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    "start job running for dev-disk-by" during startup

    This isn't strictly Kubuntu, it's a new problem that's cropped up on one of my antiX systems (antiX is a very lightweight distro based on Debian, structurally and functionally similar to Lubuntu below the window manager level -- only lighter; antiX will run without special setup in less than 256 MiB RAM, reportedly as little as 128, and will run at command line in 64 MiB with a preconfigured swap partition). I'm hoping there's someone here who's seen a similar error and found a real fix for it.

    After a recent dist-upgrade (Debian testing repos have frequent updates; I install them once a week), one of my antiX systems (Athlon XP 2000+ at 1.6 GHz, 1 GiB RAM, 40 GB HDD partitioned for Win98, root, swap, and home) started giving a message that "start job is running for dev-disk-by/x2duuid=<UUID>", with a 1:30 timer, for each of two devices, corresponding to the partitions for /home and swap -- but only when running an upgraded kernel version (that I've been running on that machine for many months); the system would start normally with the original 3.7.10-antix.2-486-smp kernel that installed with antiX 13.2, but kernel 3.12.6-antix.5-486-smp gave the "start job". Research suggested this error was most likely to appear when UUID was mismatched (it's apparently merely uncommon to have a swap partition quit working this way; the system will continue booting in that instance, but when /home is unmountable, you get command-line "emergency mode").

    Very careful checking, even copy/paste of the UUID reported by lsblk -l or blkid -c /dev/null -o list into the appropriate fstab entries changed nothing; after researching fstab formats, labeling the three antiX partitions and changing fstab from UUID= format to LABEL= format also changed nothing. Examination of mtab when booted with the 3.7.10 kernel shows the /home partition still mounts as /sda4 even though / is mounted as "LABEL=" or "UUID=" -- and, naturally enough, when in emergency mode because those partitions fail to mount, they don't show in mtab at all.

    The only suggestions I've had on the antiX forum were to remove a spurious entry found in the device.map (for Legacy GRUB, which installs with antiX) -- which did nothing -- and to run update-grub, which also did nothing (other than fill up menu.lst with the big block of "automagic" entries and add entries at the end for every combination of boot options for each kernel found). Does anyone know why a 3.12 series kernel would suddenly quit recognizing partitions mounted by UUID or label, while an older kernel would apparently ignore the fstab entries to mount those partitions by designator rather than specified identifier?

    #2
    Is your setup on a RAID?
    Windows no longer obstructs my view.
    Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007.
    "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes

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      #3
      Originally posted by Snowhog View Post
      Is your setup on a RAID?
      Nope, no RAID, just a single 40 G platter drive that's at least 11 years old (this computer was taken out of primary service around 2005-2006 due to my then-wife upgrading to a faster machine with more RAM and storage).

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        #4
        Well, I still don't have any idea what caused this to start, or why different kernels respond differently, but the Athlon XP system is back in good shape after installing the 3.14-0.bpo.2-686-smp kernel from wheezy backports -- same version I'm now running on my Pentium II laptop.

        If you've got a machine that's too old for Lubuntu, but it has at least 128 MiB RAM and a Pentium or better, it'd be worth trying antiX 13.2 (base version will install in about 6 GB hard disk space, and have room to work if you promptly remove LibreOffice and replace it, if needed, with Abiword and Gnumeric). Things take some time to happen, but a laptop with those specs can be a useful machine (if you don't have a better one) on antiX if you rebuild the battery. If antiX is too heavy, I'm pretty sure you're stuck with Puppy or Plop.

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