Re: Identifying Volumes: /dev/sdxn vs. UUID

["Jarod Wilson" <user=74@nabble.blu.org>]

 On Wed, 2008-07-02 at 10:14 -0400, Kent Borg wrote: 
> A while back I noticed that these days Linux (or at least Ubuntu) likes 
> to find volumes by UUID instead of what /dev file it falls under.  A 
> UUID is not very memorable, so I have been known to edit fstab and 
> menu.lst to use the traditional naming. 
> 
> But I am now a fan.  The cause is my external disk again. 
> 
> I had Ubuntu install on my external disk.  Mostly to get grub set up 
> right and prove to myself that it was possible.  Then I copied my entire 
> / partition from the internal to the external disk.  Oh, I went back and 
> put the correct UUIDs in fstab to find the new /home and /boot 
> partitions on the external disk.  I also edited menu.lst UUIDs to point 
> to the correct external / partition. 
> 
> It works! 
> 
> On my W2 (in testing before sending it off) the external USB disk 
> appears as /dev/sda, but on the other machines I have booted with this 
> disk the external disk is /dev/sdb.  By using UUIDs I can find the 
> partitions no matter what traditional name they land under. 
> 
> Yes, I have to use (hd0,1) or (hd1,1) in menu.lst for grub to find the 
> kernel in the two cases, but after that it finds everything. 
> 
> So if any ornery old cusses out there hate this new fangled UUID thing, 
> you might reconsider...