Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

jourdan · 2007-02-22 07:29:12

Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

I'm a very happy AutoFS user. Especially in an environment like Xfce4.4. I can create my links to devices AND servers, give them the Tango icons I like, and all the mount/umount activity is done for me dynamically according to my specific rules. It's clean and fast.

I have an old Zip100 drive that HAL doesn't recognize, but that I find convenient for temporary backups. With AutoFS, if something doesn't work, I change my configuration file, create the appropriate UDEV symlinks, and make it work. With HAL, I'm not even sure I could do this - it's too much like the automagical blackboxes that Arch has helped me avoid.

The new Xfce4.4 is a gorgeous desktop environment. And Thunar is the best/fastest file manager I've ever used. But, once I put my first DVD in the drive after 'pacman -S (xfce...)', I got a nasty surprise.

Thunar automatically displays, and attempts to mount, any DVD or CD I put in either of my drives, without me asking it to. Then it complained about not having permission and this and that until I worked out the dependency issues. I was surprised because, although I saw 'HAL' listed as a dependency online, I didn't think Thunar would take this kind of initiative unless I installed 'thunar-volman', which clearly explains that IT is the AUTOMOUNTING PLUGIN. It's that language I liked - the fact that "automounting" was a "plugin" to Thunar.

Until the automounting world that revolves around HAL becomes a more consistent experience and easier solution than AutoFS, I'd like to remain with using my AutoFS configurations. But the current state of Arch's 'thunar' package forces me to let HAL do its automounting (HAL is in my daemons array because of other application dependencies). And, if I like Xfce4.4, I don't have much choice but to like Thunar!

Can I turn it off? Can I have Thunar without automounting? Surprisingly, a 'pacman -Rs thunar-volman' didn't do anything other than remove a configuration dialog.

I have thought about reconfiguring the Thunar pkgbuild and reinstalling, but I'm afraid that means custom building the entire dependency chain so as not to break the arch package namespacing.

I'm stuck. For now I'm living with two automounting systems that perform more or less the same thing. I can't get rid of AutoFS and still conveniently work with my Zip and Internet servers, but I also can't get rid of Thunar's automounting.

Any tips, ideas or suggestions? I would like to keep Thunar - it is very nice. I just want to do my own automounting!

Regards

byte · 2007-02-22 11:51:57

Even with thunar-volman installed I don't get 'real' automounting here. HAL recognizes the discs and displays desktop icons, but I still need to click on the drive in order to mount and access it in one step.
And that's exactly the way I want it to be.

iBertus · 2007-02-22 19:02:24

It would be a surprise if this behavior wasn't configurable. I would suggest looking in the config files for a reference to automounting if you haven't already. I've never been able to get HAL based automounting to work smoothly with Arch Linux as HAL is very poorly documented in that respect. An example is my PocketPC device. When HAL is running it will totally mess up the device state and render the device in an unusable state for synce. HAL tries to automount the PocketPC device even though it isn't a usb-storage device. I have to kill the HAL daemon before synce will connect to the device.

jourdan · 2007-02-23 01:06:43

Might there be some slim possibility of moving the "automatic drive/device recognition" out of the base Thunar package and into the "thunar-volman" package? This would probably then move the HAL dependency as well. Thunar's author(s) has made HAL optional...

tomk · 2007-02-23 08:59:49

Post a feature request - the maintainer may agree with you.

jourdan · 2007-02-26 01:25:19

I hate to sound so ignorant, but... where do I post a feature request?

stonecrest · 2007-02-26 01:34:37

click on 'bugs' at the top, and then you can specify the report as a feature request.

neri · 2007-02-27 05:16:57

Did you check the configuration dialog of thunar-volman?
The packages have no option to be configured at compile time and I can't move functionality between them.

jourdan · 2007-02-27 07:27:09

I did. If I understand Thunar correctly, we can compile Thunar either with, or without, HAL and the related auto-mounting dependencies. This should make our purpose achievable even without the compile-time options.

I should have realized that you can't actually move functionality from one to another. I mean, no kidding! But we could possibly have two packages for Thunar - one with the auto-mounting dependencies, and one without.

For example, if I remove HAL from my daemons array in rc.conf, I don't get the auto-mounting. If I put it back, I get it back.

Whether or not this disables a larger piece of functionality than which I intend I don't know, but I doubt it based on simple trial and error.

Do you think two packages (I.E. 'thunar-with-mounting' and 'thunar-without-mounting') could be put into the repository?

