Removable devices should be automounted synchronously

[Jez]

I think that when you plug in something like a USB dongle, it should be mounted synchronously (-o sync) instead of in buffered mode.

For me, this is far preferable to the minute performance gain gotten by mounting the device in buffered mode. You're very unlikely to be using such devices for anything except data storage/retreival, in which case mounting synchronously is a major benefit. We're looking to make Ubuntu easier to use for new users, right? Well expecting them to know you have to right-click, 'unmount', before removing the drive is IMHO unreasonable. It's also irritating for people like me who know you need to do it, but either occasionally forget or don't want to bother.

Mount the thing synchronously by default. This is what Windows XP does, and it allows you to just remove the drive after any file transfers have finished. Yes, problems will occur if you remove it durung a file transfer, but that's gonna happen in ANY mount mode. It's far more obvious to the user that this will cause a problem than removal of the drive before unmounting. Also stop displaying that 'unsafe device removal' message for devices mounted synchronously.

I think this would make Ubuntu more intuative and easier to use.

[Duncan Lithgow (duncan-lithgow)]

And how would the system know if this is a small USB key or an integral part of the operating system on an external USB hard drive? In the latter case the 'small' gain (I know nothing about the gain) would be very important.

[Jez (ubuntu-game-point)]

I must confess to not being that technically savvy about Linux but surely it's possible for it to tell the difference? It even shows up as a USB key icon when it automounts, that would suggest to me that Linux can detect a USB key-type device. Even if it can't distinguish, I'd like to see synchronous mounting by default for any plugin device. It just makes more sense, because you're far more likely to be writing data to it in one synchronous chunk than running an app or something that has lots of data access. However, I bet it can distinguish USB keys and at least they should be mounted synchronously.

[Rogério Theodoro de Brito (rbrito)]

I am the upstream maintainer of this bug.

I can add this in the next upload to Debian (I'm releasing updates quite frequently now that I've adopted the package).

You can minimize this problem by using sync on your system. Or mount the device with the sync option, like the configuration file says (you read the configuration file, right?).

Be aware that low-quality media doesn't perform wear levelling and this might make the media have its life shortened if used with the sync mount option.

Regards, Rogério Brito.

P.S.: The new version of usbmount also supports firewire devices.

[Murz (murznn)]

I think there are must be a page in systemsettings (or at first - text config file, cli configurator) in that user can select the default mount option for new usb devices (sync or async) and maybe for standard device types (usb drive, usb hdd, etc).

[Rogério Theodoro de Brito (rbrito)]

The information is documented in usbmount /usr/share/doc/usbmount/* files.

Regards, Rogério Brito.

[Murz (murznn)]

Most of users use a standard KDE or Gnome mount dialogs instead of usbmount package that they need to find and install manually.
And Ubuntu must give they the easy way to select mount type with KDE, Gnome or another DE interface like in Windows (Removable drive configuration - "Performance" or "Quick eject").

[Rogério Theodoro de Brito (rbrito)]

Hi.

On 7/15/09, Murz <email address hidden> wrote:
> Most of users use a standard KDE or Gnome mount dialogs instead of usbmount package that they need to find and install manually.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the fact that both KDE and GNOME
present mount dialogs for the user: usbmount is *not* meant to be used
with KDE or GNOME.

It leverages the facilities of udev to provide a way to mount devices
for people that are using windows managers or just a plain console as
their working environment.

> And Ubuntu must give they the easy way to select mount type with KDE, Gnome or another DE interface like in Windows (Removable drive configuration - "Performance" or "Quick eject").

The Desktop Environments already provide a way for users to accomplish
that task. Those users are out of the target audience for usbmount. If
the filesystems should be mounted with the sync or async options, then
this should be reported to the users preferred desktop environment.

Basically, besides the documentation, I can't see anything that
usbmount should do.

Regards, Rogério Brito.

--
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{mackenzie,ime.usp}.br : GPG key 1024D/7C2CAEB8
http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito : http://meusite.mackenzie.com.br/rbrito
Projects: algorithms.berlios.de : lame.sf.net : vrms.alioth.debian.org

[Rogério Theodoro de Brito (rbrito)]

I am the upstream maintainer of usbmount and it is already fixed in Debian.

[Murz (murznn)]

Rogério Brito, sorry, I didn't see that this bug is affect on usbmount, I think that it about all Ubuntu behavior, and I wrote about poor USB mount functionality in Ubuntu GUI.

[Rogério Theodoro de Brito (rbrito)]

Hi.

No problems. I wrote more documentation regarding this.

Regards, Rogério Brito.