trinity-devel@lists.pearsoncomputing.net

Message: previous - next
Month: September 2012

Re: [trinity-devel] Tim: TDEHWLIB

From: Darrell Anderson <humanreadable@...>
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 12:14:34 -0700 (PDT)
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Floppy drive

When configured in Configure Desktop -> Behavior -> Device icons, an icon appears on the desktop for unmounted floppy.
I can mount the device with the popup menu.
Using the desktop popup menu, the device mounts in /media/fd0, although configured in mediamanagerrc as /media/floppy.

Note: Under HAL the default configuration is to poll the device every two seconds. I long ago disabled that option because the clicking sound is irritating, especially for a device that is used seldom. TDEHW does not seem to poll floppy drives.

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Inserting a DVD

After about 30 seconds an icon appears on the desktop. A much longer waiting period than with HAL.
A dialog appears asking me what action to take.
I can mount the device with the popup menu through the dialog or through the device popup menu.
I cannot perform an Eject through the popup menu. I have to use the drive eject button. Running 'eject -T dvd" from konsole does not work either but did under HAL.

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USB flash drives

After about 30 seconds an icon appears on the desktop. A much longer waiting period than with HAL.
I have my USB flash drives configured to automount. Under TDEHW they do not automount.
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.
Safely Remove does not work.

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Compact flash cards

I removed the compact flash card from my camera and inserted into my card reader. An icon appeared.
Like the USB drives, Safely Remove does not work.
Oddly, the icon is a USB flash drive rather than a sd_mm icon.

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Summary

Overall, device recognition seems to be working for all devices. So that is good progress. Most issues are after recognition.

* Device recognition/response is much, much slower than under HAL. I wait a long time for icons to appear. I suspect many users will treat that behavior as breakage.

* The Mounting tab in the Properties popup dialog is not available.

* Without the Mounting tab there is no method to configure mount options for individual devices.

* Mount points are not configurable and are not the same as used in mediamanagerrc.

* TDEHW does not honor the previous mount points used in mediamanagerrc. I use mount points that make sense to me: /media/kingston_8gb, /media/cruzer_8gb /media/cruzer_16gb, /media/buffalo_1gb, etc. Mounts points of /media/sdf1, /media/sdg1, etc. do not make sense to me because I can't easily distinguish multiple devices. Likewise with the floppy mount point. /media/floppy makes more sense to me than /media/fd0.

* TDEHW does not use the existing icon labels used in mediamanagerrc.

* For CD/DVDs, the Eject option is not working. Unmounting must be performed separately. After unmounting, the Eject option does not work. I can eject only with the drive eject button.

* For USB flash drives, the device icon label changes when the physical port is different. I suspect many users will treat that behavior as breakage.

* For USB devices the Safely Remove option does not work. Specifically, the icon does not disappear.

Darrell