[PC-BSD Testing] Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?

[Odhiambo Washington]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Kris Moore <kris at pcbsd.com> wrote:

> A.Yerenkow wrote:
> > On 15.04.2009 15:48, Odhiambo Washington wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 3:28 PM, A.Yerenkow <yerenkow at uct.ua
> >> <mailto:yerenkow at uct.ua>> wrote:
> >>
> >>     On 15.04.2009 15:15, Odhiambo Washington wrote:
> >>>     On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 3:09 PM, A.Yerenkow <yerenkow at uct.ua
> >>>     <mailto:yerenkow at uct.ua>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>         On 15.04.2009 14:50, Odhiambo Washington wrote:
> >>>>         Hello List,
> >>>>
> >>>>         For some time now, I have been baffled by one thing: Mac OS
> >>>>         X somehow has FreeBSD under the hood. When you connect a USB
> >>>>         stick (flash disk, external drive) to a Mac, it gets
> >>>>         automounted, yet the same does not happen on FreeBSD.
> >>>>         I have seen several questions being asked on this list about
> >>>>         this feature, but the answer is neither here nor there.
> >>>>         There is even a port (sysutils/automounter) that I believe
> >>>>         is supposed to help towards this, but again it's not as easy
> >>>>         as it seems to be.
> >>>>         Now my question is just one: Why should it be this difficult
> >>>>         for FreeBSD to have the automount feature within the base
> >>>>         system?
> >>>>         If OS X is doing it, Linux is doing it, FreeBSD can do it.
> >>>>
> >>>         Mount usb dev, work with it somehow ( copy there or from),
> >>>         and then NOT umounted it, remove it.
> >>>         You'll probably get kernel panic and system crash. This
> >>>         happen in almost all cases.
> >>>         While BSD -Stable didn't merge new USB stack, which would
> >>>         behave normal in such situation, auto-mount not good idea.
> >>>         That's my IMHO :)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     Sure, but you haven't seen a Mac OS X panic so far, right?
> >>>     Perhaps you haven't seen/used any Mac, so you are not to blame:-)
> >>>     All I am wondering about is why it cannot happen in FreeBSD world?
> >>>
> >>     You probably not aware that Apple don't cares at all of FreeBSD,
> >>     and simple took it's code, reworked it out and keep it closed.
> >>     So, in this OS, partially based on FreeBSD such kernel panics not
> >>     happens.
> >>     But we are talking not about Mac OS X closed-source internal
> >>     things? :) We are talking about "why not >>>  in FreeBSD >>>>".
> >>     This _can_ happen in FreeBSD world, we need just some patience,
> >>     and wait for new USB-stack being completed and polished.
> >>
> >>
> >> So your contention is that the USB code (usb2 to be precise) is not
> >> yet ready on FreeBSD and that is the reason, right?
> > My assumption that there must be some reason (which I even couldn't
> > know), why it's not yet merged in 7-stable :)
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>     We aren't big software company, which if wants some feature to  be
> >>     completed in month - hired and _payed_ a lot of workers.
> >>     FreeBSD world is volunteers world, and all software here is ready
> >>     only when it's ready :)
> >>
> >>
> >> This one I know:-)
> >> That is why I am not throwing tantrums.
> >>
>
> I guess my one question would be to ask by what you mean with
> auto-mounting. Do you mean you want the system to detect, and mount the
> media to /mnt/usb or somewhere, or that you want insert notification
> like with HAL, that detects when you insert a new device, and asks what
> you want to do with it.
>
> Right now on my system, If I plugin a USB memory stick, the KDE device
> notifier pops up, and lets me know, and gives me the option to mount, or
> run other actions on the device. That seems like a pretty reasonable
> thing to do to me. I only have to click once, and my media is mounted
> and ready to go.


Sorry to use the Mac analogy again, but on a Mac, you plug in a USB flash
disk and it automatically shows on your Desktop. You drag it to the Trash
can and it gets umounted, if no files are open on it.
Perhaps {Free|PC}BSD can have something like that?
When I plug in a flash disk, I for sure want to use it, so no need to prompt
me to mount it, no? It should just get mounted.
That's what I thought. So perhaps just mount to ~/Desktop/{$LABELNAME}

-- 
Best regards,
Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
Nairobi,KE
+254733744121/+254722743223
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
"Clothes make the man.  Naked people have little or no influence on
society."
              -- Mark Twain
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