[Setup-tool-hackers] Removable Media

[Chema Celorio <chema localhost localdomain>]

As a Linux user, I spent a lot of time seting up
removable media devices. Hacking on /etc/fstab,
making dirs in mnt, linking /dev/foo to /dev/bar
and reading Howto's about it so that my removable
media will work. I could live without the sound or
resume feature working, but not without a removable media
device.

Here is what we need to do for the removable media support.

We need to define scenarios where the users are required
to hack on /etc/fstab & making dirs in /mnt to get their
removable media working. Think of it as a list of scenarios.
Like :

- User installs Linux, the <RMD (Removable Media Device)> is not
recognized
- User adds a <RMD>, the <RMD> is not working
- User removes/unplugs a <RMD> we need to clean the /etc/fstab and remove
the
dir.
- etc ...
[I'll let you come up with this list]

So once we have this list of scenarios that we want to tackle,
we can start thinking about how to solve it for the user.

Althou we really care about user interface, from a development
point of view we only need to come up with an interface that
will let us do the work, after that we can let the UI guys
(anna & boc) make it all pretty and intuitive. 

For now, just either :

add another tab to the disks tools called "Removable Media",
or add new tool. We can later either merger RM with Disks
or split RM from the disks tool.

We have a CList of removable media devices.
On the right of the list we have some buttons.
- Add
- Delete
- Modify

ADD
---

When the user clicks add we scan the system for removable 
media devices that are not listed in /etc/fstab. We scan 
/dev/fd* /dev/hd* /dev/sd*  and all the /devs where
we know there will be removable media devices. We figure out
what type of device there are, based on where was it found
and extra info we can get. A /etc/fd0 is a floppy drive and
it we find a SCSI device we parse the SCSI description of
that device and grep for strings that we know are CD'ROMS
or CD-RW.

After that we ask the user something like :
-----------------------------------------------
The following devices where found :
-----------------------
| Add |    Device     \
------------------------
  [x]   Floppy Drive
  [x]   CD-ROm
-----------------------

Click next to configure the devices. 
----------------------------------------

If we can't find a device, we ask the user what device is
he trying to install. The less questions we ask him, the
better. But if we can't find any device, we have to ask
him all the questions about it. Like to provide us with 
the device type which he selects from a list. A complete
path of where the device is located, so that he can provide
us with this info i.e. "/dev/sd0". 


DELETE
------
We clean all references when a device is deleted. That means
removing the reference in /etc/fstab and removing the /mnt dir.

MODIFY
------
We let the user select the file system to use, mount point (only
available in the advanced mode) and stuff like that.



Don't worry about mounting/unmounting this devices, that 
functionality should go somewhere else, prolly the file manager.
I've not played with automount, but if possible it would
be nice for us to configure it. Devices we will need to suport
inlcude floppies, CD'r, RW-CD, Zip/Jazz, Memory Sticks, Optical
Drives.

Don't get distracted with all the device types that we need
to add support for, pick either a floppy drive or a CD-ROM
drive and work with that device only. Plese comit your code
frequently to the CVS, even if it is completely broken.
(Just don't add the directory to the Makefile or better yet
add a flag to configure that enables/disables support for
Rem. Media) this will allow me and other hackers to coment
on the code so that we can come up with the best way of
doing this.

Comments ? Q's ?

regards,
Chema





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