>It is not only newbies that can make stupid mistakes, >and remove a >floppy disk that is currently mounted...
I was taught in kindergarten /never/ to remove a disk when the light was on, and I never do it. Removing while it is mounted but not currently being read or written isn't very damaging--you just get an error message, have to unmount and remount. >Perhaps the real problem with soft ejects is that current >implementations make it to easy to override, eg when the power is off. >Personally, I think I would much prefer the risk of not being able to >eject a disk, rather then the risk that someday I will accidently >currupt an important disk by ejecting it when it is still mounted. This is more or less the same as saying "personally I would prefer not to be able to delete a file, rather than the risk that I someday will accidentally delete something important." Should your OS not allow you to delete files manually? It is generally good policy to ask "are you sure you want to delete this file" but there is always going to be a chance of deleting files you need, no matter how many precautions are added, short of simply not allowing user deletion of files. >These protection devices not need to turn you into a windows[1] user, I >think it is just plain common sense. Other protection mechanims >already exist in Linux, eg you can't eject a CDROM that is mounted (I >guess this protects programs from crashing that are currently using >it), you can't e2fsck a mounted filesystem, etc. But if you had a hard eject button, you could eject the CDROM while mounted, (even if the OS didn't like it) something I have needed to do plenty of times but have been unable. >Note: >[1] Dos/windows copes with this problem in a different (IMHO broken) >way - it keeps track of which disk is inserted, and if it needs to >read/write to another disk, it complains to the user to reinsert the >original disk. Why is this mechanism broken? For starters: some games >will automatically eject a CD-ROM and ask you to insert the next >CD-ROM. For some reason, windows will often decide that it still >needed the original CD-ROM, and ask you to reinsert it!!! It even goes >as far as to suggest that the CD-ROM might be dirty. Now thats what I >call "machine is smarter"!!! Everything windows does is (IMHO) broken. That's my point. However, DOS doesn't have a problem with taking media out whenever, as long as it doesn't have the light on. I've never had DOS ask for a different disk (except for individual applications which ask for the disk they need, not the last one in.) The bottom line I'm getting at here is the idea that these machines are here for our effective use. They make plenty of mistakes, always have and always will. So do we, of course, but /we/ are the ones paying for our /own/ mistakes, whereas if we give the machine power over the decisions, presuming it is infallible, /we/ pay for /its/ mistakes. If I'm paying for a mistake, it damn well better be a mistake I made. One thing I've learned in life, don't put yourself in a position of depending on someone else unless you're sure they'll come through. By that token, I also hate others depending on me because if I don't come through, somebody else is paying. I should be the only one paying for my mistakes, and only for mine. ===== Fish of Borg Visit me on the web! http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Frontier/4874/stccg.html ///Archaeologists near mount Sinai have discovered what appears to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon dated in Bonn. If genuine it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read "To my Darling Candy. All Characters portrayed within this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental."///Red Dwarf __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com
