Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
On Wednesday 15 April 2009 21:03:50 Polytropon wrote: On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:33:46 -0400, Mehmet Erol Sanliturk m.e.sanlit...@gmail.com wrote: Problem is not to select an operating system to use but it is easiness of usability of FreeBSD especially for the new beginners . The thing with easieness of usability is... well... it depends on what you are used to. Those who are (I hope it doesn't sound impolite)... spoiled by strange Windows concepts about how to do things (e. g. copying and moving files through the edit buffer... ugh...) may find things complicated where others say, wow, so easy! (e. g. cp source dest - compare this to the easieness of JCL!). What may be the best and most comfortable solution to me may sound like a nightmare to others. The topic, regarding USB automount, is such a case. The question that could arise is: In how much is the operating system responsible for this automounting? Should it be done by the OS, and if, by default, and if by default, with which parameters? Or should it be left to an additional service? There's a lot of consolidation going on in the unix desktop world, that pretty much forces applications that are buggy, don't know anything about non-linux and require real effort from various FreeBSD developers to get in a somewhat working state, but it still eliminates options. hal being my primary pet-peeve followed by xorg. The reason why I embraced FreeBSD (after BSDi's premature death): ability to do it my way, which is slowly being taken away from me. For example, try getting hal to automount a cd based on a given label, with currently running user on path below home directory, rather then /media. Maybe you can, but I doubt it. In fact, using glabel will present you with multiple notification dialogs out of the box. I can get done exactly what I want, by using native freebsd devd and ditching hal and I have a second option of using amd, except then I have a buggy working Xorg server if it's working at all. Anyway, here's a nice rant about hal, that I think represents how a lot of long time users of FreeBSD on the desktop feel, that may or may not give you some different perspectives: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2009-April/005758.html -- Mel ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
El día Wednesday, April 15, 2009 a las 02:50:03PM +0300, Odhiambo Washington escribió: 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? Hello, Before doubting and blaming, read all man pages; for example just do $ man -k auto | fgrep mount amd(8) - automatically mount file systems amq(8) - automounter query tool pawd(1) - print automounter working directory If OS X is doing it, Linux is doing it, FreeBSD can do it. Ofc FreeBSD base system can do it for you if you configure it to do so; read my attached paper for more help; matthias Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. -- Mark Twain I agree and would add: Reading makes the man wise :-) CU matthias -- Matthias Apitz Manager Technical Support - OCLC GmbH Gruenwalder Weg 28g - 82041 Oberhaching - Germany t +49-89-61308 351 - f +49-89-61308 399 - m +49-170-4527211 e matthias.ap...@oclc.org - w http://www.oclc.org/ http://www.UnixArea.de/ People who hate Microsoft Windows use Linux but people who love UNIX use FreeBSD. $Id: automount.txt,v 1.4 2006/09/18 14:59:29 guru Exp $ for automounting CDROM, USB (and other devices) you configure /etc/amd.conf: [ global ] normalize_hostnames =no print_pid = no restart_mounts = yes auto_dir = /a log_file = /var/log/amd log_options =all #debug_options = all plock = no cache_duration =6 dismount_interval = 20 selectors_on_default = yes # config.guess picks up sunos5 and I don't want to edit my maps yet # os = sos5 # if you print_version after setting up os, it will show it. print_version = no map_type = file search_path =/etc/amdmaps:/usr/lib/amd:/usr/local/AMD/lib browsable_dirs = yes [ /a ] map_name = amd.cdrom [ /u ] map_name = amd.usb /etc/amdmaps/amd.cdrom: cdrom type:=cdfs;fs:=/cdrom;dev:=/dev/acd0;opts:=ro /etc/amdmaps/amd.usb: usb type:=pcfs;fs:=/mnt/usb;dev:=/dev/da0s1;opts:=rw /etc/rc.conf: # # automount daemon rpcbind_enable=YES nfs_client_enable=YES amd_enable=YES amd_flags= then you just pick-up the directory /a/cdrom with Konqueror and drag and drop the (video) file there to the Xine window, for example. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
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. Of course. Find someone and pay him to do it, just like OS X and Linux did :) (or look at http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?devd.conf and http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?amd ) signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
