So, the authors requirements are 1) mount all partitions automatically, no matter the file system type and 2) allow partitions to be unmounted. I guess Linux just needs to mount all partitions automatically and it gets a 10.
Because doing so is a security and data integrity risk. Mounting foreign filesystems isn’t a completely safe thing to do. The only driver you should really trust to access a foreign filesystem is the native driver. Take, for example, WinXP. It automatically mounts any filesystem with the Fat32 type in the partition table, without checking the superblock. My ext2 partition mistakenly had a fat32 label (because Linux, and most other OSs, ignore the partition table ID) and WinXP hosed it in the process of attempting to mount it. Also, its much easier to get foreign code inserted into the system, or crash a multiuser machine, if filesystems are mounted automatically.
You still have to enter some data in /etc/fstab and the data won’t be automatically refreshed if you add/remove a new partition (unless you use devfs, and devfs will only add the /dev entries automatically).
I’ve always loved the BeOS mount/unmount menu (and the disc eject is a neat inheritance of Mac-philosophy). The only part about Be’s mounting sequence is that ALL BeFS partition desktops open automatically – makes things a little messy sometimes but its wonderfully convenient for drives that ‘roam’ between machines.
AFAIK there are graphical ways to mount/unmount partitions in Linux…IIRC all my local partitions (including my Windows drives) were automatically mounted when I installed Mandrake.
> Also, its much easier to get foreign code inserted into the system,
> or crash a multiuser machine, if filesystems are mounted automatically.
What a load of crap. If you can get a binary on a machine in the first place, are you going to put it somewhere such that it is only accessible after manual mounting? You put it straight into /winnt/system32 of course.
Loading every file system into Linux could be a lot more tedious than porting the desired file system and plugging it into Mac OS X VFS for example… So… the limitation on FSs in Mac OS X is completely in the mind of the author if he wants to state that any Linux can mount any file system.
Let’s see – Windows style is better than linux style drive handling (apparently by nearly 2x)?
So only being able to mount ntfs and vfat/fat32/etc. and automatic mounting beat out mounting every known (and many unknown) filesystems, loopback devices, network block devices, scsi over network (need i say more?) and all that other great stuff?
Sorry, but i’d rather have to learn something (obscure man pages? what’s so hard about ‘man mount’) that takes like 3 seconds to learn and has an amazingly powerful system then not have to learn anything and not have any power.
Well, I didn’t knew that before I read your post, and I use KDE…
Anyway, it doesn’t seem to work really well. It doesn’t show any partition from my second hard drive, so I guess it’s parsing /etc/fstab (as I didn’t put the infos on it in my fstab)…
Ask the average Joe to read the man pages. He doesn’t even bother to RTFM or a README file. It’s okay for power users, but it won’t attract n00bs or computer neophytes.
Eh, like autoplay is good? The reason automounting is dangerous is that it involves the kernel reading a file format. It is entirely possible for someone to specially prepare a filesystem in a way that causes a system to crash when it tries to access it. That’s why multiuser OSs like Linux don’t automount partitions. Besides, there is also the data integrity issue. Some filesystem drivers are flaky. I don’t want any drivers access my precious data unless I allow them to.
I think we should let evolution take its course with people too lazy to read a manual. If they can’t use computers, then so be it. Let them get left behind. Its the same with people who don’t read car manuals and break something. It’s always the responsible, knowledgable people that get stuck fixing it.
It’s too hard for a newbie to use is a good excuse. Computers should be easy. However, there is nothing wrong with something easy that requires one to read an instruction manual first.
“Ask the average Joe to read the man pages. He doesn’t even bother to RTFM or a README file. It’s okay for power users, but it won’t attract n00bs or computer neophytes.”
But of course he’ll be better off switching to an abandoned OS with little to no 3rd party support, poor networking, not to mention missing drivers for modern hardware?
I don’t understand the point of the article even being here. Just because its Beos news doesn’t make it worth reporting on.
As I said over at the other forum… The Microsoft concept of drive letters needs to be killed in a very bad way. The volume mounting features in W2k/XP suck. I’ve tried and given up on them.
