[PLUG] ThinkPad X200 Issues

[Dale Snell]

On Wed, 26 Oct 2016 16:09:16 -0700 (PDT), in message
alpine.LNX.2.11.1610261559200.9160 at localhost, Rich Shepard wrote:

>    There are several highly experienced ThinkPad uses here so I'm
> confident a couple of issues on my 'new' X200 will quickly be
> resolved.
> 
>    1. As root and as a user when I quit from viewing a file,
> e.g., /etc/fstab in an Xfce4 terminal rather than clearing the screen
> and displaying the command line prompt again the prompt overwrites
> the top-most line of the file's content and the rest of the file's
> content is below it. I've not before encountered this and it appears
> to be X Window System related; this does not happen when viewing a
> file on a console.

I assume that you are using a pager such as less(1) to view the
file.  Check the default options for your pager, to make sure that
this behavior isn't what it's set for.  (Probably an environment
variable set in .bashrc or .bash_profile.)  FWIW, I have seen this
sort of behavior before, and my mis-configuration was the cause.

>    2. After tailing /var/log/messages to ensure that the USB flash
> drive is recognized as sdb1 I entered this line in /etc/fstab,
> 
> /dev/sdb1  /mnt/thumb   vfat   auto,users,ro  0  0
> 
> which is what I've used on other hosts. Now, even after a reboot
> neither root or a user can attach the USB flash drive with the
> command, 'mount /mnt/thumb' because it's the wrong file system type,
> has a bad master block, or some other issue. Root can
> 'mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/thumb' with no problem. Your thoughts on
> diagnosing the cause are needed.

There is no guarantee that your USB flash drive will be recognized
as any particular device.  Use a UUID or device label to positively
identify the device, and use that in your /etc/fstab file.  (I
prefer UUID, simply because I'm prone to using the same identifier
more than once.  D'Oh!)

Hope this helps.

--Dale

-- 
“The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop
up the drain.”    -- Scotty, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock”