a humble request

[Mikkel L. Ellertson]

Globe Trotter wrote:
> --- Paulo Cavalcanti <promac at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 2/10/07, Globe Trotter <itsme_410 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> please bring back automatic editing of /etc/fstab with a mount of
>>> removable media. is there any particular reason why it is better
>>> to have it removed?
>>> life has been too complicated ever since....
>>
>>
>> Sorry, but this is not going to change. We have to adapt.
>> The main difference is that one will never know, in advance,
>> where something is going to be mounted
>> /media/....
>>
>> But a well written python script can even find out this for you.
> 
> Can someone please find this out then? The problem with a moving target is that
> programs that actually do something can not be written to read data from a
> disk.
> 
> Are Ubuntu, etc also going the same way?
> 
>> The reason? Is it not easier for an end user, who has no idea what fstab is?
> 
> Can we not have both? Linux is for the end user but also for the advanced user,
> I hope!
> 
> I do not believe that many an end user is going to use Linux. Sadly, the fear
> factor is too high. This is what MS lives off..... 
> 
> Besides what are 
> 
> 
If you have a rule in /etc/fstab covering the mount, it is used. If
you do not have one, then there are a bunch of HAL rules that govern
the mounting. If the partition has a volume label, that will be used
as the mount point in /media. For example, if you have a SD card
labeled Music, when you insert it, it will get mounted on
/media/Music. It will get mounted there every time, unless you have
more then one device with the same label. I have not checked on what
happens then, except to the extent of knowing that the first one
detected gets mounted where expected. Right now, I can only mount
one SD card at a time on my desktop - I only have one USB card
reader. When I get a chance, I will try it on my laptop with one
card in the USB reader, and one in the built-in card reader, to see
what the system does. (Unless someone with the hardware and 2 cards
labeled the same can test this for me?)

So the user that wants to control just what gets mounted where can
edit /etc/fstab to specify the mount point. Or you can write your
own HAL rule to do the same thing. For most users, the defaults will
probably work fine. But we do need an easy way to change the labels
on these types of devices.

There is also an option in the GUI to have specific actions taken
when specific types of removable media are inserted. For example, I
have one SD card that the system thinks is from a camera. When it
detects that card, it asks me if I want to download the pictures. It
was actually formatted in a Plam m125, and doesn't have any pictures
on it, so the system isn't perfect by any means...

Oh yes - if you need to know where something was mounted, you can
look at /proc/mounts, /etc/mtab, or the output of the mount command.

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!