Desktop usability: how to unmount devices?

John dingo at coco2.arach.net.au
Tue Sep 7 16:23:05 CDT 2004


Martin Pitt wrote:

>>>3. Just let the user rip out the device; hal will detect this and gvm can
>>>   unmount it afterwards. Devices are mounted with 'sync' anyway, so this should
>>>   not damage VFAT devices too badly.
>>>
>>>   + easiest solution :-)
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>This needs to be supported anyway, I expect our users will just rip USB
>>devices out without thinking.
>>    
>>
>
>Agreed, but it shouldn't by encouraged; we should provied an obvious
>thing to say "I've finished working with this device".
>
>  
>
That is fairly obvious, and I have done it with my camera several times 
(OS X). The camera isn't a disk drive, is it?:-)

Not like my 40 Gb laptdop drive with my portable Debian mirror in it.

>I cannot understand why people are so fond of dragging icons to the
>trash? I would be afraid that all files of the device would be
>deleted.
>  
>
OS X supports this so I guess Mac users will try it.



btw is it possibe to mount ro then  automatically remount,rw when 
someone wants to write to it, remount,ro when they're done?

Unplugging a ro device looks pretty harmless, ro is often what I want 
when I mount my Debian mirror (to undate my immobile mirror), take a 
peek at the pics in the camera.

Someone also needs to consider fscking when appropriate. AFAIK portable 
devices don't get checked unless the owner knows to do it and remembers, 
and they need it more than most.






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