should use labels rather than UUIDs if they exist

[Colin Watson]

Binary package hint: partman-target

When writing /etc/fstab, we prefer UUIDs over traditional device names where possible (see e.g. http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2008/12/msg00338.html). However, we should also prefer filesystem labels over UUIDs if they're set, since system-administrator-assigned labels are generally superior to automatically-generated UUIDs (they have more semantic content and are easier to read).

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

See also bug 320872.

[Roland Orre (roland-orre)]

The current policy to use UUID instead of the good old devices is a really bad idea.

1) Disk cloning is now a real hassle for beginners, as you have to edit both /etc/fstab as well as /boot/grub/menu.lst to make the system sane again.

2) To make backups of ones disk has the same problem. My way of backing up my laptops is to have a perfect mirror, so if something happen I just swap disks and boot from the backup.

3) I really don't see the point, only disadvantages with, having the standard partitions mounted with UUID.

UUID is great for removable storage devices, but certainly not for the system disk.

Please give us back the easy to handle devices in fstab and menu.lst! Each time I install a new system now I have to manually edit /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst to remove these stupid UUID references. I'm also running a course in Linux at the moment, and I would be glad if I could tell the students a good reason for things to be in a certain way, but UUID in fstab is just annoying.

[Nathaniel Wilson (dubrict)]

I agree. This has caused too many breakages for me in previous versions of ubuntu when changing partitioning, to the point where it wouldn't boot unless I went in and changed fstab.

[Roland Orre (roland-orre)]

Wrote this up as a bug report, see bug 321324.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package partman-target - 58ubuntu4

---------------
partman-target (58ubuntu4) jaunty; urgency=low

  * Escape spaces, tabs, newlines, and backslashes in fstab according to the
    procedure described in getmntent(3) (LP: #38224).
  * Use labels rather than UUIDs if they exist (LP: #320871).

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:10:14 +0000