Re: gmc/libvfs suggestion for removable media

[Gleef <dzol virtual-yellow com>]

On Tue, 23 Feb 1999, Daniel Burrows wrote:
>   Does anyone know how MacOS X will handle this?  I know it's a BSD
> derivative which means it'll mount/umount internally but how is Apple
> dealing with removable stuff?  I'm almost sure that it won't *require*
> manual mounting or unmounting.  Automounting, lockable drives (like my
> CD), and media-change notification are my guesses..

MacOS X is a Mach derivitave, just like NeXT was.  The Mach kernel may
share some BSD features, but it isn't a BSD derivative.  It's based on
the kernel used in CMU's Andrew project in the 80's, which was written
from scratch as far as I know.  AFS and Coda are other widely used
derivatives of that project.

I think it's safe to assume that MacOS X will have removable disk behavior
similar to earlier versions of MacOS.  That is to say, not only
automounting, but auto disk insertion and removal detection,
automatically running a program from the disk on insertion, and auto
formatting on inserting an unformatted disk.  It is possible (SMOP) to do
all of the above in a Unix or Linux system (although detecting floppy
insertion and removal on PC hardware is expensive), but that should be
done outside of GNOME.

-Gleef