Re: GNOME Usability Improvements - Fix the window manager!

[sungod <sungod atdot org>]

drarn (drarn@toward.com)'s email of 08/04/99 07:28 said:

>>       [simpler] mount/unmout of removable media
>
>>Same question: how much easier do you want it? You can use desktop
>>icons or the mount applet.
>
>I want it a lot easier. I use `mount /dev/hdc1 /mnt/ims' to mount my
>ls120 disks. I could have formatted disks as hdc, hdc1, hdc2, hdc3, hdc4
>and/or used various filesystems. The drive and the linux removable IDE
>drive support have always worked great. I do not have the faintest idea
>how to add my preferred method (linux filesystem on hdc1) to the mount
>applet, or the original formatting of the disks (win/dos [on hdc4?]), or
>to mount it as an IDE 1.44 floppy, or any other
>method either. As a newbie, it never occurred to me to use a desktop
>icon and write a script. Writing a script which toggles is tricky,
>however.
>The usernet applet doesn't check state well enough, for example. Thanks
>for a very helpful hint though! I will write six icon/scripts:-) No
>sarcasm is meant. I'll really be better off to do it.

If you need to write six scripts to mount and unmount devices, you are 
missing something.

First of all: GNOME is not responsible for mounting and unmounting 
filesystems. This is done at kernel level, and the tools exist in ANY 
user environment to mount and unmout the hard way, the easy way, or the 
easiest way. It doesn't matter how many layers of abstraction you throw 
on top of the filesystem mounting mechanism, it works exactly the same 
each time (as it should) and is accessible equally from within any 
"environment" or GUI or even completely without a GUI (as it should be).

It works like this: if a filesystem is not mentioned in /etc/fstab, you 
have to mount it with a longhand command that tells where the hardware is 
located, what type of filesystem is on the hardware, and where on the 
existing tree you would like to see it mounted. If a filesystem IS 
mentioned in /etc/fstab, then the mount command already knows where the 
hardware is, and what filesystem that hardware will contain, and where 
you ordinarily like to see it placed on the directory tree. All you have 
to do is specify which device it is you want mounted, and the rest will 
be read automatically and dealt with accordingly. The easiest way, 
however, is simply to run an automount daemon (which I don't do, so I 
can't vouch for it, but I know people who use a program called "amd" with 
great success) and when you try to access a directory which ordinarily 
contains a mounted filesystem, it'll mount the filesystem automatically.

GNOME's job, then, is simply to pass the user information on to the 
underlying filesystem tools which already exist and already do the job 
just fine. It (specifically gmc) does this by creating icons on the 
desktop that correspond to each device in the /etc/fstab that are 
user-mountable. Then the GUI operations are very simple: to mount, 
right-click on the icon, then click on "mount." To unmount, right-click 
on the icon, then click "unmount." It's a very well-designed system that 
follows the rules of HCI by very clearly stating what the purpose of the 
control is and providing constraints so that the user can't click "the 
wrong thing" by accident (ie. it doesn't show the "mount" command if the 
drive is already mounted). GNOME's job, therefore, is finished.

What you may more accurately complain about is that your distribution 
doesn't come with sane defaults in the /etc/fstab, or that your 
distribution doesn't automatically recognize devices during the install 
and add them to the /etc/fstab, or that the documentation is too weak to 
tell you how to use /etc/fstab (no excuse: it's available on LDP), or 
that your distribution doesn't run amd by default, or that your 
distribution is simply on crack. All of these complaints should be taken 
up with the maintainers of your distribution.

If you'd like to contribute code, however, I'm sure I am not the only one 
who would gladly welcome your contribution of a graphical /etc/fstab 
configuration utility. :)

-- 
"True riches only increase." -R. Buckminster Fuller
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sungod@atdot.org              http://blackness.org/