Re: mounting/unmounting devices for newbies

[Ryan Warner <rwarner plains NoDak edu>]

I think this may be a bit simplistic considering the multiuser nature of
Linux.  This may be fine on a single user box, but not when multiple users are
potentially using the device.

"Fox, Kevin M" wrote:

> it would do exactly what dos does. :)
>
>
> > >Again, I don't understand what's going on at the kernel level, but it
> > >seems like the real problem is the computer insisting on unmounting the
> > >disk. <ignorant> I'd think automounting the disk whenever it is accessed
> > >wouldn't be that hard, but when I swap disks and try to access
> > >the disk again, linux gets all p'd off. Then I can't unmount
> > >the disk withought putting the first disk in... seems like it'd
> > >be good if you could just say "no, I don't care that you don't see it,
> > >unmount it, damn it!" This way a request to the floppy drive would be
> > >something like this: If I still have the same disk mounted, good. If I
> > >have a new disk, mount it. If the disk change while I wasn't
> > >looking, forcably unmount the disk (see above) and mount this one. If
> > >there's no valid disk in the drive, tell the user. </ignorant>
> >
> >  I'm not sure what would happen if one of your applications had a file
> > open on
> > the floppy, and you yanked out the floppy and then tried to save or even
> > close
> > the file. Any changes to the way disks are mounted have to be compatible
> > with
> > the old system from the application's point of view. I think one reason
> > you
> > can't forcibly unmount a disk is that there may be files open on it (eg a
> > user
> > may be cd-ed to a directory on the disk).
>