trinity-devel@lists.pearsoncomputing.net

Message: previous - next
Month: August 2012

Re: [trinity-devel] Tim: TDEHWLIB

From: "Timothy Pearson" <kb9vqf@...>
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:46:24 -0500
> ========================================
> Inserting a DVD
>
> Nothing happens. No desktop icon, no dialog.

I'll look into it.

> ========================================
> Floppy drive
>
> When configured in Configure Desktop -> Behavior -> Device icons, an icon
> appears on the desktop for unmounted floppy.
> Using the desktop popup menu, the device mounts in /media/fd0, although
> configured in mediamanagerrc as /media/floppy.
> The device does unmount when using the popup menu.

I don't have a floppy drive readily available at the moment to debug with;
you may want to file a bug report on this (relatively minor) issue so that
it isn't forgotten in the future.

> ========================================
> USB flash drives
>
> After about 30 seconds an icon appears on the desktop. This is much longer
> than with HAL.
> The device does not automount, per my configuration.
> The device icon label changes when I use a different physical port.
> Using the desktop popup menu, the device mounts to /media/sdf1 and not the
> mount point I configured.
> Using the desktop popup menu, the device unmounts.
> Using the desktop popup menu, selecting Safely Remove, the icon does not
> disappear.

That does not sound right at all.  TDEHWLib should not be using the device
path as the icon label, and the other issues sound like they may be a udev
or kernel problem.  Can you try with a blank mediamanagerrc and see if any
of those issues go away?

Also of some use would be if you could do the following:
1.) Go into kcontrol->Peripherals->Hardware Devices
2.) Open the Disks tree
3.) The USB flash device you are trying to mount should show up in that
subtree; double-click on it
4.) Send me one screenshots of each tab in the hardware information dialog
that pops up

The referenced kcontrol module offers a graphical view into how the TDE
hardware library views your system, and as such is quite useful for
debugging.  If something shows up as wrong in that module, it's a pretty
good bet that the device in question will not work properly elsewhere in
the TDE system.

> ========================================
> Summary
>
> Needing attention:
>
> * Using the desktop popup menu, selecting Properties does not show the
> Mounting tab in the dialog for any of the removable devices.
>
> * TDEHW does not honor the mount points used in mediamanagerrc.
>
> * For USB flash drives, the device icon label changes when the physical
> port is different. The icon label is not the same as when connected under
> HAL.
<snip>

It is not feasible to recreate the UDI strings originally generated by
HAL, as HAL's internal structure is quite different than the TDE HW
backend.  HAL uses many internal hacks/strings, which contributed
significantly to its unmaintainability and subsequent deprecation; I do
not want to repeat that mistake.

The loss of old media manager settings will exist with any replacement
media backend unless great pains are taken to generate UDI strings exactly
the way HAL did; this issue is not unique to the TDEHWLib backend.

Tim