[ubuntu] Difference between Eject, Unmount & Safely Remove?

[ashwinhgtx]

The 'Eject' option should appear only for CD/DVD drives.

The 'Safely Remove Drive' option for external hard drives and pen drives.

The 'Unmount' option only for individual partitions in a hard drive. It could be changed to 'Unmount Partition'.

Plus a tool tip describing what the option does could appear when you hover over the option with your cursor.

Will this work?

[bennachie]

I can think of at least one one situation when "eject" makes perfect sense with a USB drive. That is when you are dealing with one of that group of 3G wireless broadband modems which want to self-install software on Windows or Macintosh systems.

The "drive" containing the software appears on Ubuntu (or other recent Linux distros, such as Fedora), and blocks recognition by Network Manager of the actual modem. Ejecting the mounted drive (and sometimes using "edit connections" to encourage Network Manager to find and identify the modem) allows you to use the device normally and connect to the Internet.

[ashwinhgtx]

Originally Posted by bennachie I can think of at least one one situation when "eject" makes perfect sense with a USB drive. That is when you are dealing with one of that group of 3G wireless broadband modems which want to self-install software on Windows or Macintosh systems. The "drive" containing the software appears on Ubuntu (or other recent Linux distros, such as Fedora), and blocks recognition by Network Manager of the actual modem. Ejecting the mounted drive (and sometimes using "edit connections" to encourage Network Manager to find and identify the modem) allows you to use the device normally and connect to the Internet.

Isn't that a problem with Network Manager? Shouldn't it be able to recognise the modem when plugged in?

[BigBananaMan]

I typically use Unmount on flash drives and Eject on optical disks because that's what I want to do. I want the flash drive unmounted from the filesystem and the disk unmounted and ejected from the drive so I can put it back in it's case. Personally I would prefer that they just have Unmount for drives and Eject for disks. There is no instance I can think of where I want a disk to be unmounted but still stuck in the drive and I could just use umount /media/cdrom0 if that's what I wanted. Safely Remove Drive seems to do nothing more than Unmount.

Now for a little fun I tried to set up another useless "Dangerously Remove Drive" option in Nautilus Actions Configuration that will make an annoying system beep to startle and prompt the user to yank the device out without unmounting it (I know I know, but somehow it makes sense to me). Unfortunately, Beep, Echo, and even the mighty Python have failed to invoke a system beep

[RJ12]

Originally Posted by BigBananaMan I typically use Unmount on flash drives and Eject on optical disks because that's what I want to do. I want the flash drive unmounted from the filesystem and the disk unmounted and ejected from the drive so I can put it back in it's case. Personally I would prefer that they just have Unmount for drives and Eject for disks. There is no instance I can think of where I want a disk to be unmounted but still stuck in the drive and I could just use umount /media/cdrom0 if that's what I wanted. Safely Remove Drive seems to do nothing more than Unmount. Now for a little fun I tried to set up another useless "Dangerously Remove Drive" option in Nautilus Actions Configuration that will make an annoying system beep to startle and prompt the user to yank the device out without unmounting it (I know I know, but somehow it makes sense to me). Unfortunately, Beep, Echo, and even the mighty Python have failed to invoke a system beep

Lol!!

[3rdalbum]

Originally Posted by bennachie I can think of at least one one situation when "eject" makes perfect sense with a USB drive. That is when you are dealing with one of that group of 3G wireless broadband modems which want to self-install software on Windows or Macintosh systems. The "drive" containing the software appears on Ubuntu (or other recent Linux distros, such as Fedora), and blocks recognition by Network Manager of the actual modem. Ejecting the mounted drive (and sometimes using "edit connections" to encourage Network Manager to find and identify the modem) allows you to use the device normally and connect to the Internet.

Usbmodeswitch should just do it's job regardless, I think. I can get an HSDPA connection without unmounting the fake flash drive.

[wilee-nilee]

Safely remove turns off the power to the USB device, not necessarily needed But that is my choice with a ext HD.