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I am confused about mount/unmount


Arne
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Hello guys,

In many articles and books I am reminded the almost absolute need for mount/unmont. My fstab shows :

noatime for harddisk

auto for CDrom

and nothing for thumbdrive 'none /proc/ proc defaults 0 0'

 

Other places is mentioned 'supermount'

 

On my linux I can put in my thumbdrive, no need for mount/unmount. My CDrom don't need any mount/unmount but that is understandable because fstab show 'auto'

 

For a newbie like me this is very confusing. Can anybody point me to where this is explained in some details since I cannot be the only one. :help:

 

[moved from Installing Mandriva by spinynorman]

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Recent versions of Mandrake/Mandriva make use of udev (see the man pages for details) which sets rules relating to devices and where they are made available, what they are called and this combined with hotplug (man pages again) is utilised to make usb and firewire devices available when they are plugged in.

 

When your thumbdrive is plugged in, if you have a look at the /mnt directory, you will probably see a new entry called something like removeable that relates to the deveice just plugged in.

 

My understanding is that you ought to unmount the device before unplugging it to avoid losing any data on it (there should be an icon on the desktop you can right-click to select unmount) or

umount [mounted device path]

would do the trick. Having said that my digital camera and thumb drive have all been unplugged without unmounting and I have not lost any data... yet

 

Does this help?

 

Leo

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Leo,

Yes it did a little bit. I didn't know about udev and hotplug before and this is useful.

 

 

When your thumbdrive is plugged in, if you have a look at the /mnt directory, you will probably see a new entry called something like removeable that relates to the deveice just plugged in.

In my box the entry removable is there even the thumbdrive is not.

 

My understanding is that you ought to unmount the device before unplugging it to avoid losing any data on it (there should be an icon on the desktop you can right-click to select unmount) or
umount [mounted device path]

would do the trick. Having said that my digital camera and thumb drive have all been unplugged without unmounting and I have not lost any data... yet

Yes, thats what people say. I have taken out the thumbdrive many times without unmounting. I have not lost any thing. And you do the same. This confuse me and I would like to make this completely clear to be able to learn linux.

 

Thank's for your response

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There are 2 things happening when you plug in new hardware:

 

-1- the hardware is recognized and made available (that's what udev and hal are for)

 

-2- the data on the hardware (usb drives, pens, camera's etcetc) is made available and that is what mount does. Mandriva uses supermount (look in your lsmod output) for that. Supermount automatically mounts the partitions on the new hardware. Because it's automatic you don't nee to unmount either.

 

The removable folder is where the partition can be viewed that is chosen by Mandriva but you can use any folder really. Just make a folder and type: mount /dev/sdxx /home/your name/folder you made. However on Mandriva there is no need for that.

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devries

Thank's for reply and the clarification. I expected to find supemount here, but since I am a newbie ....

 

My lsmod look like this:

 

[root@localhost arne2]# lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by

md5                           3584  1

ipv6                        230916  8

rfcomm                     32348  0

l2cap                         19876  5 rfcomm

bluetooth                   39076  4 rfcomm,l2cap

snd-seq-oss               31232  0

snd-seq-midi-event      6080  1 snd-seq-oss

snd-seq                     47440  4 snd-seq-oss,snd-seq-midi-event

snd-pcm-oss              49480  0

snd-mixer-oss            17376  1 snd-pcm-oss

snd-cs4236                13096  1

snd-opl3-lib                  8448  1 snd-cs4236

snd-hwdep                   6916  1 snd-opl3-lib

snd-cs4236-lib             14048  1 snd-cs4236

snd-mpu401-uart         5856  1 snd-cs4236

snd-rawmidi                19300  1 snd-mpu401-uart

snd-seq-device              6344  4 snd-seq-oss,snd-seq,snd-opl3-lib,snd-rawmidi

snd-cs4231-lib             22080  2 snd-cs4236,snd-cs4236-lib

snd-pcm                      81800  3 snd-pcm-oss,snd-cs4236-lib,snd-cs4231-lib

snd-timer                    20356  4 snd-seq,snd-opl3-lib,snd-cs4231-lib,snd-pcm

snd-page-alloc               7400  2 snd-cs4231-lib,snd-pcm

snd                            45988  16 snd-seq-oss,snd-seq,snd-pcm-oss,snd-mixer-oss,snd-cs4236,snd-opl3-lib,snd-hwdep,snd-cs4236-lib,

snd-mpu401-uart,snd-rawmidi,snd-seq-device,snd-cs4231-lib,snd-pcm,snd-timer

soundcore                     7008  1 snd

af_packet                    16072  0

floppy                         55088  0

ds                               17572  4

yenta_socket                18624  0

pcmcia_core                 59972  2 ds,yenta_socket

ide-cd                          37280  1

cdrom                          37724  1 ide-cd

loop                             12520  0

uhci-hcd                       28752  0

usbcore                     103172  3 uhci-hcd

ext3                          120680  2

jbd                             49080  1 ext3

_______________________________________

 

I know my floppy user supermount when it's connected. I also expected to find supermont in my fstab on usb like f.ex thumbdrive but I have 'none'.

 

I guess I have to live with mdk using different mount/unmount setup for different peripherals even tough it would be nice to why.

 

 

 

 

:thanks:

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