I would like to add my support to this report.  I had similar problems.
Here is my supporting report:

Hotplug of msdos formatted Compact Flash has unexpected results after
changing the "File System:" under Media Properties Volume tab Setting to
msdos.

By default, the Compact Flash device is mounted as a vfat volume, and
has the uid option set to my UID thus giving me full access to the
device which is expected.  However, when I set the "File System:" value
to msdos, then unmount, and replug the Compact Flash, it accepts the
msdos file system type, but is now mounted without the uid option and
hence becomes owned by root.  Although as a user I have read access to
it, I can't make any changes without using sudo or launching a root
terminal.  When I try to set a mount option of "uid=1000 gid=1000", I
get an error "Cannot mount volume.  Invalid mount option when attempting
to mount the volume." and have no apparent way to recover from this
error.  The documentation doesn't help as there is no guidance about
this dialog box tab.

After spending several hours exploring various man pages, Ubuntu Forums,
and a lot of trial and error, I found a clue to turn on the
"Applications"/"System Tools" menu, and found the "Configuration
Editor".  Still with no clear guidance, I found the
"system"/"storage"/"volumes" tab which contained a string with my
devices UUID.  Once there, I was able to figure out how to unset the
invalid "mount_options" key and get the device to automount again, but
still with no write access.

While I was in the configuration editors system/storage tab, I noticed
that under default options one option that is set for vfat is "uid=".
When I try to set a mount option of "uid=" in the "Mount Options:" field
of the Media Properties dialog boxes volume tab, I get an error "Cannot
mount volume.  Unable to mount the volume." and again am locked out and
have to go back the the Configuration Editor to recover.  While there,
instead of unsetting the "mount_options" key, I decided to try actually
setting it to my UID, and finally was able to get the device to mount as
I wanted it to.

It seems to me that any options entered into the settings for the Drive
and Volume tabs should be validated before being accepted by the
application, especially if the consequence of the entry will result in a
need to use functionality that is hidden from the user by default.  In
my case, my original purpose was to be able to use my Linux system to
more easily make changes to data and configuration files on a compact
flash disk that contains a MSDOS Partition for a legacy MSDOS system
that I need to maintain.  I have noticed in the past that if vfat
entries get written to the MSDOS disk, I get spurious errors and
unpredictable operation from the legacy system, thus the need to have
the compact flash disk mounted as an MSDOS partition.  My normal
procedure has been to use

   mount -t msdos /dev/DEVICE -o uid=MYUID,gid=MYGID MOUNT_POINT

as root, and everything worked as I wanted it to.  As Linux has
"progressed" I have noticed that the compact flash would automount, but
as a vfat volume, so I would need to unmount it then go to root and
mount it as before.  After upgrading to Hardy, I decided to try to find
a way to either get the automounter to ignore my MSDOS devices, or mount
them properly.  I found a hint about the Media Properties dialog box in
the desktop forum while searching for mounting information.  After
figuring out the solution to the problem asked about there which
involved properly setting the "Mount Point:" setting, I decided to try
playing with the "File System:" setting leading to the sequence of
events described above.  While I may not be an average user of the
Ubuntu Linux Operating System, I hope my experience and description of
this usage problem will help to improve the operability of the desktop.

-- 
unable to fix bad mounting options without editing gconf manually
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/231218
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu.

-- 
ubuntu-bugs mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs

Reply via email to