Is fsck obsolet for journaling FS? - Was: How do I Automount [snip]

[Ralf Mardorf]

Hi,

On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 18:02:26 +0100, Oliver Grawert wrote:
>> It still would be interesting to learn how fsck, recommended by the
>> Ubuntu fstab help, is managed when using gnome-disks. Since I didn't
>> see a screenshot that shows fsck settings, I suspect it automatically
>> writes the value 2 to fstab, or how is it handled?  
>dunno, try it out but effectively that field is legacy nonsense anyway.
>unless you use ext2 or minix disks without journalling ...

I will not edit the Ubuntu help pages. I would have the time to do so
at the moment, but in this case not the knowledge.

Assumed journaling file systems don't require periodically fsck, than it
shouldn't be per se recommended by Ubuntu help pages (and Wikis of
other distros).

Why does an Ubuntu default install sets the value for ext4 file systems
to 1 for the root directory and to 2 for other ext4 directories?

The only evidence I found on the quick, that fsck is obsolet for at
least one purpose is:

  "A journaling file system is designed such that tools such as fsck do
  not need to be run after unclean shutdown (i.e. crash)." -
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsck

  "File system can become inconsistent due to several reasons and the
  most common is abnormal shutdown due to hardware failure , power
  failure or switching off the system without proper shutdown. Due to
  these reasons the superblock in a file system is not updated and has
  mismatched information relating to system data blocks, free blocks and
  inodes ." -
  http://www.adminschoice.com/repairing-unix-file-system-fsck



OTOH what e.g. is fsck.ext4 for?

  "2. Fsck Command Specific to a Filesystem Type

  fsck internally uses the respective filesystem checker command for a
  filesystem check operation. These fsck checker commands are typically
  located under /sbin.

  The following example show the various possible fsck checker commands
  (for example: fsck.ext2, fsck.ext3, fsck.ext4, etc.)" -
  http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2012/08/fsck-command-examples/

Regards,
Ralf

PS:

Regarding the original thread: No, I don't install gnome-disk-utility,
since it has got a much to long dependency chain for installing it,
just for taking a look at it.