icons to show labels like I prefer - or I havenāt found where although I have been in every page of settings
Half the taskbar items are on a separate mini taskbar on the top of the main monitor (date/time, volume, power, network) so when I trackball up to the top right to close a window I am now clicking the power button.
Plus, it shows Iām running on battery at 60% even though itās a desktop not on a UPS - itās reading the wireless trackball battery and using that as the power source reference.
Since I was trying Ubuntu in the better of the 2 towers I decided to put the Mint drive in the computer I have on a portable desk for when I need it at a customerās site for a project.
Mint sees the Nvidia card and uses both monitors
Videos play at a good frame rate, but IrfanView still can not read off the secondary drive. If I click Open in Irfanview it doesnāt show the second drive or the mounted NAS drive either, but if I click on a pic on the NAS it does open IrfanView and show the pic.
An issue with Ubuntu that might be an issue.
The tower I put it in (sitting in my home office right next to my chair) has been a very quiet computer when using Windows, Zorin, Mint & Kubuntu.
But with Ubuntu the CPU fan ramps up to full noisy speed frequently, and always runs at an audible level. A fan I have never heard before.
Checking inside the CPU is running HOT! Especially when a program is doing something, but even when idling for hours.
Going to put it in another tower and see if itās just Ubuntu with that motherboard.
I donāt know if I did something on the Mint PC with a hidden keystoke or something - but would have had to do it twice in the past few days.
The taskbar icons were on the left as normal and I am used to, but a few days ago they changed to Center, and yesterday they changed to Right
.
I donāt see any setting I can find, and even if I click Edit in the taskbar it wonāt let me drag them back to the left. Definitely see why the Japanese reject the center taskbar on Win11 because of āmuscle memoryā
Another weird occurrance with the Mint PC.
Since it was running so good on my portable desk in the family room I moved the tower into my office and put the Kubuntu tower on the portable desk to play with
No changes to the tower or Mint setup, and using the same graphics card that Mint was just running great with, and within minutes of powering up in my office the graphics started glitching bad. Opening Files, to look for a PDF I had, it looked like all the file names were using the Russian alphabet - totally unreadable. Clicking on a place on the desktop and dragging, that should have showed a blue highlight box, was filled with fragments of open windows and glitching blocks.
The only thing different from the portable desk to the office are the monitors. I went and swapped the keyboard and trackball to test that and it wasnāt them.
Maybe the Iranian state is after you!
Just what I need - a sixth group after me.
I wonder how the ex talked the Iranians into that
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FYI - I went through this entire thread and copied all the examples and code posted and created a bunch of txt files in a Linux Setup folder to have for reference.
Thanks a bunch guys. Big beer & Brautās cookout for you all on June 31st at my villa on the Riviera as thanks. (Or a Zoom meeting watching my grill smoke - depending on the budget)
Mint is still running great, plus I put the Zorin drive in my bedroom spare PC along with the Win10 drive and have dual boot. Zorin on that tower is running a lot better than it did in the other 4 towers. Kubuntu I gave up on (but still have the hard drive JIC) and Ubuntu I still have to test out more when I get more spare time. Downloaded PopOS to check it out (and downloaded it from a few different sources) but canāt get it to install in any of the towers even though Etcher validates the USB drives every time, but looking like itās going to be Mint.
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You have a lot of computers buddy. Respect.
I rarely throw out only computers.
Put the drives with an OS in a pile, storage drives I copy all files I need and wipe them and then add them to the existing stack. Pull memory and graphics cards to keep. If I am getting rid of the tower I keep the power supply, fans and CPU heat sink.
Plus, in case my main PC acts up I have the bedroom spare (which I learned to keep running when I bought a brand new Dell that was problems from day 1) - thatās actually the only one I can think of I totally pieced out and scrapped the tower.
Then my collection of laptops, most were given to me as junk and I got running.
PS - happily divorced, so I donāt have to coddle to that issue
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Iāve had the same computer case for probably 20 years. I just keep upgrading the internals.
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I was pretty much the same, built a nice machine with a good case, and just upgraded the internals as I needed. I only got rid of it when I was getting ready to go on my sabbatical to NZ. The internals were already a bit old at that point, and I figured it would just be easier to sell it and get something else later than keep it in storage until I got backā¦.of course I ended up staying in NZ so. I still need/want to build something newer, all my equipment except my work laptop is getting a bit old, but Iām good at keeping them going, so it just hasnāt been a priority, because they still work well enough.
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