When I insert a USB drive on my Slackware12 system, it detects the drive, asks me the usual question about what to do with it and then comes up with an error instead of showing the contents. The error is:

This means nothing to me. It is quite a while since I had any problems with a Linux system not reading a USB drive, so I didn't expect one from the system that 'just works'.

I have no difficulty with either PCLinuxOS or Kubuntu - both with exactly the same drive, so why Slackware?

Any advice please?

Nighthawk4, did you add yourself to the cdrom and plugdev groups, as stated earlier in this thread? (This thread has gotten to be pretty long, but the first page explains that and the whole process is gone through completely throughout this thread).

Well, I have Slackware12 and use ntfs-3g driver and I had to automount my ntfs drives at boot since HAL was always using NTFS driver. Can anybody offer a policy file, so that HAL uses ntfs-3g specified in fstab for mounting Windows partitions? I simply did not find any on the net.

I was also wondering how to mount SAMBA shares with HAL. I have the smbfs shares declared in my fstab including the path to credentials and I always get 'no accsses' when I try to mount smbfsa under HAL. Seems like HAL is unable to extract the username and password from the file and mounting by users fails. But this just a guess. Can anybody point me to some sample policy file to mount smbfs with HAL?

Thanks,

Oliwer

Did you know that HAL means Hardware Abstraction Layer? I do not see the word Network appearing there.
If you want an easy way of mounting SMB/NFS/whatever shares, you may want to have a look at autofs (man autofs, man auto.master).

Eric

Yes, I did know what HAL stands for.

Neither do I and that's the whole point. HAL is unable to mount SMB shares on demand. In Slackware11 I just clicked on the unmounted SMB share and I was able to mount it and unmount whenever I wanted to. In Slackware 12 HAL was introduced and SMB mounting became impossible.

I do not have problems with mounting or automounting of SMB shares. As root I can mount and unmount my shares bypassing HAL, but when I want to click on an unmounted SMB share which is specified in fstab HAL fails. It seems HAL is not meant for network usage, so I have to live with automounting at boot and remounting as root in KDE konsole.

I studied the man pages you named and I did not see anywhere any info about mounting SMB shares. Did I miss anything? If so, please show me an example of using autofs to solve my problem.

Oliwer

Hi,

If you know what HAL stands for then why are you referencing SMB or NTFS.
Maybe you should read this wiki for HAL. Or look at this HAL reference link. Another good link for HAL, 'Making Hardware Just Work'.

You could also reference 'Slackware-Links' which was compiled from 'Slackware LQ Suggestions Links!' for some good online reference.

You need to do a litle work on your part!

Apart from SMB which is network related, I have NTFS partitions on my hardrive, which I believe is a hardware and I would like to mount them and use them with HAL since HAL is meant to handle Hardware, right? So, what's the point you are making?

Until now I have to automount my NTFS partitions with ntfs-3g at boot to have read-write access, but I would like to mount it only when I want to.

Maybe you have any idea how to achieve it?


What's the point of referring me to a 2 paragraph article, which contributes nothing to my current practical knowledge of HAL?

Why not offer something more practical?

I have studied both sources for answers. Besides, all of my hardware works besides having r/w access to NTFS. So, again, anything practical to solve my problems?

Why do you make an assumption I did not? In my first post I wrote that I had used this forum numerous times to solve my config problems. I have simply not found a solution to the 2 mentioned problems so far, thus I decided to ask.

Another assumption. Why do you assume I had not worked to solve my problems? I have this new HP since June and only this week I managed to fix last config issues apart from the 2 mentioned. It took me nearly 3 months of daily browsing and fine-tuning my config to have it work. Only at the end of it I turned to this forum to ask.

Do you have maybe anything to offer in terms of help, some practical links? Or why don't you simply state that HAL ain't gonna work with SMB for a fact dot. Instead you honestly waste my time with your post. I mean no offence, just looking for practical help here.

Oliwer

hello szob!

For the smb issues,
you should try the smb4k:
http://smb4k.berlios.de/

Its an application that manages the smb mounts, even automounts if you ask it.

Works fine for me XD

Hi,
,
For what it's worth you seem to come off as someone who won't accept help or direction of any kind. I attempted to assist you by providing you with some useful links to get some HAL background. Which you seem to need!

I'll make sure in the future to guard myself with your posts. You don't know how or what I'm thinking. I made general references since you didn't seem to know anything about HAL.

You need to learn the difference between a network device and a filesystem device. Go ahead an waste your time attempting SMB with HAL.

I did as I stated before, learn more about HAL! Practical help was given. Well as far as making that statement as per your suggestion, figure it out for your self.

BTW, no offense taken. I'm not going to waste my time with you any more.

Thanks A LOT, Erick! Five short lines of your post gave the solution I was looking.

This program is exactly what I need to bypass HAL in mounting my SMB shares :-)

How on earth I did not come across this software in my search on mounting SMB shares, I am puzzled.

