quick usb formatter

[dmeyer]

... On second thought, I wouldn't even give my wife root access if I had a wife...

Can I take it you have never had a wife, either? It may be hard on you finding and keeping a mate if you assume that they cannot be trusted to handle these things.

Oh you neckbeards! Always resorting to the command line. If you weren't always messing around with the "matrix" then maybe you'd find a wife

(All said in jest of course.)

[Simon]

OT: Sorry jacking the thread but, I am in my 3rd year of medical skool I want my Phd before my gray hair gets here.

@dmeyer: A neckbeard never, but there is no spoon! LoL

@claydoh: I had a crappy USB stick that "refused" formatting yet worked on my friend's Xbox 360. I was only able to format it on there. I told my room mate it was a Microsoft Conspiracy!

So is this thing solved yet michal.kvasnicka?

[claydoh]

Not solved yet, as the ppa build server is being slloooowwww, slower than usual.

https://launchpad.net/~claydoh/+archive/utils/+packages
the packages will be there, some of the 32 bit packages are built, the 64 bit ones are still waiting, some hours wait though.

[Rog131]

Quick Usb Formatter - at here

quick-usb-formatter_0.4.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb (Raring)

The desktop file

$ dpkg -L quick-usb-formatter
...
/usr/share/apps/solid/actions/quickusbformatter.desktop
...

The Kubuntu is using:

:~$ locate solid/actions
/usr/share/kde4/apps/solid/actions

The path is wrong -> No solid actions.

A possible fix: quick-usb-formatter/CMakeLists.txt

Replacing the line

install(FILES quickusbformatter.desktop DESTINATION ${DESKTOP_SOLID_ACTION_DIR})

with the

install(FILES quickusbformatter.desktop DESTINATION ${DATA_INSTALL_DIR}/solid/actions)

By the http://techbase.kde.org/Development/...Addons_for_KDE

DATA_INSTALL_DIR - the parent directory where applications can install their data

Then

$ dpkg -L quick-usb-formatter
...
/usr/share/kde4/apps/solid/actions/quickusbformatter.desktop
...

Test1


Failure



Konsole output

****************** DETECTED USB DEVICES
 ("/dev/sdd1") 
********************************************** 
>> Volume is mounted, trying to unmount it 
  >> Volume as been unmounted 
**** FORMATTING AS FAT 32 
EXEC COMMANDS :  mkdosfs ("-n", "TEST1", "-v", "/dev/sdd1") 
mkdosfs 3.0.14 (23 Jan 2023)
/dev/sdd1: No such file or directory
UNABLE TO FORMAT

The solid action is mounting the USB device and the quick-usb-formatter is unmounting it -> The device is removed from the device list (/dev/sdd1) -> An error message: "/dev/sdd1: No such file or directory"

By the http://techbase.kde.org/Development/...Device_Actions & "solid-hardware --help"

The device can be unmounted by the command:

solid-hardware unmount %i

Trying with the quick-usb-formatter/quickusbformatter.desktop exec key:

Exec=solid-hardware unmount %i && /usr/bin/quickusbformatter -udi %i

There is an error:

****************** DETECTED USB DEVICES
 ("/dev/sdd1") 
********************************************** 
>> Volume is unmounted 
**** FORMATTING AS FAT 32 
EXEC COMMANDS :  mkdosfs ("-n", "TEST2", "-v", "/dev/sdd1") 
mkdosfs 3.0.14 (23 Jan 2023)
/dev/sdd1: Permission denied
UNABLE TO FORMAT

From the Natty (?) onwards the Ubuntu has needed the admin rights to format things.

Trying with the quick-usb-formatter/quickusbformatter.desktop exec key:

Exec=sleep 2 && solid-hardware unmount %i && sleep 1 && kdesudo bash -c "/usr/bin/quickusbformatter -udi %i"

The wait/sleeps are there to give the system time to end the processes.


With these fixes the quick-usb-formatter seems to work here - famous last words ?

The root password is needed.



Success...

[michal.kvasnicka]

YIKES!!
In my opinion this is like handing your kids a can of gasoline and a box of matches... You should either;

A) educate them on how the system works
B) deal ALL the system administration yourself

How often do you really need to format a USB? I normally wipe the files. If I had kids I would educate them in terminal;
using dmesg to find the drive dev id, unmount the drive, and format.

dmesg | tail 
sudo umount /dev/sdc
sudo mkdosfs -n 'MyUSB' -I /dev/sdc

and then tell them to just use the KDE Partition Manager. On second thought, I wouldn't even give my wife root access if I had a wife.
Good Luck!

OK ... thanks for your lesson how to operate Linux system at family environment. But I am very sure that your advice is completely out of reality...

[michal.kvasnicka]

...

So ... the deb packages on https://launchpad.net/~claydoh/+archive/utils/+packages are still non-working? Am I right?

[Rog132]

Feedback

So ... the deb packages on https://launchpad.net/~claydoh/+archive/utils/+packages are still non-working? Am I right?

Well - you could test and tell us


An Example
(at here)

Downloading the quick-usb-formatter_0.4.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb, installing it.



testing...



Not working at here - there is no solid action to format.

A fix - working at here.

Opening a file manager with proper rights (kdesudo dophin).
Splitting the window - left window: /usr/share/apps/solid/actions/ - right window: /usr/share/kde4/apps/solid/actions
Drag & drop the quickusbformatter.desktop from the left window to the right window.
Picking the "Link Here" option.



testing...

Working at here - there is the option to format.



But the format is not working.

A fix - working at here.

Opening the /usr/share/apps/solid/actions/quickusbformatter.desktop with a text editor. Editing the "Exec" line.



Here the working exec key is:

Exec=sleep 2 && solid-hardware unmount %i && sleep 1 && kdesudo bash -c "/usr/bin/quickusbformatter -udi %i"

[michal.kvasnicka]

Well - you could test and tell us

Obviously not ... but thanks for fixes!

I hope that

...

import your fixes to final DEB packages.

[claydoh]

The git code (probably what Chakra uses for their current releases) does incorporate the change which make it easier to use on other distros

[COLOR=#333333]install(FILES quickusbformatter.desktop DESTINATION ${DATA_INSTALL_DIR}/solid/actions)[/COLOR]

Building it now for testing in raring, we'll see how she goes. It compiled locally and works fine, formatting all basic types, except for ntfs

[claydoh]

Ok testers needed

https://launchpad.net/~claydoh/+archive/utils

The only bug i can see outside of the lack ntfs formatting, is that the applet will crash if it is left open , when selecting another (or the same) flash drive to format in the device notifier.

[Simon]

Wow, still going at this? Maybe the USB device is busy and you need to shut something off?

Well over here is my bash script I cooked up check it out.

[vinnywright]

Ok testers needed

https://launchpad.net/~claydoh/+archive/utils

The only bug i can see outside of the lack ntfs formatting, is that the applet will crash if it is left open , when selecting another (or the same) flash drive to format in the device notifier.

K ,,,will do tomorrow , I'm in my Slackware install at the moment ,,,,,why no NTFS ? although that wouldn't be optimal for a flash drive anyway now would it

VINNY

[claydoh]

K ,,,will do tomorrow , I'm in my Slackware install at the moment ,,,,,why no NTFS ? although that wouldn't be optimal for a flash drive anyway now would it

VINNY

Oh, probably because I didn't make it a dep of the package, or similar.

[vinnywright]

oh, probably because i didn't make it a dep of the package, or similar.

vinny

[claydoh]

Actually it is because the command mkfs.ntfs, which is supposed to be part of the ntfs-3g package, seems awol in Raring.......


......but still should work in previous versions