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I am new to Ubuntu and have dual boot Windows 10 & Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Firstly, everything was running fine, but after one update, Ubuntu started to boot extremely slow. After a couple of hours searching the internet, I figured out that the delay is caused by: 'a start job started by dev-disk-by...' and found that question: a start job is running..., but I am a bit worried that I would screw somethig and I need a bit of help.

My /etc/fstab looks like:

# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=5e550b00-a4ae-4293-a9a0-183c3ca24483 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda6 during installation
#UUID=B288-94AF  /boot/efi       vfat    umask=0077      0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=6bd932ca-9689-4507-8536-a1e0a7e5028d none            swap    sw              0       0

and my gparted looks like: GParted

I am not sure where Ubuntu is located to comment out the proper UUID according to mentioned question? Also is there a way to merge the highlighted unallocated space with /dev/sda6? [EDIT]: Can I get rid of /dev/sda5?

gasar8
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  • If you're afraid of screwing up the fstab, you can do it from a live DVD, so you know how to restore back it from there if the system doesn't boot. Also, back it up. And I think you got answers wrong, they say to comment out in fstab a partition you don't use, not the system one. Try instead to replace the ext4 errors=remount-ro part with ext4 errors=remount-ro,x-systemd.automount,noatime. The systemd part might solve the problem with time (or not), and noatime is just nice to have. – Hi-Angel Sep 28 '18 at 22:54
  • When I did this, booting went in an infinite loop of this 1.5 min waiting, so I had to go back to recovery mode and repair the file and the problem is still there. I know the UUID of the disk I must wait for - it is the last swap one, can I comment it out? – gasar8 Sep 29 '18 at 08:07
  • Hmm, odd. Yes, you can comment out the swap, but then (obviously) you would be left without the swap partition. That said I don't consider it a bad thing, because unless you have an SSD, swap is slow anyway, it's better to avoid using it. I personally don't have a swap partition. Note: swap is needed for hibernation to work, can be enabled in runtime. Btw, answering your other question: no, you can't get rid of sda5. Apparently you're using EFI boot, in that configuration the sda5 holds boot loaders for Windows and Ubuntu. If you delete the partition completely, systems gonna stop booting. – Hi-Angel Sep 29 '18 at 08:15
  • I commented it out and now it works fast, but now have another question. Why is then the EFI commented out? And now that I am learning: I checked the UUID of all partitions in gParted and couldn't find the last (swap) one which is listed in /etc/fstab. Is this the main cause of the problem and do I have to update it? – gasar8 Sep 29 '18 at 08:22
  • Oh, yeah, it's likely the reason then. About the EFI partition: it's being opened and used on boot by firmware (that is UEFI), not by systems. That said, there's also a thing "efi variables" which I don't know whether require mounting the partition for it to work. Judging from a quick search, apparently, it does not. – Hi-Angel Sep 29 '18 at 08:33
  • Ok, thank you, but I don't know which UUID should I use. The /etc/fstab is equal to one in question, but when I print blkid I get /dev/sda1: UUID="84D8331AD8330A46" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="2bfb4dc8-01" /dev/sda2: LABEL="Podatki" UUID="01D3EBEB03417620" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="2bfb4dc8-02" /dev/sda3: UUID="01D3EBEB1BDD5B90" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="2bfb4dc8-03" /dev/sda5: UUID="B288-94AF" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="2bfb4dc8-05" /dev/sda6: UUID="5e550b00-a4ae-4293-a9a0-183c3ca24483" TYPE="ext4" PTTYPE="dos" PARTUUID="2bfb4dc8-06" I don't know which is swap and also sda-s are different? – gasar8 Sep 29 '18 at 10:16
  • Oh, I just noticed on your screenshot: you don't actually have swap partition. I mean, apparently the "unallocated space" that is equal to 11.44GiB was the one at some point, but now it isn't. I am very curious why would that happen. Anyway. You can make a swap partition out of it by right-clicking in GParted, and choosing a swap as a file system. Then you can see its UUID in blkid (or by right-clicking in Gparted, and choosing "information"). – Hi-Angel Sep 29 '18 at 11:06
  • Oh, thank you, but is there a way to merge this with /dev/sda6 or at least use this space? – gasar8 Sep 29 '18 at 11:32
  • Well. Hypothetically, you should be able to merge that space with sda5, then shrink sda5 back to 190MiB by leaving unallocated space between sda5 and sda6, next resize sda6 to include that space. But in practice, I don't know whether shrinking in GParted takes into account existing files, so that no data would be lost (i.e. it should, but I don't know for sure). – Hi-Angel Sep 29 '18 at 14:17

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