[ubuntu intrepid] GParted does not detect devices and parted acts strange also

[ullix]

Binary package hint: gparted

Running Ubuntu Intrepid on an Acer Aspire One A110L. GParted recognizes the built-in hard disk (an 8GB SSD actually) under /dev/sda, and it does recognize a USB stick (e.g. at /dev/sdb), but it does not see the built-in card readers, even when the netbook is booted with both card readers holding a card. The card readers have the device names /dev/mmcblk0 and /dev/mmcblk1. Nautilus does see all devices, and all devices allow read from and write to.

Strangely, when parted is called from a terminal as: "sudo parted -l" it lists all 4 existing devices correctly. When parted is called from the regular user as "parted -l" it does NOT list the SSD disk or the USB stick, but it DOES list both card readers! Parted also allows the non-root user to modify the partitions on those card readers!

Something is wacky - parted should not allow non-root users to modify any partition, and GParted should recognize all devices and partitons (just as Nautilus does). Perhaps the strange naming of the devices and/or partitons is the cause of problems.

The underlying cause may be related to the bug I reported for FDisk, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/util-linux/+bug/294871

I believe when a regular user is allowed to modify partitions, this qualifies as a security vulnerability, therefore I marked that.

~$ uname -a
Linux aa1 2.6.27-8-generic #1 SMP Thu Nov 6 17:33:54 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

[Curtis Gedak (gedakc)]

GParted 0.4.4 has just been released. It contains a fix to recognize /dev/mmcblk# devices.

See GParted Bug:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=564985

[Tim Knight (tknight)]

timknight@timknight-laptop:~$ sudo fdisk /dev/mmcblk0
[sudo] password for timknight:
You will not be able to write the partition table.

Unable to read /dev/mmcblk0
timknight@timknight-laptop:~$

Now what? I'm lost and frustrated after reading a zillion threads and causing enough code errors to have to reinstall lynx twice :(