What the Linux weenies keep on forgeting is EASE OF USE. Example – standard RedHat 9 does not support NTFS, you have to recompile the kernel to get NTFS support in Linux. Then you have to manually fool around with the mount command, check you /dev table to find where the device is etc. With BeOS, installing new file system support is a matter of dragging the addon to a directory on the hard disk, and thats it. Right click on your desktop, navigate to Mount and your new device is visible.
What about Mac based HFS support from Linux or Windows. Forget it, you just cant do it. With BeOS, you can. It also can read big endian and little endian filesystems. Thats why BeOS got an 10 in the review, and Linux a 4. All this talk about security etc is a load of wad, its EASE OF USE which is the paramount thing.
Plus, generally BeOS kicks Linux’s ass in all USER related things. I dont want to run a SERVER OS on my desktop.
almost everyone of the options that did not score a 10 has a third party or open source solution so i dont buy it
my server at home handles all theese with no problem
(ps its a windows box using open source and freeware tech like cygwin utils and explore hpfs and a whole bunch of others in fact mircosoft has a pay package that allows unix compat etc….. but i can hadnle all the filesystems with freeware and opensource)
mac well if bsd and linux can do it (which i know they can)
im reasonablly certain the ability still exists then at the console leval on a mac
and as far as using red hat goodness gracious can you pick a worse example for linux redhat dosnt include many of the gui apps that console fearful users love like webmin and linuxconf etc….
you want a great example download knoppix (live cd version of linux (it runs off your cdrom not your hard drive)) and it not only auto mounts hard drives and partitons on your desktop but it allows manipulation of them easy
some might get initially confused since its selling point is it dosnt need a hard drive its default setting is to leave those hard drives read only
simply right click them and select read/write
not that darn hard
a whole ton of linux distros now automount all filesystems but also allow greater plug and play support
its true that some of the solutions i use arnt native and you have to launch the 3rd party prog or util first but im also exceedingly cheep and cant afford the 3rd party apps that allow easier integration
im not nocking be loved it in its time and its true they were light years ahead but it dosnt mean that the other opsystems are useles
just thought id point out you can preaty much get any modern op sys to do what another can theese days (within reason mind you)
“What happens when there are more than 26 partitions?”
Hmm you mount them but don’t give them any drive letter perhaps? But personally I wouldn’t want to work with a system so badly maintained that it has 26+ partitions…
Ak the Average Joe to read the man pages <snipped for brevity’s sake>
Please, not the “users are too stupid” argument. This assumes that people are all morons. Why not just give them a typewriter and be done with it, or a dumb terminal and not worry about auto-mounting partitions? The whole argument is skewed to make you think that the only test that matters is the “Mom can install it” test.
The real test is can they use what they have? The rest is just reaching for a preconcieved conclusion. My wife uses Linux and loves the fact that it doens’t crash when browsing, it just runs, and she has it figured out enough to use it. That is all that matters. The last thing I want is to have her gripe at me because something isn’t working.
Use what you like, but it is usability that matters to an end user. How many end users who never read manuals worry about auto-mounting partitions anyway?
Guys, I believe it’s obvious that BeOS has the most thoughtful, easy-to-use and versatile mounting solution of them all. Now, this issue may not seem important for the typical OSnews reader, but for most end users, any technical barrier that stands between them and their files is unacceptable.
Compared to Windows, BeOS mounting allows you to access foreign partitions and is much more flexible and compatible – out of the box.
Compared to OS X, it supports more file systems and is easier and quicker to use – again, of the box.
Compared to Red-Hat Linux, it is *vastly* easier to use. If Linux only wants to be the desktop OS of programmers and geeks, that’s fine, but for ~99% of users, deciphering man pages and editing system files just doesn’t cut it. Why should they bother to manually mount their disks from the command-line, if the other desktop OSes can do it automatically? Could it be that Windows, MacOS, BeOS (and even Mandrake) got it wrong? Red-Hat’s usability has improved a lot, but issues like this clearly show that it’s still not on-par with commercial desktop systems.
There are plenty of reasons that show the BeOS has the superior mounting solution of the four, does anyone here think otherwise? if so, do explain your reasoning.
