Volumes

Where the hell are my disks? Even more generally, where are my storage devices and their volumes? I'm coming from this:

Finder, Macintosh System Software 7

I'd like to see my volumes, especially removable storage devices, appear like they do in Macintosh. NeXTSTEP, a distant cousin of Macintosh (without trying to copy it too much), could access volumes in its file manager. So, too, can GWorkspace, I'm told. Is it too much to ask to show me a USB flash drive on the desktop? Yes, it's a lot to ask I found out.

I plugged in the USB drive first.

Since I didn't know where my computer detects devices when they're plugged in, I had to list all of the devices first. This can be done with Linux's fdisk program, available to root users only. That means I had to become a super-user. Once I was super, I typed

fdisk -l

(that's a hyphen and lowercase "L") which lists available partitions/filesystems/volumes... whatever. Correct my nomenclature, computer scientists.

fdisk -l lists available partitions. The USB drive device is highlighted.

On this computer, the USB drive happens to be found at "/dev/sdb1". This location may be different on other computers.

Now I have to tell Linux where to mount the USB drive, which makes it available to play with. The "mount points" are found in a text file named fstab which is short for "filesystem table." Again, only super-users are allowed to make changes to fstab.

As a former SimpleText junkie on Macintosh, I prefered to try GNUstep's version, TextEdit, to add info to fstab. If you prefer vim or some other text editor, use it.

Type

TextEdit /etc/fstab

Editing the filesystem table.

Click to the very last line and type

/dev/sdb1 /media/usb0 auto defaults,users 0 0

Press Enter to insert a blank line at the end. You can put in more spaces to make the sections line up, but one space between each section is sufficient. The first section, "/dev/sdb1", is the device where the USB drive is located. "/media/usb0" is a directory that we haven't made yet. The other sections tell Linux to automatically mount the device and make it available to everyone. Press Alt-S and Alt-Q to save and quit.

Almost done, we have to create the "mount point" directory. Just type

mkdir /media/usb0

We need to tell GWorkspace to look at the mount points. In XTerm, first return to normal user mode, then invoke SystemPreferences. Type

exit
SystemPreferences

Click the Volumes icon.

Adding mount points to the Volumes preferences.

Under "mount points for removable media", click the "remove" button a few times to clear out the placeholders. In the entry field, enter /media/cdrom0, and click the "add" button. Enter our new directory, /media/usb0 and click add again. Click the "set" button to save and quit System Preferences.


Finally, quit XTerm and GWorkspace (Shift-Alt-Q). Load GWorkspace again. The USB drive should appear on the desktop. You may also scan for drives using GWorkspace's menu command Tools > Check For Disks.

The drives have appeared.

Now how to eject the volume?