I'm installing Ascii->Beowulf on a separate hard disk, but obviously
would like to make my current disk bootable as well.

I happen to do a bit of editing of /etc/fstab

# nano /etc/ftab

When I try to save the edit:

Error writing /etc/fstab: Read-only file system

Yet:

# ls -la /etc/fstab
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6178 Jan 12 2019 /etc/fstab

Here's the problem:

$ mount | grep sdb1
/dev/sdb1 on / type ext4 (ro,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered)
...

So I did:

# mount -o remount,rw /

This gives me:

$ mount | grep sdb1
/dev/sdb1 on / type ext4
(rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered)

But still can't install GRUB:

# grub-install
bash: grub-install: command not found

I will run # e2fsck -p -f and then reboot and try to install Grub
again. But given the problem might be a damaged hard disk, safest
would be to concentrate on getting my system working on the new disk
before experimenting with the old to get its GRUB working.

Incidentally, in pursuit of this problwm I encountered a site:
http://cdbug.org/file-system/linux-error-writing-read-only-file-system.php
The page title ls: "Linux Error Writing Read Only File System". A
pop-up that cannot be dismissed insisted I download a php automatic
repair utility before being able to read more of the page. What I did
read was that a reason for the error might be invalid entries in my
Windows registry. I suspected malware and ran away rather than
download the utility.


Haines Brown