In the meantime, I will contact Thunar's developers and see if those compile-time options could be added.

jourdan · 2007-02-27 07:37:32

NOTE: Pursuant to the other posts here, I realize that I may be using the term "auto-mounting" incorrectly. What I am referring to is Thunar's automatic display of icons for those devices detected by HAL. Whether or not Thunar automatically opens file manager windows for these devices is irrelevant.

stonecrest · 2007-02-27 17:10:40

jourdan wrote:

Do you think two packages (I.E. 'thunar-with-mounting' and 'thunar-without-mounting') could be put into the repository?

Of course not. The thunar package should include the defaults that the most people use. If you are an exception, use abs+makepkg to create your own package, it's very simple.

stonecrest · 2007-02-27 17:35:40

jourdan wrote:

NOTE: Pursuant to the other posts here, I realize that I may be using the term "auto-mounting" incorrectly. What I am referring to is Thunar's automatic display of icons for those devices detected by HAL. Whether or not Thunar automatically opens file manager windows for these devices is irrelevant.

It's completely relevant and, yes, you are absolutely confusing the two. Thunar, by itself, just displays the devices. Thunar-volman allows you to auto-mount the devices and perform actions when they're auto-mounted. You're telling me that you have a problem with thunar's action of simply showing devices? Is that a joke? It wouldn't affect what you're doing with AutoFS, so what's the problem?

jourdan · 2007-02-27 23:49:33

stonecrest wrote:

Of course not. The thunar package should include the defaults that the most people use. If you are an exception, use abs+makepkg to create your own package, it's very simple.

I've considered this, of course, but because Thunar is so integrated with Xfce, part of my original post was a request for information regarding whether or not this could be done without having to custom-build the entire dependency chain.

stonecrest wrote:

You're telling me that you have a problem with thunar's action of simply showing devices? Is that a joke? It wouldn't affect what you're doing with AutoFS, so what's the problem?

To clarify somewhat, it's not that I have any problem with Thunar as is, it's that I have a preference that I believe might benefit anyone using AutoFS. Namely, by restricting what Thunar (base package) detects and displays to nothing other than the filesystem, volume management could become completely modular, and people like myself could choose to use AutoFS or HAL or any other method of volume management without the redundancy or dependencies of multiple volume management systems.

stonecrest · 2007-02-28 04:34:06

jourdan wrote:

I've considered this, of course, but because Thunar is so integrated with Xfce, part of my original post was a request for information regarding whether or not this could be done without having to custom-build the entire dependency chain.

There is no dependency chain you have to build - just thunar.

bsdson.tw · 2007-03-22 08:36:01

@jourdan,

I've a similar problem with you, and you can try to install thunar-volman,
and try to UNCHECK all the auto-mounting, auto-playing functionalities.
...
and hope it won't bother you again.

Personally, I've the following problematic situation:
1. after I plugin my usb disk, there will be an icon appearing on my desktop
but the device is not mounted automatically by Thunar

2. now I use pmount to mount it and use thunar to browse the disk

3. after close thunar, I try to pumount the disk, but failed!! pumount says the disk is busy!!!

Here are some more information:

[bsdson@henrylee ~]$ mount
/dev/hda3 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/sdb1 type vfat (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,quiet,shortname=mixed,uid=1000,gid=100,umask=077,iocharset=utf8)

[bsdson@henrylee ~]$ ll /dev/sdb1
ls: 無法存取 /dev/sdb1: 沒有此一檔案或目錄
[bsdson@henrylee ~]$ ll /media
總計 32K
drwx------ 10 bsdson users 16K 2007-03-22 13:54 sdb1
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K 2006-07-10 22:01 sdd1

[bsdson@henrylee ~]$ pumount sdb1
Error: could not determine real path of the device: 沒有此一檔案或目錄
[bsdson@henrylee ~]$ sudo umount /media/sdb1
umount: /media/sdb1: device is busy
umount: /media/sdb1: device is busy

[bsdson@henrylee ~]$ fuser -m /media/sdb1 -v
USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
/media/sdb1: bsdson 3961 f.... Thunar
[bsdson@henrylee ~]$ ps | grep Thunar
3961 S S ? 00:00:21 Thunar --sm-client-id 117f000001000117150706700000030390002 --daemon

BR

Arch Linux

#1 2007-02-22 07:29:12

Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#2 2007-02-22 11:51:57

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#3 2007-02-22 19:02:24

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#4 2007-02-23 01:06:43

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#5 2007-02-23 08:59:49

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#6 2007-02-26 01:25:19

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#7 2007-02-26 01:34:37

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#8 2007-02-27 05:16:57

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#9 2007-02-27 07:27:09

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#10 2007-02-27 07:37:32

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#11 2007-02-27 17:10:40

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#12 2007-02-27 17:35:40

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#13 2007-02-27 23:49:33

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#14 2007-02-28 04:34:06

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

#15 2007-03-22 08:36:01

Re: Thunar Should Not Perform Automounting

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