Automounting of USB drives - Why is it a problem?

Polytropon freebsd at edvax.de
Wed Apr 15 19:04:03 UTC 2009


On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:33:46 -0400, Mehmet Erol Sanliturk <m.e.sanliturk at gmail.com> wrote:
> Problem is not to select an operating system to use but it is easiness of
> usability of FreeBSD especially for the new beginners .

The thing with "easieness of usability" is... well... it depends
on what you are used to. Those who are (I hope it doesn't sound
impolite)... "spoiled" by strange "Windows" concepts about how
to do things (e. g. copying and moving files through the edit
buffer... ugh...) may find things complicated where others say,
"wow, so easy!" (e. g. "cp <source> <dest>" - compare this to
the easieness of JCL!).

What may be the best and most comfortable solution to me may
sound like a nightmare to others.

The topic, regarding USB automount, is such a case. The question
that could arise is: In how much is the operating system responsible
for this automounting? Should it be done by the OS, and if, by
default, and if by default, with which parameters? Or should it
be left to an additional service?



> A few days ago I tried to install my FreeBSD 2.0.5 double CD version but it
> could not be possible because it was requiring sound card attached old model
> CD-ROM drive .

Well, that's nothing special. In the same way I could try to
install the most recent PC-BSD on a 386 PC - without success. :-)

Each period of time has its typical hardware habits, and the
OSes of this time honour these requirements.

Can you remember when you wanted a firewall in FreeBSD, you
needed to recompile the kernel? Today, it's much easier to
load a module.

That's development. The question is: In which direction should
FreeBSD's development go? Personally, I like the approach of
making only those inventions become part of the OS that turned
out to be stable AND secure. This protects the system from
growing into bloat and crap. FreeBSD is one of the few operating
systems today that are free of this garbage.



> Over time . daily requirements is driving the selection of operating systems
> and personally I do not have any prejudice against to any one of the
> operating systems  .

Yes, an understandable opinion that I do share.



>  I like FreeBSD very much and I want to see it much more better than its
> actually very very good state . One point for improvement is the easiness of
> usability for the new comers .

Newcomers to FreeBSD will learn very early that it's absolute
neccessary to read first, learn, and then do. There's no other
way. As it has been mentioned already, and I'd like to emphasize
this: You can do only what you understand.

When I came to FreeBSD, I had mainly Linux experiences on the
PC (Slackware), and UNIX experiences from the mainframe (PSU,
MUTOS). So I could find my way around.

A complete newcomer would first need to learn about the principles
of a UNIX OS: If you want it, make it. It doesn't do things on
its own, and that's completely intended. This is the strength of
FreeBSD (as opposite to many other OSes): It does what it's told
to do, nothing more, nothing less.

So if you want automount, you're completely free to *add* it. I
think it's easier to add things (and you may count some things
as a security risk) than to stuff security holes one by one
(disabling functionalities).



> Second is its installation easiness which at present I find it very
> difficult ( for example , during installation , it is not possible to go
> back to correct an entry . Due to this , sometimes it is becoming necessary
> to power off the computer and re-start from the beginning ) .

This teaches the user how to work on UNIX: First think, then do.
Personally, I like the installer for first doing all the interaction
(which can be scripted in order to get *no* interaction) and then
let it work. Of course, it's neccessary that all the settings are
correct because *you* are the one who needs to know what to do. The
installer cannot know this, or read your mind.

So if you give a certain command, the system assumes that you
really intend to do so (compare this to VMS's CL). Sometimes,
you even need to learn the hard way. I know it - did rm -r of
a tree where I did forget to first copy the things I wanted,
but then, oops, everything went away.

There are alternative installers in development that feature the
"next, next, next, next, reboot" style of installers. I think PC-BSD
has such an installer.

But personally, I would prefer the text mode installer of FreeBSD
to stay default. It's so powerful and fast if you know how to use
it.



> Third is use of Live FS CD . There is no any documentation about
> installation step ( Fix It ) or I do not know any .

You can create your own FreeBSD live file system or use, for example,
FreeSBIE (which I do often use for diagnostics and maintenance, as
well as for data recovery preparations). It automounts all media
that is detected (-o ro, of course), has a nice GUI and is quite
fast.



I hope this isn't too off-topic; if it is, then sorry; :-)



-- 
Polytropon
>From Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...


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