ntfs-config complains "<path> contains an invalid character. You must choose a name, not a directory"

Bug #281826 reported by Richard Corner
4
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Disk Manager
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
ntfs-config
Opinion
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

When you start ntfs-config it'll show a suggested mount point like /media/Data for your NTFS partition. If you try to change this, for example, to /media/windowsdata or /mnt/windowsdata, it'll show the error message:

"/media/windowsdata contains an invalid character. You must choose a name, not a directory"

What you have to do is enter just the name of the mount point, without any path information - e.g. just "windowsdata" instead of "/media/windowsdata". It will fill in the "/media/" part automatically, and then it is happy. When you do this your mount point will be listed as "/media/windowsdata".

This seems like a bug in ntfs-config - or at least a serious usability issue. I have three gripes about it:

1. Because it won't accept a full path, it doesn't seem to allow you to mount NTFS partitions anywhere other than in subdirectories of /media. It should allow you to pick whichever path you want.

2. It displays the current mount point as a full path, yet when you try to edit the path it complains you shouldn't use a path. Why display the mount point in a text input field in a format which is treated as invalid by the program itself?

3. If you're going to make it that awkward to use, a little help text wouldn't go amiss.

Revision history for this message
Richard Corner (rcorner) wrote :

Version info:

Description: Ubuntu 8.04.1
Release: 8.04

richard@beast:/mnt$ sudo aptitude show ntfs-config
Package: ntfs-config
State: installed
Automatically installed: yes
Version: 0.5.5-0ubuntu1
Priority: optional
Section: universe/admin
Maintainer: Ubuntu MOTU Developers <email address hidden>
Uncompressed Size: 446k
Depends: libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.13.1), libc6 (>= 2.5-0ubuntu1), libcairo2 (>= 1.3.14), libdbus-1-3 (>= 0.94), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.4.0), libglade2-0 (>= 1:2.5.1), libglib2.0-0 (>=
         2.12.9), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.10.3), libhal-storage1, libhal1 (>= 0.5), libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.15.6), libx11-6, libxcursor1 (> 1.1.2), libxext6, libxfixes3 (>= 1:4.0.1),
         libxi6, libxinerama1, libxml2 (>= 2.6.27), libxrandr2 (>= 2:1.2.0), libxrender1, ntfs-3g
Description: Enable/disable write support for any NTFS devices
 This program allow you to easily configure all of your NTFS devices to allow write support via a friendly gui. For that use, it will configure them to use the open source
 ntfs-3g driver. You'll also be able to easily disable this feature.

 Homepage : http://givre.cabspace.com/ntfs-config

 Homepage of ntfs-3g : http://www.ntfs-3g.org

Revision history for this message
Florent Mertens (givre) wrote :

disk-manager: The easy add partition wizard has been removed.
ntfs-config: This works has expected.

Changed in disk-manager:
status: New → Invalid
Changed in ntfs-config:
status: New → Opinion
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