2009/4/15 Odhiambo Washington odhia...@gmail.com: Hello List, For some time now, I have been baffled by one thing: Mac OS X somehow has FreeBSD under the hood. No! It has Darwin under the hood, but uses the FreeBSD userland. When you connect a USB stick (flash disk, external drive) to a Mac, it gets automounted, yet the same does not happen on FreeBSD. This is a HAL feature, and you can do it; certainly I have it in Xfce for CDs. 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? No-one has yet made it perfect. Nothing gets committed to the base system unless it works out of the box and works properly. Automounting is a fiddly thing, and is not necessary for the majority of applications; remember FreeBSD is primarily a server OS. If OS X is doing it, Linux is doing it, FreeBSD can do it. Linux doesn't just do it. It just happens to be so that Ubuntu (for example) have set this up in their distribution. There are a million things that it would be nice to put in the base system, but all it would do would be to bloat it, and make world rebuilding that little bit longer. Chris -- A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
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. FreeBSD *can* automount. The problem for the time being is pulling a USB flash drive without unmounting. To automount (assuming you are using something like GNOME or XFCE), you can use the facilities provided by hal and policykit. See this: http://www.freebsd.org/gnome/docs/halfaq.html#q3 (I have also written a complete set of steps for this - currently in Greek only, but I will translate it sooner or later) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
Manolis Kiagias wrote: 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. FreeBSD *can* automount. The problem for the time being is pulling a USB flash drive without unmounting. This works better in 7-STABLE. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 9:50 AM, Manolis Kiagias sonic200...@gmail.comwrote: Odhiambo Washington wrote: (I have also written a complete set of steps for this - currently in Greek only, but I will translate it sooner or later) Such a write-up really will be very useful , because part in the FreeBSD Handbook contains errors . For example : mount -t msdosfs -o -m=644 -M=755 /dev/da0s1 /mnt/username Error -- Invalid switch M Also examples for pw contain invalid switches . The paages from man such as man pw are very difficult to use because they contain many switches and to understand use of those requires many trials due to combinatorial possible combinations and lack of ample examples . People accustomed to Windows device management finds Unix device management really very difficult such as me . To understand and use of USB sticks in FreeBSD required much time . Among FreeBSD , Linux , and Windows , hardest to use is FreeBSD with respect device usage by the user . Thank you very much . Mehmet Erol Sanliturk ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:50:38 +0300 Manolis Kiagias sonic200...@gmail.com wrote: FreeBSD *can* automount. The problem for the time being is pulling a USB flash drive without unmounting. Looks like this will no longer be a problem on FreeBSD 7.2+. It works fine already on 7.2-Prerelease/RC1. Andreas -- GnuPG key : 0x2A573565|http://www.gnupg.org/howtos/de/ Fingerprint: 925D 2089 0BF9 8DE5 9166 33BB F0FD CD37 2A57 3565 pgpWunKAve4fT.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
Mehmet Erol Sanliturk wrote: On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 9:50 AM, Manolis Kiagias sonic200...@gmail.com mailto:sonic200...@gmail.com wrote: Odhiambo Washington wrote: (I have also written a complete set of steps for this - currently in Greek only, but I will translate it sooner or later) Such a write-up really will be very useful , because part in the FreeBSD Handbook contains errors . For example : mount -t msdosfs -o -m=644 -M=755 /dev/da0s1 /mnt/username Error -- Invalid switch M You've forgotten the comma between the -o options: mount -t msdosfs -o -m=644,-M=755 /dev/da0s1 /mnt/username The example in the handbook is correct (I remember fixing it myself :) ) Also examples for pw contain invalid switches . If you do find problems in the documentation, please tell us exact locations or submit doc-bug reports. The paages from man such as man pw are very difficult to use because they contain many switches and to understand use of those requires many trials due to combinatorial possible combinations and lack of ample examples . Well, yes you need to study it carefully. It's easier than it looks at first glance. People accustomed to Windows device management finds Unix device management really very difficult such as me . To understand and use of USB sticks in FreeBSD required much time . Among FreeBSD , Linux , and Windows , hardest to use is FreeBSD with respect device usage by the user . It is not hard, you just have to learn how it works. Windows does a lot of handholding, and so do many of the popular linux distros. FreeBSD does not. You can only accomplish tasks that you understand, but there is lot of stuff to read and is very well organized. OTOH, you may not want to spend so much time if you just need to have an average user's desktop. