[Comm-en] What do you use to mount USB devices in WindowMaker

[Comm-en] What do you use to mount USB devices in WindowMaker

[David]

It's been a while since I've used WindowMaker.  From my past experience, in order to use USB storage devices, I had to manually configure /mnt and /etc/fstab settings when using WindowMaker.  Now, I know that I can run other file managers, like Konqueror, in WindowMaker, but auto-mounting cannot function without the KDE (or TDE) media manager handling the auto-mounting.

So, my question to all WindowMaker users here is: do you use anything special to handle USB devices, or do you do your own configurations with /etc/fstab?

If there is a WindowMaker utility that makes it easier to handle USB devices, please share your recommendations with me.

David.

Re: [Comm-en] What do you use to mount USB devices in WindowMaker

[Michael Shigorin]

On Tue, Jan 04, 2022 at 04:04:58AM +0000, David wrote:
> So, my question to all WindowMaker users here is: do you use
> anything special to handle USB devices, or do you do your own
> configurations with /etc/fstab?

Used to use subfs and autofs but now mostly just issuing "mount"
for the last ten years or so -- a shortcut to run xterm is one of
the first things to arrange on systems "inhabited" by me anyways;
I've even disabled automounting on a MATE based system I use at
work for OS development (it's not quite easy to programmatically
predict that I'm planning to overwrite a DVDRW or USB Flash
medium right upon its detection but stealing another half
a minute of my life through "friendly" automounting attempt
that I'll rollback ASAP anyways).

> If there is a WindowMaker utility that makes it easier to
> handle USB devices, please share your recommendations with me.

There's wmvolman written by another WM user in ALT Linux Team
some 15 years ago (it's also in Fedora and AUR); a quick check
on my WM laptop shows it should be enough to install the package,
run the applet and click the "-/ /-" button to mount/umount the
media attached.

Maybe we should include it into gnustep/wmaker starterkit. :-)

PS: you might also want a file manager like pcmanfm/pcmanfm-qt
(I prefer zsh ever since its discovery but there are use cases
where a GUI file manager does better, like sorting photos).

PPS: there's an article "on the harm of the friendly interfaces"
written by Victor Wagner some 20 years ago or so (in Russian);
some of us might find it thoughtful these days too:
http://wagner.pp.ru/~vitus/articles/user-friendly.html;
I found Yandex translation legible enough to relay it:
https://translate.yandex.ru/translate?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wagner.pp.ru%2F~vitus%2Farticles%2Fuser-friendly.html&lang=ru-en
(the funny bit being "friendly" term explanation and PATH/30
glitches; "thingy" would rather be "thingness", "being obsessed
with things')).  Suddenly realized that the article's
completely "politically incorrect" -- and thoroughly enjoyed
this particular case :-)

-- 
 ---- WBR, Michael Shigorin / http://altlinux.org
  ------ http://opennet.ru / http://anna-news.info

Re: [Comm-en] What do you use to mount USB devices in WindowMaker

[David]

January 4, 2022 4:37 AM, "Michael Shigorin" <mike@altlinux.org> wrote:

> Used to use subfs and autofs but now mostly just issuing "mount"
> for the last ten years or so -- a shortcut to run xterm is one of
> the first things to arrange on systems "inhabited" by me anyways;
> I've even disabled automounting on a MATE based system I use at
> work for OS development (it's not quite easy to programmatically
> predict that I'm planning to overwrite a DVDRW or USB Flash
> medium right upon its detection but stealing another half
> a minute of my life through "friendly" automounting attempt
> that I'll rollback ASAP anyways).

I think I know exactly how you feel, Michael.  It took me less than an hour to get my mount/umount command line skills back into practice and I'm remembering the benefits of NOT having auto-mount.  I also use XFE as a file manager (always had it on hand on my TDE desktop, too) and it has some handy abilities that I find useful, like script support.  I can write my own scripts that XFE can execute on demand for particular file-types.  

Although I really like TDE, it does make a person "lazy" in some ways. ;)

> PPS: there's an article "on the harm of the friendly interfaces"
> written by Victor Wagner some 20 years ago or so (in Russian);
> some of us might find it thoughtful these days too:
> http://wagner.pp.ru/~vitus/articles/user-friendly.html;
> I found Yandex translation legible enough to relay it:
> https://translate.yandex.ru/translate?url=http://www.wagner.pp.ru/~vitus/articles/user-friendly.html
> lang=ru-en
> (the funny bit being "friendly" term explanation and PATH/30
> glitches; "thingy" would rather be "thingness", "being obsessed
> with things')). Suddenly realized that the article's
> completely "politically incorrect" -- and thoroughly enjoyed
> this particular case :-)

I will check out the article.  Thanks!

Re: [Comm-en] What do you use to mount USB devices in WindowMaker

[David]

January 4, 2022 4:37 AM, "Michael Shigorin" <mike@altlinux.org> wrote:

> There's wmvolman written by another WM user in ALT Linux Team
> some 15 years ago (it's also in Fedora and AUR); a quick check
> on my WM laptop shows it should be enough to install the package,
> run the applet and click the "-/ /-" button to mount/umount the
> media attached.
> 
> Maybe we should include it into gnustep/wmaker starterkit. :-)
> 

I finally got around to installing wmvolman.  I like it, it works really well.  My compliments to the developer!  :)

>
> PPS: there's an article "on the harm of the friendly interfaces"
> written by Victor Wagner some 20 years ago or so (in Russian);
> some of us might find it thoughtful these days too:
> http://wagner.pp.ru/~vitus/articles/user-friendly.html;
> I found Yandex translation legible enough to relay it:
> https://translate.yandex.ru/translate?url=http://www.wagner.pp.ru/~vitus/articles/user-friendly.html
> lang=ru-en

I enjoyed reading the article.  There's something to be said about losing control due to "user friendliness".  Sort of similar to losing our freedom for the sake of security.  Not particularly a good thing.

Side note:  That Yandex translate interface is fantastic!  It works really well with the ALT Linux Wiki.  Thanks for bringing it to my attention!