alt-file managers: mounting & unmounting

[JASpup]

In XFCE, Thunar has DEVICES in a shortcut pane making it easy to mount and unmount all partitions.

Thunar in JWM isn't setup as fluidly. Even with the volman package, it isn't easy to see how to make partitions visible.

PCmanfm is similar.

XFE mounts and unmounts easily with a right-click menu option but only after the partition is first mounted with another utility. Before then you won't see the partition in /mnt.

Is there a trick to make partitions visible in JWM alt-file managers to replace the need for pmount for basic mounting?

[wizard]

@JASpup

I have the same question/problem as you and hope there is a good way to solve it. I currently use XFE when doing a lot of file management since I find using 3 panes gives me a lot more information and is faster. I have cobbled up a way to mount partitions from (mostly) inside XFE. If a better solution doesn't appear I'll be glad to share that with you.

wizard

[JASpup]

I have the same question/problem as you and hope there is a good way to solve it. I currently use XFE when doing a lot of file management since I find using 3 panes gives me a lot more information and is faster. I have cobbled up a way to mount partitions from (mostly) inside XFE. If a better solution doesn't appear I'll be glad to share that with you.

XFE is excellent despite the lack of thumbnails @geo_c mentioned and this mounting issue.

I sought and use it for its internal file search feature.

In Thunar XFCE you literally don't have to use pmount unless you need ancillary mounting options, like loading partitions at boot.

But this is Thunar expertly installed, like @rg66, making me suspect it might also be possible in JWM, just no one cares enough to make it known/common knowledge.

There's always the terminal hack.

[wizard]

Easy for you who have typing skills to use the terminal

Here's my work-around for XFE.

XFE - mounting drives
1. install XFE and configure to suit using View and Edit>Preferences
2. Edit>Preferences>Dialogs - uncheck Confirm execute text files
3. navigate to /mnt directory
-click Bookmarks
-click Add bookmark
4. copy MOUNT1 file to /mnt directory (be sure it's executable)

MOUNT1 is pmount that has be edited to mount, but NOT open a rox (or other defaultfilemanger) window.

In use:
-click Bookmarks
-click /mnt
-double click MOUNT1
-click the partition you want to mount
The partition will now be mounted in the XFE /mnt panel
You can right click a mounted partition and unmount it.

Useful XFE preferences:
-uncheck Single click folder open
-Date format used in file and folder list (U.S.) = %D

Other notes:
-to install a .pet, also works to load a .sfs file
-right click file
-click Open with
-type: rox in the dialog box
-click accept

MOUNT1.gz

remove fake .gz before use

(27.49 KiB) Downloaded 74 times

Let me know if something doesn't work

wizard

[JASpup]

@wizard that could be useful.

The Thunar question is still perplexing.

Thunar in JWM:

jwm-thunar-devices.png (20.24 KiB) Viewed 1533 times

DEVICES fully functional would display all available partitions as choices.

Thunar in XFCE:

thunar-DEVICES-xtahr.png (18.61 KiB) Viewed 1530 times

When a partition is mounted, you see a 2nd entry and the eject button.

I only included the USB, but right-click on DEVICES also shows all partitions.

You get both a comprehensive partition list and mount control in X-series Thunar.

ALSO Thunar in XFCE manually installed from the PPM:

thunar-xfce-manual.png (17.29 KiB) Viewed 1527 times

Essentially the same as JWM.

Summarily: An XFCE puplet maker knows how to activate partitions in Thunar.

[bigpup]

If you do not care about having the drives mounted at boot up.

Pmount has option to mount a drive at boot up.
So it is basically mounted all the time, unless you unmount it with Pmount or the drive desktop icons.

Run Pmount.
Click on the small arrow at the beginning of a listed partition.
Choose Mount partition at boot.
When computer boots up.
The partition is mounted automatically.

[JASpup]

I like pmount, but this whole thread is about not needing it by maximizing the functionality of alt-file managers in JWM.

In XFCE I can use both.

[wizard]

@JASpup

pcmanfm has this same problem.

This is pcmanfm in dpup stretch 7.5rc5. It was included in the iso by it's developer, radky. Notice the drives are showing in the left "places" pane along with the triangle icon to mount/unmount.

pcmanfm75.png (38.25 KiB) Viewed 1504 times

Here is pcmanfm in bionic32. This was installed from the ppm. Also checked in fossa64 9.5, same result. No drives show up.

pcmanfm80.png (17.36 KiB) Viewed 1504 times

Both of these distributions are running JWM.

We need someone who is smart enough to figure out what is missing in the ppm install.

wizard

[fredx181]

Here is pcmanfm in bionic32. This was installed from the ppm. Also checked in fossa64 9.5, same result. No drives show up.

...