BTW, one correction to the text- BeOS doesn’t mount all mountable partitions automatically. It only does this for BFS partitions. For non-native partitions you only have to click your mouse *once* (hold mouse->select partition->release mouse). As the screenshot shows, this is fully configurable. You can choose which partitions exactly should be mounted automatically. My favorite setting is “Previously mounted disks” which always retains the current selection through reboots. I can’t think of a more convenient solution, certainly not editing /etc/fstab…
I don’t see how anyone could claim that Red-Hat’s solution is better. Instead of a single click of a mouse, you have to create a folder for the mount point; search for the correct device; use the “mount” command with the correct syntax; specify the file system; if all goes well, carefully edit your /etc/fstab (why should end users need to manually edit critical system files?) – bottom line: this is nuts. Not for nothing do all other desktop OSes strive to simplify this process (and BeOS excels). It’s a real shame that the leading Linux distribution hasn’t managed to provide a reasonable solution by v9.0.
Moreover, I’ve never had any file corruption or other issues with accessing my Windows, OS/2 and Linux partitions from BeOS, and I don’t think that doing it from the command line would have lessened the chances of things going wrong, quite the contrary.
It’s just as easy to mount/unmount in WinXP as it is in BeOS. Others have proven here, and on the site linked to in the article, that fact.
BeOS can mount, but can’t write to NTFS. Yet, it still gets a perfect score?
The Linux mount/unmount section is so poorly researched as to be laughable.
But, some faceless BeOS fanboy make a page with pictures (calling it a graphical guide to mounting and unmounting volumes on various OSs is stretch the truth pretty darn far) and it gets called “news” here.
That’s not my point. I don’t give a flying duck of BeOS, you know. My point is that mounting on Linux isn’t as easy as in Windows or BeOS. Do I care? Hell no. I know how to use my computer and I prefer to mount my drives myself. However, my point is that it might be too difficult for neophytes. I don’t understimate them, but I don’t overstimate them either! I live with some, after all.
XulChris, nice desktop, but did you had to edit /etc/fstab manually for each drive you wanted?
Compared to Windows, BeOS mounting allows you to access foreign partitions and is much more flexible and compatible – out of the box.
How can BeOS mount a partition it doesn’t have a filesystem driver for ?
You can unmount partitions in Windows as well – and mount them under directories if you really want to.
Personally I rather like the “volumes” approach used by Windows and MacOS [X]. I’ve always found the *nix method of a single-rooted system with partitions mounted under it particularly unintuitive (and it can often be very confusing), although I can see the reasoning behind it.
My ideal GUI “mounting utility” would be something like this:
* It would have three panes – volumes, mounted, unmounted.
* Volumes would list all the mountable volumes
* Unmounted would be a list of unmounted volumes and their mount points.
* Mounted would be a list of mounted volumes and their mount points.
To mount a volume, simply drag it from the unmounted pane to the mounted pane. To unmount, drag the other way.
This utility would simply be a part of a more encompassing LVM system – other parts would handle creating logical volumes, RAID sets, etc.
On Mac OS X the only time when you would have to use Disk Utility to mount/unmout a partition is when… hmmm…. when you have manually unmounted the volume before.
Unmounting can be done by selecting the volume on the desktop and either select Eject/Unmount from the context menu or by hitting COMMAND+’E’. How’s that for ease of use? And only if you have unmounted a non-removable drive this way you might need to use Disk Utility to remount it. With removable media and any external drives you can simply reinsert the media/plug it out and in again (FireWire/USB), or switch the drive off and on again (SCSI) and all the partitions on the drive will mount automatically.
>What about Mac based HFS support from Linux or Windows.
>Forget it, you just cant do it. With BeOS, you can.
Bzzzt. Well, yes only HFS. Nobody is using that anymore since … like forever. BeOS doesn’t do HFS+ and that has been introduced with Mac OS 8.1 and has been the default format since Mac OS 8.5
>Plus, generally BeOS kicks Linux’s ass in all USER related things.
>I dont want to run a SERVER OS on my desktop.
I mean, Be was great, just as the Amiga was great. But unfortunately it is dead just as in Amiga-dead or better Elvis-dead. Got it?
Besides MacOS, the only other platforms that that can access HFS+ volumes are Linux (support is like NTFS.. good reading, bad writing), and some of the BSD’s (darwin, freebsd, and netbsd..)
Heh heh. Someone who doesn’t follow kernel traffic closely enough The brand new HFS+ filesystem driver has good reading, good writing, and good performance! Works great on my new iPod
PS> OMG! The new iPod rawks so hard! I hate Apple, but I love it so!
with mandrake it’s not the hardest thing in the world to mount a new hard drive.
