On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:54:35 -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Christopher Carlen [02-24-05 16:43]:

...

As it is, it is difficult to know when it is safe to remove the device after writing to it.

all you need to do is issue from the command-line: mount

and all mounted devices will be displayed. If the device *is* displayed, it is *not* safe to remove.

...

Are their any tips for tinkering with the light control on these drives?

not to my knowledge, which is diminutive. --

Do you guys know what your talking about? I hope not!!! I thought the usb flash drives were mounted SYNC, meaning that there are not any kernel buffers maintained. Therefore if all the files are closed it is safe to pull it out. (Much better than Windows where you have to tell Windows to disable the thumb drive.) I don't tend to work directly on my flash drives, just copy things on and off. I normally do things from the command-line, so as soon as any copy commands finish, I just yank it out. If I was concerned that something might be using the USB drive in the background, I would use the 'fuser -m /media/usb-*' command. Greg -- Greg Freemyer

Hi Patrick, I think he did RTFM. From page 292 of the 9.2 SuSE Administration Guide: "SUSE Linux supports the automatic detection of moble storage devices over fireware or USB... The user is completely spared the manual mounting and unmounting that was found in previous versions of SUSE LINUX. Device can simply be dosconnected as soon as no program accesses it." These devices use SUBFS and SUBMOUNT, of which I know very little. Maybe they don't buffer writes to IEEE 1394 and USB storage? Left as an exercise for the student is determining when "no program accesses it", which gets back to the backwards light again... Regards, Lew Wolfgang Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Greg Freemyer [02-24-05 17:26]:

...

Do you guys know what your talking about? I hope not!!!

of course.

...

I thought the usb flash drives were mounted SYNC, meaning that there are not any kernel buffers maintained.

If a drive is *mounted* is is *unsafe* to remove.

An unmounted (umount) is not available for writing/reading and *is* safe to remove.

Time for you to return to the Administrative Guide and the User Guide provided with your distribution.

...

Therefore if all the files are closed it is safe to pull it out. (Much better than Windows where you have to tell Windows to disable the thumb drive.)

I don't tend to work directly on my flash drives, just copy things on and off.

I normally do things from the command-line, so as soon as any copy commands finish, I just yank it out.

I wish you well, but think not.

...

If I was concerned that something might be using the USB drive in the background, I would use the 'fuser -m /media/usb-*' command.

This will indicate that it is unsafe to remove but *not* that it is safe to remove.

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 14:53:22 -0800, Lew Wolfgang wrote:

Hi Patrick,

I think he did RTFM.

From page 292 of the 9.2 SuSE Administration Guide:

"SUSE Linux supports the automatic detection of moble storage devices over fireware or USB... The user is completely spared the manual mounting and unmounting that was found in previous versions of SUSE LINUX. Device can simply be dosconnected as soon as no program accesses it."

These devices use SUBFS and SUBMOUNT, of which I know very little. Maybe they don't buffer writes to IEEE 1394 and USB storage?

Left as an exercise for the student is determining when "no program accesses it", which gets back to the backwards light again...

Regards, Lew Wolfgang

OP does not specify version. I'm with 9.1 here. Sunny -- Get Firefox http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=10745&t=85

On Friday 25 February 2005 07:01, Jerry Feldman wrote:

BTW: I am currently updating my wife's iPOD from my cruzer drive on Windows 2000. The light stays on when the drive is idle and flashes off when transferring data. So the light property is a Cruzer thing, not a Linux thing.

-- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

I don know for others, but if I was to design a device, and it have to have only one light. Iĺl go that way - the light will be on when the device is connected, and will flash during data transfer. I do not see anything strange with the design. If you do not turn on the light how the user will know that the device is successfully connected? 2c only Sunny -- Get Firefox http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=10745&t=85

On Friday 25 February 2005 08:33, Sunny wrote: <snip>

I don know for others, but if I was to design a device, and it have to have only one light. Iĺl go that way - the light will be on when the device is connected, and will flash during data transfer. I do not see anything strange with the design. If you do not turn on the light how the user will know that the device is successfully connected? <snip>

Hi All, I was going to stay out of this one because my *first* thought was there's nothing weird about a "ready" indicator. When it's "on", it's connected and ready, when it's busy it's flashing. If you plug it in and nothing happens you know there's a problem. Then I thought I'd get laughed off the list for being "old-fashioned." I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking about electromechanically disinclined users. ;-) my 2 cents, too. - Carl -- ____________________________________________________________________ C. E. Hartung Business Development & Support Services http://www.cehartung.com/ carlh@cehartung.com Dover Foxcroft, Maine, USA Public Keys 68396713 & F8207216 Reg. Linux User #350527 http://counter.li.org/

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 08:01:11 -0500, Jerry Feldman wrote:

BTW: I am currently updating my wife's iPOD from my cruzer drive on Windows 2000. The light stays on when the drive is idle and flashes off when transferring data. So the light property is a Cruzer thing, not a Linux thing.

-- Jerry Feldman

In windows it also goes off when you unmount it (or whatever they call it in Windows). ie. In windows it is not safe to pull the drive while the light is on, you have to use the little icon in the taskbar to disable it first and that turns off the light. Greg -- Greg Freemyer

Jerry Feldman wrote:

BTW: I am currently updating my wife's iPOD from my cruzer drive on Windows 2000. The light stays on when the drive is idle and flashes off when transferring data. So the light property is a Cruzer thing, not a Linux thing.

That's interesting. Sandisk makes an MP3 player which I have, which takes this USB flash drive for storage. On the MP3 player, as would be logical, the drive light is OFF when not being accessed. To do otherwise would waste power. Bizarre that it works backwards on PCs. -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@bogus-remove-me.sbcglobal.net SuSE 9.1 Linux 2.6.5

Lew Wolfgang wrote:

Hi Patrick,

I think he did RTFM.

From page 292 of the 9.2 SuSE Administration Guide:

"SUSE Linux supports the automatic detection of moble storage devices over fireware or USB... The user is completely spared the manual mounting and unmounting that was found in previous versions of SUSE LINUX. Device can simply be dosconnected as soon as no program accesses it."

These devices use SUBFS and SUBMOUNT, of which I know very little. Maybe they don't buffer writes to IEEE 1394 and USB storage?

Left as an exercise for the student is determining when "no program accesses it", which gets back to the backwards light again...

Exactly. The submount system is actually a bad idea. It makes things less safe. It is better to have to manually mount/umount the drive. But of course, with submount, the user CAN'T umount the drive, because it is mounted as root. So if there is some incompatibility that makes the drive light not work right, you are left in the realm of uncertainty. -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@bogus-remove-me.sbcglobal.net SuSE 9.1 Linux 2.6.5