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Re: udev - easy setup ?



* H. S. <greatexcalibur@yahoo.com> [2005 Aug 05 10:54 -0500]:
> 
> You are not supposed to yant it like that, neither in Windows not in
> Linux. In Windows, you "Safely Remove" a USB device and in Linux you
> umount that device prior to removing.

:)

But, what did I do that an average computer user doesn't do?  There was
no prompt telling me to safely remove it, so I yanked it.  Actually, I
received this computer as part of a training course and I'm trying to
drop my expertise level so I can see what happens and learn from there.

> I tried reading about Udev rules and was able to make devices for my
> digital camera and my USB card reader (this was a few months ago when
> auto-detection wasn't working so well in Unstable). I ended up with
> rules something like:
> IF DETECTED: my digicam: THEN MAKE DEV /dev/my-digicam
> 
> And I had a mount point in /media called say "canon" which mounted
> "/dev/my-digicam". I could mount this by clicking on "canon" icon in
> "Computer" folder of Gnome desktop. At that time, this was the closes I
> could get to ease of use for Windows (I was setting up my wife's laptop
> with all this, and wanted it to be as seamless as it was in Windows for
> her).
> 
> Having described all this, I now realize that if you are using gnome and
> you have udev, hal and gnome-volume-manager, you don't need to do all
> this stuff. If I plug in a 256MB USB stick, I get an icon on my desktop
> with an appropriate name, all automatically. When I umount it (right
> clicking on the icon on desktop), the icon dissappears and the device is
> unmounted, again all automatically. I asked my wife to try this. She
> found it no different than in Windows in terms of ease of use. And
> regarding digital cameras, they are also auto-detected using digikam or
> gtkam with libgphoto2.

Good!  I'm glad to see things are coming along.  I don't regularly use
either of the DEs and just use IceWM, so I haven't seen this
progression first hand.
 
> So in the end, I know that udev rule making is tedious, but it works.
> But I am also not sure how to make general rules for USB sticks separate
> from floppies -- but I can't say I have looked much. In any case, at
> least in Gnome, one does't really need to make any rules anymore. And I
> guess the upcoming KDE will also have this
> auto-detect-auto-mount-auto-unmount feature.

Yes, I've seen it in KDE 3.4 on KNOPPIX 3.9, I believe.  In fact, the
list archives have a somewhat embarassing post about it from me.  ;)

- Nate >>

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