I have some HTML files on a USB-connected HDD or "thumb" drive. I don't have a whole web site, but there are several linked pages of reference information.

How do I open index.html or similar when this device gets connected to a computer?

Thanks in advance,
~~~ 0;-Dan

Open your file manager, navigate to where the usb thumb drive is mounted and double click on the html file you need. Most desktop environments will tell you when a thumb drive is mounted and when you open the file manager for whatever desktop environment you have, the drive should be obvious. Normally located on the left panel of the file manager.

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If you mean in your browser, just open a file from the menu, instead of a website.

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You should be able to navigate to the files on a mounted USB drive in your browser, although double-clicking in a file manager should work too.

Use file:// instead of http://

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Sorry for my long explanation: I always open files via "file" --> "application" vice "application" --> "file". Just my way of doing things, but obviously can be done either way.

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I wasn't aware of this option until now! Cool!

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"How do I open index.html"

in your default text editor

gedit or kate


a *.html file is only a text file

Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. I regret that I failed to state my question effectively.

What I want:

• prepare USB drive with html content
• ...
• insert into workstation
• click, whirr, ding, whistle
• web page opens without human action

I know that Linux will have different needs and behavior than those other workstation platforms that use
autorun files. I've yet to discover how to get Linux to do anything. I'm happy for Linux to
launch a script that would then parse those autorun files.

Concerning that other dominant workstation platform:
The latest edition has a bash-like shell (Ubuntu-like I think) available. I'd like to discover how to run a script in this shell
when I insert the USB drive.

There are serious security implications to these techniques. As with any administrative actions, one must exercise caution and diligence. Please use private message if you wish to answer my question but avoid the public response.

Thanks in advance,
~~~ 0;-Dan

Follow-Up:
Why am I trying to do this?
Over the years (decades) I have accumulated external HDD and "thumb" drives like cord-wood.
Each has folders and files that "archive" some previous life of mine -- both professional and personal.
Yes, I could copy them onto larger tera-byte devices, but ...

I would like automate the dance when I connect a drive to my Linux Mint v18.3 (soon to be v19.xx) workstation.

FIRST -- I want to launch a web page display that announces details about that drive's content.
NEXT -- I want to launch some automatic processing surrounding the drive.

the mount point, permissions, alias names, &c

EVENTUALLY -- I want to accomplish additional processing surrounding the contents of the drive.

update the file catalog, scan for newer file editions, 'fsck', &c

Thanks for listening.
Thanks in advance for your help,
~~~ 0;-Dan

When I put "autorun linux" into my favorite search engine, several links came up.

After a quick scan, it appears that one needs to write a script to do what you want to do and configure the desktop to ask to run the script on insertion of the thumb drive. Review of those links might be helpful.