We need someone who is smart enough to figure out what is missing in the ppm install.

That probably depends on if "pup-volume-monitor" is installed (or "gvfs" will do too, but takes more space).

[wizard]

Thanks fredx181, you were exactly right.

Here is a link to a .pet for fossa64 9.5 that also confirms your diagnosis
viewtopic.php?f=101&t=1018

@JASpup

The libraries listed in the link above will probably fix thunar too, you should reboot after installing.

wizard

[JASpup]

Thunar has an optional volume extension, thunar-volman_0.8.1-2_i386.deb in Xenial.

It provides this dialog but does not add partitions to DEVICES:

thunar-volman.png (50.68 KiB) Viewed 1351 times

I believe I saw pup-volume-monitor in Tahr but not in Xenial.

These are the available gvfs packages in Xenial, and the pointer again is reminding me this subject may have come up before:

xenial-gvfs-pkgs.png (38.23 KiB) Viewed 1351 times

This is kind of a duh issue if you're going to be using alt-file managers in JWM.

So there's an esoteric mix of packages to install and device partitions will just work?

I can't reboot after installing as I'm running live, but I can do a test. Is restarting the graphical server good enough?

[wizard]

@JASpup

Here are the test I ran with the pcmafm .pets available in Additional Software (PETs, n' stuff) Filesystem

Installed pcmafm for fossa64 9.5 = OK, requires restarting X

Installed pcmanfm for xenial 32bit into bionic32 = OK, requires restarting X
Installed thunar from ppm into bionic32, after installing pcmanfm = thunar shows drives/partitons in the left devices section.

If you prefer thunar as your fm, seems the easiest way to get the dependencies is to install pcmanfm as noted above.

I had never used thunar, but in the bionic32 version, it looks very similar to pcmanfm and doesn't have as many options.

wizard

[JASpup]

Here are the test I ran with the pcmafm .pets available in Additional Software (PETs, n' stuff) Filesystem

Installed pcmafm for fossa64 9.5 = OK, requires restarting X

Installed pcmanfm for xenial 32bit into bionic32 = OK, requires restarting X
Installed thunar from ppm into bionic32, after installing pcmanfm = thunar shows drives/partitons in the left devices section.

If you prefer thunar as your fm, seems the easiest way to get the dependencies is to install pcmanfm as noted above.

I had never used thunar, but in the bionic32 version, it looks very similar to pcmanfm and doesn't have as many options.

I will try this but it would be nice to know specifically what about pcmanfm or dependencies therewith activate DEVICES partitions.

I do not remember seeing DEVICES with pcmanfm in JWM, but I'll pay deliberate attention this time.

Memory serves that's the default LxPup file manager?

Anyway all four (rox, thunar, pcmanfm, xfe) are useful, I think we're mostly looking at a features issue.

pcman is the manager I've used least.

Wisely we'd use the leanest manager with all the features we need, then I'd only use pcman if it included xfe's file search function otherwise if thunar goes atop it's probably redundant.

[JASpup]

@wizard ...continued

In a way this is progress:

32xenial-pcmanfm-NoDEVICES.png (27.17 KiB) Viewed 1295 times

Dialog is a response to selecting "Devices" under the "Go" menu in pcmanfm 1.2.4 in 32bit Xenial after restarting X.

Explicit feedback that it does not work!

[norgo]

Make sure that pup-volume-monitor and gvfs are installed.
I'm using pcmanfm-qt 0.17.0 and can mount/umount without problems.
It's possible to to connect to a webserver via ftp, ssh, https ....
or to a NAS via ftp, cifs, nfs or whatever.

pcmanfm-qt-0.17.0_SLC64.jpg (52.06 KiB) Viewed 1282 times

[wizard]

@norgo

Are you running pcmanfm in a puppy version? Your image doesn't look like what I'm seeing in puppy.

wizard

[norgo]

@norgo
Are you running pcmanfm in a puppy version? Your image doesn't look like what I'm seeing in puppy.
wizard

@wizard
really funny .... ha ha
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=27904#p27904

[wizard]

@JASpup

From your post, I'm assuming you are running xenial 32. If so, you should install this pcmanfm and It will show your drives/partitions.

viewtopic.php?f=101&t=270

The GO>Devices and GO>Network functions do not work on any of my puppies.

wizard

[wizard]

@norgo
The jokes on me, thanks for the link. Looks a lot different in your slackware.

wizard

[JASpup]

From your post, I'm assuming you are running xenial 32. If so, you should install this pcmanfm and It will show your drives/partitions.

viewtopic.php?f=101&t=270

This is too custom. It restarts X automatically (closing all the apps I had open), and forces drive icons on the desktop that don't appear removable with a menu option.

In the process I've realized I'm more a Thunar user.

Alas, DEVICES in Thunar work. It's a start.