1. open your PC
2. insert the new drive
3. boot mandrake
4. click on the new desktop HD icon for the new HD*
but yeah… it could be better, like prompting a dialog saying that a new HD was found and ask if you want to format it and where do you want to mount it – but would have to be root only…
* tested with fat32 formatted HD. it gets mounted (by clicking) on /mnt/hd.
All other partitions that i have (ntfs, fat32, ext3, reiserfs) are auto-mounted since mandrake installation.
I dont care if people learn Linux. they will b**** till the end of time im sure that whatever they use is better because of something..
I happen to know what the best is, from experance, OS are my hoby, ive used everything over the past 15 years, from Suns, Apple MacOS(X), BeOS, Novell, OS/2, *BSD and even some mainfraime systems like PrimeOS.. just about anything I could get my hands on,
Linux has them all hands down.
To me, nothing is easier (not even OS X) and nothing is close to being more configurable. My prefrence? Debian
Microsoft has Drive Letter assigning, not mounting.
Compared to other OS BeOS is the best at mounting partitions. As for not being able to write to NTFS… so what? can Windows write to anything else but NTFS and Fat (with the exception of some experamental ext2 but NOT out of the box)?
BeOS can read most file systems available and can write to a lot of them. It can read-write Fat32. Can Windows even see BFS let alone read it? Or any other non-Microsoft file system for that matter. No…
Why can’t BeOS write on NTFS? because Microsoft hasnot revealed the specs of its file system, and noone has gotten to the trouble of reverse engineering it, since a Fat32 will do very well for the job of writing.
“I don’t see how anyone could claim that Red-Hat’s solution is better. Instead of a single click of a mouse, you have to create a folder for the mount point; search for the correct device; use the “mount” command with the correct syntax; specify the file system; if all goes well, carefully edit your /etc/fstab (why should end users need to manually edit critical system files?) – bottom line: this is nuts.”
Okay, as I said before I don’t know about RedHat, but I do know that Mandrake has a GUI tool to do this. Since I’ve yet to use it for local partitions (which were mounted automatically, including my Windows FAT partitions), I don’t know if it’s as easy to use as Windows’, OSX’s and BeOS’ own – however I have mounted network and samba file systems with ease. Also, as someone else previously mentioned, there is plug’n’play support for USB drives which automatically mounts them (and provides a Desktop link) as soon as they are plugged in. All without ever editing /etc/fstab (or even knowing it exists).
Face it, people, Linux keeps evolving at a breakneck pace.
Well this was one of the more random things ever posted on OSnews
Interesting though.
So, the authors requirements are 1) mount all partitions automatically, no matter the file system type and 2) allow partitions to be unmounted. I guess Linux just needs to mount all partitions automatically and it gets a 10.
You can mount and unmount partitions under Windows XP: Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management.
However, no out-of-the-box support for file systems other than FAT/NTFS/CDFS (but see http://www.sysinternals.com for an ext2 FS driver).
Because doing so is a security and data integrity risk. Mounting foreign filesystems isn’t a completely safe thing to do. The only driver you should really trust to access a foreign filesystem is the native driver. Take, for example, WinXP. It automatically mounts any filesystem with the Fat32 type in the partition table, without checking the superblock. My ext2 partition mistakenly had a fat32 label (because Linux, and most other OSs, ignore the partition table ID) and WinXP hosed it in the process of attempting to mount it. Also, its much easier to get foreign code inserted into the system, or crash a multiuser machine, if filesystems are mounted automatically.
You still have to enter some data in /etc/fstab and the data won’t be automatically refreshed if you add/remove a new partition (unless you use devfs, and devfs will only add the /dev entries automatically).
I’ve always loved the BeOS mount/unmount menu (and the disc eject is a neat inheritance of Mac-philosophy). The only part about Be’s mounting sequence is that ALL BeFS partition desktops open automatically – makes things a little messy sometimes but its wonderfully convenient for drives that ‘roam’ between machines.
AFAIK there are graphical ways to mount/unmount partitions in Linux…IIRC all my local partitions (including my Windows drives) were automatically mounted when I installed Mandrake.
hasn’t heard about GNOME/KDE’s devices features… try devices:/ in kde, for example.
