Re: gmc/libvfs suggestion for removable media

[Gleef <dzol virtual-yellow com>]

[edited for readability]
On Tue, 23 Feb 1999 bob@kehs.ksd.org wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Feb 1999, Daniel Burrows wrote:
> >   It occurs to me that Linux's handling of removable media, while certainly
> > good technically, leaves a lot to be desired in terms of usability.  It's
> > not just that users have to explicitly mount floppies, somewhat more
> > annoying is the fact that they have to umount them before doing anything
> > else with the drive.  To an extent, adding sync to the mount options in fstab
> > helps, but I think that there may be better solutions.  Here's what I was
> > thinking (this is almost certainly not a 1.0 option and I readily admit that
> > I probably wouldn't be able to implement this, it's just a proposal of a
> > feature.  Of course, if I get some time to learn how to implement it.. ):
> 
> For the Love of BOB NO!!! :)
> If anything like this is to be done it should be done by the kernel/mount.
> Spending alot of time to make removable media work in only gmc and mc
> seems alittle like a wast of time. Maby have a mount switch that tells the
> kernel to allways write to a device on change and mount the device instead
> of the filesystem. This would allow for the flexibility you request and
> allows all programs to work with it like DOS did.
> 
> With the above description if /dev/fd0 was mounted to /mnt/floppy, 
> /mnt/floppy would act like A: in DOS

I mostly agree, the handling of removable media is outside the scope of
GNOME, particularly since the issue is already well handled outside of
GNOME.  For people who want easy automounting of removable media, Linux
offers AutoFS, and for other platforms (and Linux) there is AMD.  For
people who want careful control over what gets mounted, they can refrain
from using either system, and use the standard mount command.

The extent of mc's involvment in such issues should be:
  * Making sure it works properly regardless of the mounting scheme
  * Perhaps offering easy (eg. menu) access to utilities to manage such
    systems if available and appropriate


> >   Another useful thing might be to somehow ID disks somehow (serial number? Can
> > a non-privileged process get that?) to detect 'disk switches' and even allow
> > two separate removable VFSs to be open at once (for example, I open a VFS
> > on one floppy and another on another floppy, then copy a file from one floppy
> > to the other..the VFS asks me to insert each floppy at the appropriate time).

The only way of putting a serial number on a disk is with filesystems
that support it.  DOS disks formatted with version 5.0 and earler have no
serial number.  I don't think Minix or Ext2 floppies do either.  Since any
serial number would be dependant on the filesystem used on the floppy,
this doesn't sound very feasable.

-Gleef