On Tue, Apr 01, 2003 at 08:37:40PM -0500, Bruce wrote:
| >
| > Check out the mtools package.
|
| Yes, there are packages and command line tools to do many disk-related
| things, but don't forget Mom used WP5.x as her file manager, and never saw
| a command prompt, and isn't about to start now....
Then use the GUI tools. (eg gnome has/had a floppy (un)mounting
applet, and there are GUI-based file managers)
| I was really just using the box of floppies as an example. Really, my
| question is whether there is a reliable, GUI, way to access removable
| media in linux??
Different removable media is different (because of the hardware). The
biggest issue is floppies on x86 systems. The insertion mechanism is
purely mechanical and sends no notification to the software. Likewise
for the eject button. Thus the kernel has no way of knowing that a
floppy was inserted or is about to be ejected. Thus it can't do a
very good job of automatically mounting the disk (though the
automounter can attempt a mount upon access, AFAIK) and it can't
ensure that the file system is flushed before the disk is really
removed. In short, floppies on x86 are a mess. Zip drives and CDs
are a different story, however. Zip disks and CDs can't be ejected
unless the software tells the drive it is ok. In addition, the
hardware notifies the software of changes in state. Therefore it is
at least theoretically possible for those to be handled more
automatically (and safely). I haven't looked into the details of
actually setting that up since 'mount' and 'umount' work fine for the
*occaisions* I actually need to use removable media. (networking is
often more convenient and useful, for me :-))
HTH,
-D
--
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
.... what McDonald's is to gourmet cooking
http://dman.ddts.net/~dman/
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