Description of problem: If I am in runlevel 3, or running a window manager other than gnome (e.g., fvwm), and I insert a USB drive, the system detects the hotplug and nearly completes the automount. This process only goes to completion if the gnome window manager is running. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): udev-095-14 How reproducible: Every time Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot to runlevel 3. 2. Insert USB drive Actual results: Although /var/log/messages shows that the hotplug detection should have been able to automount the device (e.g., adding /dev/sdb1), it does not. Expected results: The drive mounted in /media/disk, similar to the behavior if gnome was running. Additional info: I've been informed that the solution is a simple hack to udev configuration files such as documented in a Feb 2007 Linux Journal article. However, I don't know how that hack will affect the gnome file manager.
wont put that in udev. sry
Then it doesn't belong in udev. But, if we agree that the *X window manager* shouldn't determine whether the USB stick is automatically mounted (e.g., perhaps it is a server that doesn't have X running), then *please* rather than closing the bug as WONTFIX please hand it off to the appropriate developer. I don't know the internals of your structure, so if udev isn't appropriate forward it to the group for which it is appropriate -- because it clearly shouldn't be dependent on which X window manager is running.
this is not the window manager.. this is gnome-volume-manager handling the "automount" stuff and nautilus using gnome-mount and gnome-umount. KDE has its own helper applications to do stuff like this. I don't know if gnome-volume-manager works from text-mode.. Reassigning to gnome-volume-manager, which may give you a hint, what you can do in text mode.
I discovered this bug initially because I use fvwm and thus don't utilize gnome-volume-manager. However, I would argue that these kinds of low-level operations belong in an agnostic system package, and not something specific to gnome, KDE, or what have you.
This is by design.
I would love to see the design document that explained why this was the desired behavior. But, I guess that since I am not going to code this correctly, I am stuck with this flaw.
HAL is only a mechanism and as such don't make policy decisions by itself. The policy decision to mount something needs to originate from the user session so it's a) per-user; b) easily configurable without requiring root password to edit system-wide files Here's a 50,000 feet presentation detailing how it works. http://people.freedesktop.org/~david/talks/dynamic-device-handling-OLS-2006.pdf Good luck.