Riddle me this Batman. I have a file, fstab, if I add a line it shrinks in size.
entropy:/etc# ls -al fstab
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 610 2006-10-05 20:52 fstab
entropy:/etc# cat fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
#
/dev/mapper/vg1-root /Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ext3Â Â Â defaults,errors=remount-ro 0Â Â Â Â Â Â 1
/dev/hda1      /boot          ext3   defaults       0      2
/dev/mapper/vg1-home /home          ext3   defaults       0      2
/dev/mapper/vg1-usr /usr           ext3   defaults       0      2
/dev/mapper/vg1-var /var           ext3   defaults       0      2
/dev/hda5      none           swap   sw             0      0
entropy:/etc# ls -al fstab
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 461 2006-10-08 09:36 fstab
entropy:/etc# cat fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
#
/dev/mapper/vg1-root   /              ext3   defaults,errors=remount-ro     0      1
/dev/hda1              /boot          ext3   defaults       0      2
/dev/mapper/vg1-home   /home          ext3   defaults       0      2
/dev/mapper/vg1-usr    /usr           ext3   defaults       0      2
/dev/mapper/vg1-var    /var           ext3   defaults       0      2
/dev/mapper/vg1-backup /backup        ext3   defaults       0      2
/dev/hda5              none           swap   sw             0      0
Read on for the answer.
Tabs.
You thought it would be all mystical and cool right …. the default fstab file ALWAYS needs some tab love, most distros just space-pad the file.
Anyway, just something I like to do.