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:44:40 +0100, Chris Rees utis...@googlemail.com wrote: Automounting is a fiddly thing, and is not necessary for the majority of applications; remember FreeBSD is primarily a server OS. Well, I'm using it exclusively as a desktop since 4.0, what am I doing wrong? :-) No, honestly: There are additional security considerations. Do you want anyone to plug in an USB stick and steal your data while you're not at your computer? Or put crap onto your machine? In some settings, especially the desktop-class installations at home, automounting of USB sticks and other media is a very good thing. It makes life easier. Desktops in a corporate environment may require this functionality explicitely to be disabled - theft of data can be made more complicated by such a means. In most cases, there are guidelines by the corporation that determine which features are allowed and which aren't. In development settings, it may be interrupting. Sometimes, I just want to put in a blank CD to use it later on - not now, so I don't want any interaction now. Or a USB stick that I want to newfs, I don't want to get it mounted with its crappy MSDOS file system on it before (which would require more interaction to unmount it). In server settings, automounting is mostly completely useless because there is nothing to mount. What would be the next request in this line? I want to put in a USB stick and then FreeBSD should automatically execute what's on this stick, and it should do this by default without any questions. :-) And yes, I'm paranoid and old-fashioned. =^_^= -- Polytropon From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:16:02 +0300, Manolis Kiagias sonic200...@gmail.com wrote: OTOH, you may not want to spend so much time if you just need to have an average user's desktop. If this case, go with PC-BSD. Looks like Windows, feels like Windows, still is FreeBSD. :-) (Honestly, it's not *that* bad and offers a lot of handholding, automation and preconfiguration.) -- Polytropon From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
Polytropon wrote: On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:16:02 +0300, Manolis Kiagias sonic200...@gmail.com wrote: OTOH, you may not want to spend so much time if you just need to have an average user's desktop. If this case, go with PC-BSD. Looks like Windows, feels like Windows, still is FreeBSD. :-) (Honestly, it's not *that* bad and offers a lot of handholding, automation and preconfiguration.) Totally OT now, but I aggree they have done an excellent work on their latest 7.1 release. Now I can definitely give this to friends who wish to have a usable system right away. And they can still move to FreeBSD internals if they wish to. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 2:04 PM, Polytropon free...@edvax.de wrote: On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:16:02 +0300, Manolis Kiagias sonic200...@gmail.com wrote: OTOH, you may not want to spend so much time if you just need to have an average user's desktop. If this case, go with PC-BSD. Looks like Windows, feels like Windows, still is FreeBSD. :-) (Honestly, it's not *that* bad and offers a lot of handholding, automation and preconfiguration.) Problem is not to select an operating system to use but it is easiness of usability of FreeBSD especially for the new beginners . A few days ago I tried to install my FreeBSD 2.0.5 double CD version but it could not be possible because it was requiring sound card attached old model CD-ROM drive . Over time . daily requirements is driving the selection of operating systems and personally I do not have any prejudice against to any one of the operating systems . As a person living as a computing specialist since 1975 I appreciate the difficulty of development of an operating system and really thank to all of the persons contributing to the open source operating systems ( I use nearly solely Fortran an Pascal ) . I like FreeBSD very much and I want to see it much more better than its actually very very good state . One point for improvement is the easiness of usability for the new comers . Second is its installation easiness which at present I find it very difficult ( for example , during installation , it is not possible to go back to correct an entry . Due to this , sometimes it is becoming necessary to power off the computer and re-start from the beginning ) . Third is use of Live FS CD . There is no any documentation about installation step ( Fix It ) or I do not know any . Thank you very much . Mehmet Erol Sanliturk ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?
