Re: mounting/unmounting devices for newbies

[Michael ROGERS <M Rogers cs ucl ac uk>]

>Again, I don't understand what's going on at the kernel level, but it
>seems like the real problem is the computer insisting on unmounting the
>disk. <ignorant> I'd think automounting the disk whenever it is accessed
>wouldn't be that hard, but when I swap disks and try to access
>the disk again, linux gets all p'd off. Then I can't unmount
>the disk withought putting the first disk in... seems like it'd 
>be good if you could just say "no, I don't care that you don't see it, 
>unmount it, damn it!" This way a request to the floppy drive would be
>something like this: If I still have the same disk mounted, good. If I
>have a new disk, mount it. If the disk change while I wasn't
>looking, forcably unmount the disk (see above) and mount this one. If
>there's no valid disk in the drive, tell the user. </ignorant>

 I'm not sure what would happen if one of your applications had a file open on 
the floppy, and you yanked out the floppy and then tried to save or even close 
the file. Any changes to the way disks are mounted have to be compatible with
the old system from the application's point of view. I think one reason you 
can't forcibly unmount a disk is that there may be files open on it (eg a user
may be cd-ed to a directory on the disk).


 - Michael Rogers