Comment 22 for bug 1067876

Revision history for this message
Blair Zimmer (bmazimm) wrote : Re: [quantal] Missing "Safely Remove Drive" and "Eject" options from Quicklists. Only have "Unmount".

Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote on 2012-11-13: #13
The "safe remove" functionality was removed from udisks2, and it's not planned to bring it back. It caused too much trouble with e. g. devices which are internally wired to an USB port, and you could never use them again until after a reboot. Also, having two options was a constant source of confusion. So I'm afraid this is "wontfix" from the distro side.

Martin, There is myself and I am sure many others who find this justification "unacceptable"! I have several systems in which devices are connected internally via USB headers/ports. Yes, the option does exist, be it Ubuntu 12.04.1, Windows XP-7, etc. to safely remove these devices via a right-click, even though they are devices that would not normally require such action. Examples of these devices are a wireless N network adapter, an internal media card reader with USB port, etc. Quite frankly, it comes down to a user exercising diligence when right-clicking on any device and knowing what device it is that they are about to safely remove beforehand! Saying that it causes too much trouble for devices that would then require a reboot to use again is in my opinion, a cop-out! It is a chance that most users would be willing to take, to err on the side of caution when it comes to properly powering down a device first before removing it! If it is a choice between having the safely remove command available to remove a device properly by completely powering it down or not having the safely remove command available at all in an attempt to eliminate the confusion that exists in correlation to the eject/unmount commands while helping to prevent some users from accidentally removing the wrong device, I think the majority of users do not find it as confusing as you implicate. I and others I am sure would rather have the option to safely power down our devices using the safely remove command and thus this is a request to have it formally reinstated. This too, has prevented me from upgrading to Ubuntu 12.10!