On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:33:46 -0400, Mehmet Erol Sanliturk m.e.sanlit...@gmail.com wrote: Problem is not to select an operating system to use but it is easiness of usability of FreeBSD especially for the new beginners . The thing with easieness of usability is... well... it depends on what you are used to. Those who are (I hope it doesn't sound impolite)... spoiled by strange Windows concepts about how to do things (e. g. copying and moving files through the edit buffer... ugh...) may find things complicated where others say, wow, so easy! (e. g. cp source dest - compare this to the easieness of JCL!). What may be the best and most comfortable solution to me may sound like a nightmare to others. The topic, regarding USB automount, is such a case. The question that could arise is: In how much is the operating system responsible for this automounting? Should it be done by the OS, and if, by default, and if by default, with which parameters? Or should it be left to an additional service? A few days ago I tried to install my FreeBSD 2.0.5 double CD version but it could not be possible because it was requiring sound card attached old model CD-ROM drive . Well, that's nothing special. In the same way I could try to install the most recent PC-BSD on a 386 PC - without success. :-) Each period of time has its typical hardware habits, and the OSes of this time honour these requirements. Can you remember when you wanted a firewall in FreeBSD, you needed to recompile the kernel? Today, it's much easier to load a module. That's development. The question is: In which direction should FreeBSD's development go? Personally, I like the approach of making only those inventions become part of the OS that turned out to be stable AND secure. This protects the system from growing into bloat and crap. FreeBSD is one of the few operating systems today that are free of this garbage. Over time . daily requirements is driving the selection of operating systems and personally I do not have any prejudice against to any one of the operating systems . Yes, an understandable opinion that I do share. I like FreeBSD very much and I want to see it much more better than its actually very very good state . One point for improvement is the easiness of usability for the new comers . Newcomers to FreeBSD will learn very early that it's absolute neccessary to read first, learn, and then do. There's no other way. As it has been mentioned already, and I'd like to emphasize this: You can do only what you understand. When I came to FreeBSD, I had mainly Linux experiences on the PC (Slackware), and UNIX experiences from the mainframe (PSU, MUTOS). So I could find my way around. A complete newcomer would first need to learn about the principles of a UNIX OS: If you want it, make it. It doesn't do things on its own, and that's completely intended. This is the strength of FreeBSD (as opposite to many other OSes): It does what it's told to do, nothing more, nothing less. So if you want automount, you're completely free to *add* it. I think it's easier to add things (and you may count some things as a security risk) than to stuff security holes one by one (disabling functionalities). Second is its installation easiness which at present I find it very difficult ( for example , during installation , it is not possible to go back to correct an entry . Due to this , sometimes it is becoming necessary to power off the computer and re-start from the beginning ) . This teaches the user how to work on UNIX: First think, then do. Personally, I like the installer for first doing all the interaction (which can be scripted in order to get *no* interaction) and then let it work. Of course, it's neccessary that all the settings are correct because *you* are the one who needs to know what to do. The installer cannot know this, or read your mind. So if you give a certain command, the system assumes that you really intend to do so (compare this to VMS's CL). Sometimes, you even need to learn the hard way. I know it - did rm -r of a tree where I did forget to first copy the things I wanted, but then, oops, everything went away. There are alternative installers in development that feature the next, next, next, next, reboot style of installers. I think PC-BSD has such an installer. But personally, I would prefer the text mode installer of FreeBSD to stay default. It's so powerful and fast if you know how to use it. Third is use of Live FS CD . There is no any documentation about installation step ( Fix It ) or I do not know any . You can create your own FreeBSD live file system or use, for example, FreeSBIE (which I do often use for diagnostics and maintenance, as well as for data recovery preparations). It automounts all media that is detected (-o ro, of course), has a nice GUI and is quite fast. I hope this isn't too off-topic; if it is, then sorry; :-) -- Polytropon From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since
