+++
date = '2026-08-02T20:58:52-04:00'
title = 'fstab guide'
draft = true
+++

When I was but a burgeoning console junkie cutting my teeth in Mint, my first few forays with mounting a new drive had proven to be a struggle.  Sure - LLMs exist now, why bother writing this? 

Why not. 

This brief tutorial should be cross-flavor, meaning it should work on Debian-, Fedora-, and Arch-based systems alike. For today's guide we'll be using CachyOS, adjust for your package manager accordingly! :) 

## STOP TALKING AND GIVE ME INFO

I'm assuming your drive is already installed. If not, To begin, if you don't already have it, I like to use Gnome's Disk Utility on most of my distributions. Install it with:

```bash
sudo pacman -Syyu
sudo pacman -S gnome-disk-utility
```

Then we leave that terminal open to the side, and open up what we just installed. You can either search "Disks" in your app launcher, or run:

```bash
gnome-disk-utility
```

Ideally you'll have Disks on one window, terminal on the other.

Now. In Disks, you'll want to format your disk from the 3-dot menu in the top right.

Once formatted, mount the sucker. Name it something you'll remember, we'll need it soon.

*(Quick note! If you plan to daily this drive in Linux, leave it as "ext4". If you intend to dual boot, format to "fat32")*

Now you're formatted. You'll notice a little string of numbers under the partition now, a field labeled "UUID". We need that. Copy paste your UUID, and move over to the terminal

In your terminal, run 

```bash
sudo nano /etc/fstab
```