Onebuck:
Now, really? How about you learn from Erick? It took him five short lines to help me solve the issue as opposed to engaging himself in determining my needs.

Onebuck:
I guess we are both better off this way.

However, just for a record I will ask you, since you come across as someone understanding HAL very well, if you know how to make HAL mount my NTFS partions with ntfs-3g driver and not the ro kernel driver? Please, copy paste the relevant XML code and fstab config or point me where I can find Slack tested solution. I will accept help even from you as I am determined to solve this issue too, even with the ego a bit bruised.

BTW, yes I did check the linux-ntfs forum for answers, but after pasting the code I found there HAL stopped mounting my NTFS drives and they are still automounted at boot.

I am off to compile the source code to try out smb4k...

Oliwer

Cancel that...

And this was exactly my problem - the automounting. I added # to the ntfs lines in fstab and now the mounting with ntfs-3g driver works with
the XML code from linux-ntfs forum.

Should I say thank you? I guess in an indirect way you helped me to solve this issue.

Oliwer

Can you post the solution in general, please? I don't understand(can't find way to, whatever you like) how to change mount options for HAL.

Ok. You have to do 2 things:

1. Go to /etc/fstab and comment out with # lines where you mounted ntfs partitions with ntfs-3g driver. HAL is still reading these lines, but ntfs partiotions are not mounted at boot. My lines after commnenting out look like this:

#/dev/sda1 /Vista ntfs-3g auto,users,uid=1000,gid=100,fmask=0113,dmask=0002 0 0
#/dev/sda2 /HP_Recovery ntfs-3g noauto,users,uid=1000,gid=100,fmask=0113,dmask=0002 0 0

2. Go to this file:

/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/20-storage-methods.fdi

and next adjust the code referring to the ntfs mounting to look like this:

<!-- allow these mount options for ntfs -->
<match key="volume.fstype" string="ntfs">
<match key="/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer:system.kernel.name" string="Linux">
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">uid=</append>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">gid=</append>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">umask=</append>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">locale=</append>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">utf8</append>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">nonempty</append>
</match>
<match key="/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer:system.kernel.name" string="FreeBSD">
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">-u=</append>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">-g=</append>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">-m=</append>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">-a</append>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">-i</append>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">-C=</append>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">-W=</append>
</match>
</match>

<!-- ntfs-3g -->
<match key="volume.fstype" string="ntfs-3g">
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">nonempty</append>
</match>

<!-- mount ntfs with ntfs-3g -->
<match key="volume.fstype" string="ntfs">
<merge key="volume.fstype" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
<merge key="storage.policy.default.mount_option.nonempty" type="bool">true</merge>
<merge key="storage.policy.mount_option.nonempty" type="bool">true</merge>
<merge key="volume.policy.mount_option.nonempty" type="bool">true</merge>
<merge key="volume.policy.mount_filesystem" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
</match>

After this simply reboot the PC. Now, your ntfs-3g partitions will not mounted at boot due to commenting out, but this will allow HAL to mount the NTFS partitions when you click on the icon in /media folder.

It works for me, hope it works for you. I use the standard Slackware 12.0 with 2.6.21.5 kernel and initrd.

Oliwer

While the solution above was interesting, I found another way which I just finished testing which also works. It requires less overall lines of code to get the job done.

Please note that all the code below comes from a machine that is actually reading and writing to NTFS partitions under Slackware-12 with KDE.

1) Install FUSE. This link takes you to the source. You are going to have to compile it from source, as FUSE sets up a module that is specific to your kernel version.

2) Install ntfs-3g. This link points to a driver specifically set up for Slackware.

3) Edit your fstab file as below...

What begins as:Ends up as: 4) Save and exit.

5) Edit your /etc/rc.d/rc.local file to include the following:6) Save and exit.

7) Make /etc/rc.d/rc.local executable, if it isn't already.

8) Reboot.

I have this set up set up on two machines running Slackware-12. This means it works with hal...it works, and it's really simple. I have created and deleted directories and files, and copied them as well.

Thanks to szob for bringing this up. I had been planning on finding out about getting my NTFS readable under Slackware, and low and behold, there you are asking the question for me. Thanks!

EDIT! Since the time of this writing, I have also installed this set up on my new laptop, which runs Slack-11. Therefore, I can only conclude that it works as well on Slack-11. Cool!

Blessed be!
Pappy

ok people!

I'm poor guy, not so greed as you...

The only thing I need is to be able to read and write
freely is a fat32 partition, as a normal user, not root

My fstab:

dev/hda2 /geral vfat auto,user,rw 1 0

this doesn't work, only root can write this way.

How should fstab look like?


I'm not so greed,
but since now u can write to ntfs,
I have to ask if you are writing on a ntfs partition owned by a windows XP,

because I always heard that writing on it could screw up windows XP

XD

Thanks!