> Also, its much easier to get foreign code inserted into the system,
> or crash a multiuser machine, if filesystems are mounted automatically.
What a load of crap. If you can get a binary on a machine in the first place, are you going to put it somewhere such that it is only accessible after manual mounting? You put it straight into /winnt/system32 of course.
Linux (Red-Hat 9.0)
Cons:
– Doesn’t automatically mount all partitions
Thats a Pro. I don’t want all partitions mount automatically!!!
Loading every file system into Linux could be a lot more tedious than porting the desired file system and plugging it into Mac OS X VFS for example… So… the limitation on FSs in Mac OS X is completely in the mind of the author if he wants to state that any Linux can mount any file system.
Right you are;-) That’s the difference between multi-user systems and SINGLE user systems.
Let’s see – Windows style is better than linux style drive handling (apparently by nearly 2x)?
So only being able to mount ntfs and vfat/fat32/etc. and automatic mounting beat out mounting every known (and many unknown) filesystems, loopback devices, network block devices, scsi over network (need i say more?) and all that other great stuff?
Sorry, but i’d rather have to learn something (obscure man pages? what’s so hard about ‘man mount’) that takes like 3 seconds to learn and has an amazingly powerful system then not have to learn anything and not have any power.
Well, I didn’t knew that before I read your post, and I use KDE…
Anyway, it doesn’t seem to work really well. It doesn’t show any partition from my second hard drive, so I guess it’s parsing /etc/fstab (as I didn’t put the infos on it in my fstab)…
Ask the average Joe to read the man pages. He doesn’t even bother to RTFM or a README file. It’s okay for power users, but it won’t attract n00bs or computer neophytes.
Eh, like autoplay is good? The reason automounting is dangerous is that it involves the kernel reading a file format. It is entirely possible for someone to specially prepare a filesystem in a way that causes a system to crash when it tries to access it. That’s why multiuser OSs like Linux don’t automount partitions. Besides, there is also the data integrity issue. Some filesystem drivers are flaky. I don’t want any drivers access my precious data unless I allow them to.
He should have used Mandrake’s mounter in the MCC. It’s easy. Plus, mdk will automount most drives/cameras/etc when plugged in.
I think we should let evolution take its course with people too lazy to read a manual. If they can’t use computers, then so be it. Let them get left behind. Its the same with people who don’t read car manuals and break something. It’s always the responsible, knowledgable people that get stuck fixing it.
It’s too hard for a newbie to use is a good excuse. Computers should be easy. However, there is nothing wrong with something easy that requires one to read an instruction manual first.
“Ask the average Joe to read the man pages. He doesn’t even bother to RTFM or a README file. It’s okay for power users, but it won’t attract n00bs or computer neophytes.”
But of course he’ll be better off switching to an abandoned OS with little to no 3rd party support, poor networking, not to mention missing drivers for modern hardware?
I don’t understand the point of the article even being here. Just because its Beos news doesn’t make it worth reporting on.
> It is entirely possible for someone to specially prepare
> a filesystem in a way that causes a system to crash
> when it tries to access it.
Good and safe operating system on which that can happens. I would trust it anyday…
My thoughts exactly.
As I said over at the other forum… The Microsoft concept of drive letters needs to be killed in a very bad way. The volume mounting features in W2k/XP suck. I’ve tried and given up on them.
Linux should be like an 11. Look at this screnshot on how easy it is. This is nothing but FUD.
http://tkmame.retrogames.com/mount.png
You will have to open the above link in a new window, just cut and paste the link, dont click on it.
What the Linux weenies keep on forgeting is EASE OF USE. Example – standard RedHat 9 does not support NTFS, you have to recompile the kernel to get NTFS support in Linux. Then you have to manually fool around with the mount command, check you /dev table to find where the device is etc. With BeOS, installing new file system support is a matter of dragging the addon to a directory on the hard disk, and thats it. Right click on your desktop, navigate to Mount and your new device is visible.
What about Mac based HFS support from Linux or Windows. Forget it, you just cant do it. With BeOS, you can. It also can read big endian and little endian filesystems. Thats why BeOS got an 10 in the review, and Linux a 4. All this talk about security etc is a load of wad, its EASE OF USE which is the paramount thing.
