What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

pogeymanz · 2010-12-25 21:11:34

I'm about to install Arch on a new laptop (yay, Christmas!). On my desktop I have HAL and udisks installed and Thunar-devel and PCManFM.

So basically, I don't know what is actually required to do what...

Can somebody give me the 1-2-3's of how I *should* set up my new laptop for use with Openbox to have CD's and USB sticks automounted. Is HAL needed for power management stuff?

Mr Green · 2010-12-25 21:15:04

Think Arch wiki can answer most of your questions

pogeymanz · 2010-12-25 21:36:13

Well, I do know that I can do the homework myself, but I was more looking for opinions and tips that people have already figured out.

Since it seems we're in a transitional phase with this mounting thing I was just wondering if most people are still just installing HAL and Udisks or if some people are nixing HAL or maybe some are putting off UDisks for now.

Also wondering what people would do if they were to be installing Arch tomorrow.

useradded · 2010-12-25 22:24:05

A few conclusions I came to in my looking into automounting:

(1) HAL is deprecated and most projects seem to be moving away from it, so there seems little point in basing a new automounting setup on HAL. As far as I know, HAL is not needed for power management.

(2) I have been unable to find a lightweight, stable file manager that automounts with udisks, although I believe the thunar-devel you're using does.

(3) Udev rules are the simplest, cleanest solution to automounting usb HDD/sticks. I use a slightly modified version of the rules in our esteemed wiki. I have not been able to get CDs to automount using udev rules, however all I ever do with CDs is ripping and that doesn't require mounting.

I use openbox too, by the way. I hope this is of some use.

Last edited by useradded (2010-12-25 22:24:50)

pogeymanz · 2010-12-25 22:30:47

useradded wrote:

A few conclusions I came to in my looking into automounting:

(1) HAL is deprecated and most projects seem to be moving away from it, so there seems little point in basing a new automounting setup on HAL. As far as I know, HAL is not needed for power management.
(2) I have been unable to find a lightweight, stable file manager that automounts with udisks, although I believe the thunar-devel you're using does.
(3) Udev rules are the simplest, cleanest solution to automounting usb HDD/sticks. I use a slightly modified version of the rules in our esteemed wiki. I have not been able to get CDs to automount using udev rules, however all I ever do with CDs is ripping and that doesn't require mounting.
I use openbox too, by the way. I hope this is of some use.

That's exactly the kind of info I was looking for.

Unfortunately Thunar-devel doesn't want to auto-mount my CD's either

eduardo.eae · 2010-12-25 23:07:51

What about autofs? Its in community. It mounts hdd partitions, usb drives, CDs and DVDs without problem.

ninian · 2010-12-25 23:53:35

Udiskie seems to be working well for me over the last few weeks with everything I've thrown at it.

anonymous_user · 2010-12-26 02:27:36

+1 for using udev rules. I haven't needed to use CD/DVDs in years though.

mechoid9 · 2010-12-26 05:31:40

I'm somewhere between a minimalist and a pragmatist, so I'm going to say use gvfs (gvfs and gvfs-*) with PCmanFM. It's light-weight without the headache. If I'm not mistaken, gvfs needs HAL and dbus. I agree that you shouldn't need hal for power management, unless you use gnome-power-management. My system is currently using some bastardization of dbus, hal and udisks, (thanks to my using a Dell XPS M1520). This is primarily a result of my ignorance concerning udisk rules.

I use openbox, also.

Last edited by mechoid9 (2010-12-26 06:38:30)

ChemBro · 2010-12-26 08:34:49

pogeymanz wrote:

Unfortunately Thunar-devel doesn't want to auto-mount my CD's either

Is it a audio cd? If yes, then this is a normal behaviour.

ctarwater · 2010-12-26 15:43:10

I just recently reinstalled Arch on my laptop and here's what I had to do (using openbox + pcmanfm)

- install pcmanfm, gamin, udisk
- add dbus to daemons in rc.conf
- start openbox with the following line in ~/.xinitrc

exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session openbox-session

Right now it automounts my sd card, my usb/external hard drive, and data discs.

Now - I also installed gvfs for trash support but I'm fairly confident I remember it working fine before that...the .xinitrc line was the missing piece. I found it somewhere while scouring the forums here.

Last edited by ctarwater (2010-12-26 15:44:25)

pogeymanz · 2010-12-26 17:41:44

ctarwater wrote:

I just recently reinstalled Arch on my laptop and here's what I had to do (using openbox + pcmanfm)
- install pcmanfm, gamin, udisk
- add dbus to daemons in rc.conf
- start openbox with the following line in ~/.xinitrc
exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session openbox-session
Right now it automounts my sd card, my usb/external hard drive, and data discs.
Now - I also installed gvfs for trash support but I'm fairly confident I remember it working fine before that...the .xinitrc line was the missing piece. I found it somewhere while scouring the forums here.

Great. I will try this approach.

To answer a previous question: This was a data CD-RW that didn't get automounted.

mechoid9 · 2010-12-26 19:57:46

@ctarwater - thanks for clearing that up for me.

ctarwater · 2010-12-27 18:36:15

so did that work out for you guys? If so I'd like to add it to the wiki but I want to make sure my results can be duplicated beforehand.

mechoid9 · 2010-12-28 03:08:21

I never explicitly installed gamin, but what you said about dbus worked/works for me.

broken pipe · 2010-12-28 09:45:28

cd/dvd automounting works after i created the mountpoints in /media/. thanks!

however it doesn't work for my stick, any ideas!?

jwbwater · 2010-12-28 18:18:32

@ctarwater:
Your recommendation worked for me with pcmanfm and openbox. I don't use cdroms though so I can't comment on their automounting.

Thanks.

ctarwater · 2010-12-28 18:53:09

ok, I updated the pcmanfm wiki with the above-mentioned .xinitrc command.

phlaaj · 2010-12-30 06:28:23

I followed ctarwater's solution exactly (post #11, also now in the pcmanfm wiki article), but my USBs still will not automount. Ideally I would prefer not to have to install gvfs - am I missing any other packages, or permissions?

Edit: Couldn't wait to figure it out, installed gvfs, automount now works like a charm (I was also able to remove the dbus-launch part from my .xinitrc, but I still needed ck-launch-session). I am just wondering if automount on pcmanfm 0.9.8-2 is possible without gvfs (i.e., with only udisks)? If not, then the pcmanfm wiki should be edited, as it implies that automounting can be achieved without gvfs...

Last edited by phlaaj (2010-12-30 16:52:40)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-12-25 21:11:34

What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#2 2010-12-25 21:15:04

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#3 2010-12-25 21:36:13

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#4 2010-12-25 22:24:05

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#5 2010-12-25 22:30:47

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#6 2010-12-25 23:07:51

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#7 2010-12-25 23:53:35

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#8 2010-12-26 02:27:36

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#9 2010-12-26 05:31:40

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#10 2010-12-26 08:34:49

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#11 2010-12-26 15:43:10

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#12 2010-12-26 17:41:44

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#13 2010-12-26 19:57:46

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#14 2010-12-27 18:36:15

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#15 2010-12-28 03:08:21

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#16 2010-12-28 09:45:28

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#17 2010-12-28 18:18:32

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#18 2010-12-28 18:53:09

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

#19 2010-12-30 06:28:23

Re: What is the current state of device mounting in Arch?

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