Comment 227 for bug 441835

this comment posted initially on bug #539515 then (today) found this bug that reflects my concerns ; what follows is a copy of those comments :

uname -a
Linux lucidGIGAslow 2.6.32-22-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 3 19:31:57 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

re slayer comment #57 ....'But what if someone (still) uses floppies? A fix should be nice :)'.....

I am one of them. currently using floppies to boot my pc because of crippled grub2 on MBR. more on this topic

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9510496#post9510496
under #537 and under #539

....'this brings up another subject, namely, that for reasons unknown to me lucid decided to stop displaying the floppy device at all, neither as an applet on the upper panel or desktop when asked to be mounted nor when asked to mount it via CLI. example

sudo mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy0
[sudo] password for peter:
peter@lucidGIGAslow:~$ ls /media/floppy0
peter@lucidGIGAslow:~$

as you could see, no message displayed and nothing present on /media/floppy0 (floppy dr light lights up). if floppy removal prior to attempting a purge/rewrite of grub is mandatory then only a physical device removal possible until a solution can be found to this problem.

some bkgrd re floppy absence/inability to mount - everything was just fine, floppy device shown on the upper panel and could be mounted UNTIL an update was carried out that contained (from /var/log/apt/history.log)

Start-Date: 2010-06-21 13:48:12
Upgrade: libcupsppdc1 (1.4.3-1ubuntu1, 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.2), libcupsimage2 (1.4.3-1ubuntu1, 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.2), libcupscgi1 (1.4.3-1ubuntu1, 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.2), libcupsdriver1 (1.4.3-1ubuntu1, 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.2), cups-client (1.4.3-1ubuntu1, 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.2), cups-common (1.4.3-1ubuntu1, 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.2), libcups2 (1.4.3-1ubuntu1, 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.2), cups (1.4.3-1ubuntu1, 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.2), cups-bsd (1.4.3-1ubuntu1, 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.2), libcupsmime1 (1.4.3-1ubuntu1, 1.4.3-1ubuntu1.2)
End-Date: 2010-06-21 13:49:18

lsmod lists floppy and isofs modules. dmesg | tail shows

[ 4782.605787] ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
[ 5060.543755] ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
[ 7482.502125] ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A

any idea what these msgs tell me ?. indeed this bootable floppy has isofs but this does not appear to be the problem, same occurs with floppy w msdos fs.'......

re Martin Pitt's
gvfs-mount -li

excerpt

Drive(6): Floppy Drive
  Type: GProxyDrive (GProxyVolumeMonitorGdu)
  ids:
   unix-device: '/dev/fd0'
  themed icons: [drive-removable-media-floppy] [drive-removable-media] [drive-removable] [drive]
  is_media_removable=1
  has_media=0
  is_media_check_automatic=0
  can_poll_for_media=1
  can_eject=0
  can_start=0
  can_stop=0
  start_stop_type=unknown

I don't know, but probably has_media=0 is not quite right - the floppy is in the drive since pc powered up (boots off it); can not mount it, see particulars above.