Plus, generally BeOS kicks Linux’s ass in all USER related things. I dont want to run a SERVER OS on my desktop.
almost everyone of the options that did not score a 10 has a third party or open source solution so i dont buy it
my server at home handles all theese with no problem
(ps its a windows box using open source and freeware tech like cygwin utils and explore hpfs and a whole bunch of others in fact mircosoft has a pay package that allows unix compat etc….. but i can hadnle all the filesystems with freeware and opensource)
mac well if bsd and linux can do it (which i know they can)
im reasonablly certain the ability still exists then at the console leval on a mac
and as far as using red hat goodness gracious can you pick a worse example for linux redhat dosnt include many of the gui apps that console fearful users love like webmin and linuxconf etc….
you want a great example download knoppix (live cd version of linux (it runs off your cdrom not your hard drive)) and it not only auto mounts hard drives and partitons on your desktop but it allows manipulation of them easy
some might get initially confused since its selling point is it dosnt need a hard drive its default setting is to leave those hard drives read only
simply right click them and select read/write
not that darn hard
a whole ton of linux distros now automount all filesystems but also allow greater plug and play support
its true that some of the solutions i use arnt native and you have to launch the 3rd party prog or util first but im also exceedingly cheep and cant afford the 3rd party apps that allow easier integration
im not nocking be loved it in its time and its true they were light years ahead but it dosnt mean that the other opsystems are useles
just thought id point out you can preaty much get any modern op sys to do what another can theese days (within reason mind you)
“The Microsoft concept of drive letters needs to be killed in a very bad way.”
What happens when there are more than 26 partitions?
POWERFUL stuff. Launch from CMD prompt or start menu
run option.
yakov approve!
Microsoft DiskPart version 1.0
Copyright (C) 1999-2001 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: YuriGagarin1
DISKPART> help
Microsoft DiskPart version 1.0
ADD – Add a mirror to a simple volume.
ACTIVE – Activates the current basic partition.
ASSIGN – Assign a drive letter or mount point to the selected volum
BREAK – Break a mirror set.
“What happens when there are more than 26 partitions?”
Hmm you mount them but don’t give them any drive letter perhaps? But personally I wouldn’t want to work with a system so badly maintained that it has 26+ partitions…
Ak the Average Joe to read the man pages <snipped for brevity’s sake>
Please, not the “users are too stupid” argument. This assumes that people are all morons. Why not just give them a typewriter and be done with it, or a dumb terminal and not worry about auto-mounting partitions? The whole argument is skewed to make you think that the only test that matters is the “Mom can install it” test.
The real test is can they use what they have? The rest is just reaching for a preconcieved conclusion. My wife uses Linux and loves the fact that it doens’t crash when browsing, it just runs, and she has it figured out enough to use it. That is all that matters. The last thing I want is to have her gripe at me because something isn’t working.
Use what you like, but it is usability that matters to an end user. How many end users who never read manuals worry about auto-mounting partitions anyway?
Guys, I believe it’s obvious that BeOS has the most thoughtful, easy-to-use and versatile mounting solution of them all. Now, this issue may not seem important for the typical OSnews reader, but for most end users, any technical barrier that stands between them and their files is unacceptable.
Compared to Windows, BeOS mounting allows you to access foreign partitions and is much more flexible and compatible – out of the box.
Compared to OS X, it supports more file systems and is easier and quicker to use – again, of the box.
Compared to Red-Hat Linux, it is *vastly* easier to use. If Linux only wants to be the desktop OS of programmers and geeks, that’s fine, but for ~99% of users, deciphering man pages and editing system files just doesn’t cut it. Why should they bother to manually mount their disks from the command-line, if the other desktop OSes can do it automatically? Could it be that Windows, MacOS, BeOS (and even Mandrake) got it wrong? Red-Hat’s usability has improved a lot, but issues like this clearly show that it’s still not on-par with commercial desktop systems.
There are plenty of reasons that show the BeOS has the superior mounting solution of the four, does anyone here think otherwise? if so, do explain your reasoning.
