Is it safe to delete UUID from fstab?

[mike_flow]

After several problems with the way suse works I gave up on installing jacklab and suse 10.2, so I installed studio 64 on the partition suse used to be (hdd8).

Now, when I start Ubuntu (hdd7) fsck dies when checking my partitions because the UUID of the hdd8 partition apparently has changed and I cannot mount hdd8.

Is it safe to delete the UUID from my fstab on that partition (and probably the rest of them)?

[retsaw]

In short, you can delete the UUID, but you will want the replace it with the device name so the partition can still be mounted. You can also do this with the rest of the partitions if you so wish, just be sure you don't make a mistake as it could render you installation unbootable and you will then have to fix it using a livecd or another installation.

You get the error because the filesystem for that partition has changed and consequently it has a new UUID. You could find out what the new UUID is and change the UUID in the fstab. How you do this varies depending on what filesystem it is e.g. for ext2/ext3 you can use the command "sudo dumpe2fs /dev/hdd8 | grep UUID".

The point of using UUID instead of the device name is because the device name is not guaranteed to stay the same, so should there be any hardware changes or kernel changes which cause the device to change then the partitions can still be mounted.

[mike_flow]

Thanks retsaw, it was so simple. Just followed your instructions ....

That's why I enjoy linux, so many tools and resources to figure the OS out. Now, as a good linux user, I am wondering how those numbers came to being. I mean, how are those UUID numbers assigned by the OS, because the partition used the same filesystem (ext3) on suse and now on studio 64, even the size was the same.

I think the problem is solved, but now I am curious about this feature of the OS.