How to get RID of that "must be superuser to umoun

Forum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions
Topic: How to get RID of that "must be superuser to umoun
started by: WDef

Posted by WDef on Oct. 27 2006,13:10

I'm about fed up with that umount error. It's a bug in Woody's mount.

To fix, download and install mount_2.12h-2.99woody1_i386.deb from < http://ftp.fifi.org/debian-....l-linux >

which is a backport from sarge to Woody.

Sideffect: I think this will disable dsl's ability to use loop-aes v1.x, but that's no great loss since that version is broken. Haven't checked that non-encrypted loops still work (eg for bootfrom iso) - I think they will.

Posted by WDef on Nov. 02 2006,11:26

<bump>

Anyone else tried this, or is it old news?

Even if third party packages are unknowns, it does indicate how to get rid of that irritating bug: there's probably something explicit about it in Sarge's documentation/changelog for the utils-linux package or on the debian mail lists (?)

Posted by mikshaw on Nov. 02 2006,12:55

Can't say I've tried it. I have aliases:
Mcd='sudo mount /dev/cdrom'
Ucd='sudo umount /dev/cdrom'
Ecd='sudo eject /dev/cdrom'

Posted by WDef on Nov. 03 2006,11:29

Workarounds are one thing but they are not fixes. It's a broken utility, and it's been the subject of a number of queries in the past. Personally I think it's an ugly bug.

For one thing, it encourages people to mount and umount in emelfm as root.

I'd prefer dsl was free of needless bugs wherever possible.

Posted by mikshaw on Nov. 03 2006,14:40

Quote

For one thing, it encourages people to mount and umount in emelfm as root.

Personally I think encouraging people to do *anything* as root in emelfm is a bad idea...but what ya gonna do...

As I see it, yes it's a bug. What I think is mostly wrong with it is inconsistency. If a user cannot umount a device, the user should not have been allowed to mount that device in the first place. Either give the user both abilities, or remove both.

EDIT: now that i think about it for a minute, it's not the inconsistency that bugs me (pun intended), but the fact that if "users" is listed in fstab as an option for a particular device, whatever user mounted the device should be able to umount it. So yeah...i agree with you.

Posted by Selim on Nov. 03 2006,15:27

Quote (WDef @ Nov. 03 2006,12:29)

For one thing, it encourages people to mount and umount in emelfm as root.

To mount emelFM as root isn't needed.
To umount I've added a button and an user command with the following code in emelFM:

Code Sample

sudo umount %f

Of course it's only another workaround.

Btw, thanks to mikshaw, i've added 3 more buttons to emelFM:
- To mount CD (Command: mount /dev/cdrom)
- To umount CD (Command: sudo umount /dev/cdrom)
- To eject CD (Command: sudo eject /dev/cdrom)

Posted by WDef on Nov. 21 2006,15:24

I confess I have an eject toolbutton and also an sudo umount toolbutton - but I'd still rather this kind of thing was fixed.

I guess I'm not sure I understand why dsl should stick with old woody utils like this (prehistory for the sake of it?) - the current release compiles easily on dsl and works. It doesn't have any libraries.