I need to figure out how to do this manually.

this version has integrated Lxrightclick, pup-vol-mon, desktop drive icons and gvfs

There they are. That's some manual cobbling.

Can someone describe what PipzDex did briefly or are all future versions DEVICES functional?

pup-vol-mon doesn't appear in the Xenial repository. Is it just that and gvfs?

[wizard]

@JASpup

Can someone describe what PipzDex did briefly

i can guess, but if you really want to know you should direct the question to @PipzDex

are all future versions DEVICES functional?

Not unless PipzDex or someone else creates the .pet file. Otherwise you'll need to install the dependencies yourself

wizard

[JASpup]

More fun:

Since Xenial doesn't have pup-vol-mon I installed the Tahr version. Now Thunar won't run at all:

Code: Select all

(thunar:14397): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_connect_data: assertion 'G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed

[1]+  Segmentation fault      thunar
root# 

Remove the package and it runs again.

If there's a newer version for Xenial I haven't seen it.

[JASpup]

Not unless PipzDex or someone else creates the .pet file. Otherwise you'll need to install the dependencies yourself

If someone wants to do something specifically for their system, instructions are most helpful. Then you can see little things like if it applies to you, though granted sometimes non-programmers will have to rely on programmers if the instructions are too technical.

[norgo]

You could perform this little test at first.

After system start check whether pup-volume-monitor and gvfsd are running in the background. This is mandatory!
(Howto check? run command pprocess to launch process mansger
or if you like the console type pidof pup-volume-monitor and pidof gvfsd
if command returns a process id, this means program is running)

[JASpup]

strange update...

Image is Thunar in Tahr with pup-vol-mon & gvfs installed.

ALL DEVICES ARE AVAILABLE, GOOD!

first-glance anomolies
some icons are missing
PLACES now only offers "root", not the other places.

I imagine the next step is to figure out what happened to pup-volume-monitor in Xenial. If it's not in the repository it's...?

Installing Thunar in Tahr reported one Missing Shared Library: libxfce4panel-1.0.so.4

[fredx181]

After system start check whether pup-volume-monitor and gvfsd are running in the background. This is mandatory!

Can't see why both pup-volume-monitor and gvfs should be installed, one of the two should work.
You get every device showing twice if both are running.
I have pup-volume-monitor only installed, the drives are showing properly in pcmanfm or thunar for me ("computer:///" doesn't work though, but I don't mind).

[JASpup]

Can't see why both pup-volume-monitor and gvfs should be installed, one of the two should work.
You get every device showing twice if both are running.
I have pup-volume-monitor only installed, the drives are showing properly in pcmanfm or thunar for me ("computer:///" doesn't work though, but I don't mind).

I will try this experiment later to see if pup-vol-mon alone will work.
Do you know why my PLACES is missing other options (e.g., Desktop, Trash, Backgrounds)?
For now I'm going to be in Thunar more if it matters. It looks a little cleaner to me in JWM & I use it anyway in XFCE so I'll stick to it.

I thought pup-vol-mon might be excluded from Xenial because it became a part of other packages (redundant). If I can use only gvfs in Xenial I might not need pup-vol-mon.

[fredx181]

Do you know why my PLACES is missing other options (e.g., Desktop, Trash, Backgrounds)?

For "Desktop" the reason could be that /root/Desktop directory doesn't exist.
For "Trash", I guess it should show when gvfs is running, but not supported by pup-volume-monitor.

If there's no pup-volume-monitor available for xenial, you could try another pup-volume-monitor .pet package (belonging to a different puppy, e.g. Stretch, good chance it will work, I didn't test though).

[wizard]

@fredx181

You are right again fred. I installed both pcmanfm and thunar from the ppm in bionic32, neither showed devices. Installed pup-vol-monitor, and then both did show devices. As you said before pup-vol-monitor is MUCH smaller (and easier to install) than gvfs. I think you do need to install pup-volume-monitor-0.1.17 or newer. I used pup-volume-monitor-0.1.17-i686-dpup-stretch.pet

thanks
wizard

[norgo]

regarding gvfs
whether file-manager will show the devices and will be able to mount/unmount is depending on what features has been enabled for compilation of gvfs.
If gvfs-udisks2-volume-monitor is present and the needed dependencies are installed, it should work and pup-volume-monitor is not needed.
In most cases gvfs-udisks2-volume-monitor is not included or doesn't work.

Pup-volume-monitor is lightweight and ideal for storage devices.
Now you have to choose:
if you want more features (look here what gvfs supports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GVfs ) you should install gvfs and deps.
if support of storage devices is sufficient then install pup-volume-monitor only.

If you are looking for pup-volume-monitor my recommendation is this https://github.com/wdlkmpx/pup-volume-monitor
works like a charm