Comment 18 for bug 453072
Revision history for this message
| ethanay (ethan-y-us) wrote Re: Context menu for an USB pendrive shows "Unmount", "Eject" and "Safely Remove Drive" | #18 |
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73416ba
(Get the code!)
I understand the difference between all the options, and use all of them. I am still confused by the GUI. I think much of this is solvable with pop-up dialogs. See examples:
USB flash (thumb) drive:
1. Insert/connect drive.
2. [automount]
3. Press eject
4. Drive unmounts and dialog box appears: "No ejectable media found in drive. To disconnect, click 'safely remove drive.'"
5. ["safely remove" behaves as expected]
External USB CD/DVD Burner:
1. Connect external drive
2. [automount]
3. Press "safely remove"
4. Drive ejects and pop-up confirmation appears: "Are you sure you want to turn off power to the drive?"
5. YES: [Unmount and poweroff] NO: [Unmount only]
5. ["eject" behaves as expected]
The case of an external USB HDD is most concerning, because the hdd can be powered up and active when the user suddenly unplugs it and regularly forces an emergency powerdown while believing they properly prepared it for removal. We now have the GUI tools to avoid this (YAY!) -- but we must have clarity.
The only remaining question for the beginning user at this point is: "Ok, so what does 'UnMount' do then?"
Since "Unmount" is a more advanced option, it is normal and ok for this to be a question for new users of Unix-like systems. They can search online for the answer, and should be directed to resources like this:
https:/
It is fairly simple, and I think intuitive for the user to learn: When the drive is mounted, the files are accessible to read/write normally. Unmounting leaves the drive "visible" but does not allow normal read/write.