--- "adrian.wells"
Is it possible to have a floppy unmount automatically after any windows browsing it have been closed?
It is, yes, and this could be scripted. Which WM would this be using? Indeed, rox-filer [1] actually does this, if you mount a floppy (/floppy, say) and then close the window in that location, it'll ask you if you want to umount.
Changing for a different disk while the current one is mounted (or replacing the same disk with revised data) causes it to get into a tizzy; and the only remedy it to log out/in again as it does not refresh the drive except when mounting or saving to a (correctly) mounted disk. Am I right in assuming that the FD is only written to when it is unmounted?
That's true. The idea is that concurrently the information is stored in memory and written to only when needed. Unlike windows, this means that polling the drive every second to see if the disk has changed is unnecessary. This reduces the need for disk access which is slow.
I don't understand why FD are mounted in this way if the medium can't be mechanically locked al a MAC.
(see above)
If not, is their an alternative floppy driver/management that can be used? (dare I say?) al a Windows?
There are a few -- "supermount" used to do this, but it is *evil* (and please, do not use it.) autofs is probably your best bet.
As a mater of interest, does anyone know why this paradigm was used?
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