BTW, one correction to the text- BeOS doesn’t mount all mountable partitions automatically. It only does this for BFS partitions. For non-native partitions you only have to click your mouse *once* (hold mouse->select partition->release mouse). As the screenshot shows, this is fully configurable. You can choose which partitions exactly should be mounted automatically. My favorite setting is “Previously mounted disks” which always retains the current selection through reboots. I can’t think of a more convenient solution, certainly not editing /etc/fstab…
I don’t see how anyone could claim that Red-Hat’s solution is better. Instead of a single click of a mouse, you have to create a folder for the mount point; search for the correct device; use the “mount” command with the correct syntax; specify the file system; if all goes well, carefully edit your /etc/fstab (why should end users need to manually edit critical system files?) – bottom line: this is nuts. Not for nothing do all other desktop OSes strive to simplify this process (and BeOS excels). It’s a real shame that the leading Linux distribution hasn’t managed to provide a reasonable solution by v9.0.
Moreover, I’ve never had any file corruption or other issues with accessing my Windows, OS/2 and Linux partitions from BeOS, and I don’t think that doing it from the command line would have lessened the chances of things going wrong, quite the contrary.
Prog.
It’s just as easy to mount/unmount in WinXP as it is in BeOS. Others have proven here, and on the site linked to in the article, that fact.
BeOS can mount, but can’t write to NTFS. Yet, it still gets a perfect score?
The Linux mount/unmount section is so poorly researched as to be laughable.
But, some faceless BeOS fanboy make a page with pictures (calling it a graphical guide to mounting and unmounting volumes on various OSs is stretch the truth pretty darn far) and it gets called “news” here.
Yawn.
That’s not my point. I don’t give a flying duck of BeOS, you know. My point is that mounting on Linux isn’t as easy as in Windows or BeOS. Do I care? Hell no. I know how to use my computer and I prefer to mount my drives myself. However, my point is that it might be too difficult for neophytes. I don’t understimate them, but I don’t overstimate them either! I live with some, after all.
XulChris, nice desktop, but did you had to edit /etc/fstab manually for each drive you wanted?
BEOSs HFS support was quite buggy. You could not format in HFS, if you had a filename that was longer than 32 characters, it would corrupt the volume.
This was reported back to be before 4.5 came out. Never fixed.
Compared to Windows, BeOS mounting allows you to access foreign partitions and is much more flexible and compatible – out of the box.
How can BeOS mount a partition it doesn’t have a filesystem driver for ?
You can unmount partitions in Windows as well – and mount them under directories if you really want to.
Personally I rather like the “volumes” approach used by Windows and MacOS [X]. I’ve always found the *nix method of a single-rooted system with partitions mounted under it particularly unintuitive (and it can often be very confusing), although I can see the reasoning behind it.
My ideal GUI “mounting utility” would be something like this:
* It would have three panes – volumes, mounted, unmounted.
* Volumes would list all the mountable volumes
* Unmounted would be a list of unmounted volumes and their mount points.
* Mounted would be a list of mounted volumes and their mount points.
To mount a volume, simply drag it from the unmounted pane to the mounted pane. To unmount, drag the other way.
This utility would simply be a part of a more encompassing LVM system – other parts would handle creating logical volumes, RAID sets, etc.
On Mac OS X the only time when you would have to use Disk Utility to mount/unmout a partition is when… hmmm…. when you have manually unmounted the volume before.
Unmounting can be done by selecting the volume on the desktop and either select Eject/Unmount from the context menu or by hitting COMMAND+’E’. How’s that for ease of use? And only if you have unmounted a non-removable drive this way you might need to use Disk Utility to remount it. With removable media and any external drives you can simply reinsert the media/plug it out and in again (FireWire/USB), or switch the drive off and on again (SCSI) and all the partitions on the drive will mount automatically.
>What about Mac based HFS support from Linux or Windows.
>Forget it, you just cant do it. With BeOS, you can.
Bzzzt. Well, yes only HFS. Nobody is using that anymore since … like forever. BeOS doesn’t do HFS+ and that has been introduced with Mac OS 8.1 and has been the default format since Mac OS 8.5
>Plus, generally BeOS kicks Linux’s ass in all USER related things.
>I dont want to run a SERVER OS on my desktop.
I mean, Be was great, just as the Amiga was great. But unfortunately it is dead just as in Amiga-dead or better Elvis-dead. Got it?
Besides MacOS, the only other platforms that that can access HFS+ volumes are Linux (support is like NTFS.. good reading, bad writing), and some of the BSD’s (darwin, freebsd, and netbsd..)
Heh heh. Someone who doesn’t follow kernel traffic closely enough
The brand new HFS+ filesystem driver has good reading, good writing, and good performance! Works great on my new iPod 
PS> OMG! The new iPod rawks so hard! I hate Apple, but I love it so!
Where the hell is the AmigaOS in the comparisons to all this crap!!!
Remember, we ARE COMING!
My friend where did u find information about Redhat9 and ntfs?? Who told u that u need to recompile kernel ??
Just added little bit FUD ?? If u ever used RH9 (i doubt)
For ntfs support you should download rpm from ntfs.sf.net
and install it that is all !! No nne recompile , no need reboot. So next time please study anything you are going to talk about.
with mandrake it’s not the hardest thing in the world to mount a new hard drive.
1. open your PC
2. insert the new drive
3. boot mandrake
4. click on the new desktop HD icon for the new HD*
but yeah… it could be better, like prompting a dialog saying that a new HD was found and ask if you want to format it and where do you want to mount it – but would have to be root only…
* tested with fat32 formatted HD. it gets mounted (by clicking) on /mnt/hd.
All other partitions that i have (ntfs, fat32, ext3, reiserfs) are auto-mounted since mandrake installation.
I dont care if people learn Linux. they will b**** till the end of time im sure that whatever they use is better because of something..
I happen to know what the best is, from experance, OS are my hoby, ive used everything over the past 15 years, from Suns, Apple MacOS(X), BeOS, Novell, OS/2, *BSD and even some mainfraime systems like PrimeOS.. just about anything I could get my hands on,
Linux has them all hands down.
To me, nothing is easier (not even OS X) and nothing is close to being more configurable. My prefrence? Debian
Microsoft has Drive Letter assigning, not mounting.
Compared to other OS BeOS is the best at mounting partitions. As for not being able to write to NTFS… so what? can Windows write to anything else but NTFS and Fat (with the exception of some experamental ext2 but NOT out of the box)?
BeOS can read most file systems available and can write to a lot of them. It can read-write Fat32. Can Windows even see BFS let alone read it? Or any other non-Microsoft file system for that matter. No…
Why can’t BeOS write on NTFS? because Microsoft hasnot revealed the specs of its file system, and noone has gotten to the trouble of reverse engineering it, since a Fat32 will do very well for the job of writing.
The article is 100% right.
“What the Linux weenies keep on forgeting…”
Oops! There goes your credibility! Really, isn’t it possible to try to make a point without insulting an entire category of users?
“What about Mac based HFS support from Linux or Windows. Forget it, you just cant do it.”
Actually, there has been HFS support in the Linux kernel for quite a while:
http://www-sccm.stanford.edu/Students/hargrove/HFS/
“Plus, generally BeOS kicks Linux’s ass in all USER related things.”
Well, that obviously didn’t help it survive.
“I dont want to run a SERVER OS on my desktop.”
Such bitterness in this post. Well, AFAIAC, I don’t want to run a discontinued OS on my desktop. Troll.
“I don’t see how anyone could claim that Red-Hat’s solution is better. Instead of a single click of a mouse, you have to create a folder for the mount point; search for the correct device; use the “mount” command with the correct syntax; specify the file system; if all goes well, carefully edit your /etc/fstab (why should end users need to manually edit critical system files?) – bottom line: this is nuts.”
Okay, as I said before I don’t know about RedHat, but I do know that Mandrake has a GUI tool to do this. Since I’ve yet to use it for local partitions (which were mounted automatically, including my Windows FAT partitions), I don’t know if it’s as easy to use as Windows’, OSX’s and BeOS’ own – however I have mounted network and samba file systems with ease. Also, as someone else previously mentioned, there is plug’n’play support for USB drives which automatically mounts them (and provides a Desktop link) as soon as they are plugged in. All without ever editing /etc/fstab (or even knowing it exists).
Face it, people, Linux keeps evolving at a breakneck pace.
The DUMAS article doesn’t tell you how to use fstab, vstab, whatever is appropriate for your platform. BOO!!! HISS!!! PFFHT!!!
Rayiner Hashem
PS> OMG! The new iPod rawks so hard! I hate Apple, but I love it so!
You will submit to the darkside!
you just have to buy cheap program called paragon ext2FS everywhere