Archive for November, 2008

Changing a hal /media mount point

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

Lets talk about HAL / Hald
NOTE: If you’re not comfortable editing system config files and using the command line I wouldn’t recommend playing with this yet
What I wanted to achieve: my memory stick reader to mount to a custom mount path.
I used:

  • gnome-device-manager
  • gnome-terminal
  • vim

gnome-device-manager

Edit your /etc/hal/fdi/policy/preferences.fdi and add inside the section something like this:
<device>
<match key=”block.is_volume” bool=”true”>
<match key=”volume.fsusage” string=”filesystem”>
<match key=”info.parent” string=”/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_Generic_USB_MS_Reader_058F312D81B1_0_3″>
<merge key=”volume.policy.desired_mount_point” type=”string”>memorystick</merge>
</match>
</match>
</match>
</device>

This is asking hal to match/find my target device via:

1) block.is_volume = true
2) volume.fsusage = filesystem
3) info.parent = /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_Generic_USB_MS_Reader_058F312D81B1_0_3
In that order
All values can be taken from gnome-device-manager’s property window (see screenshot) having selected the device I wanted to create a policy for. key, Type and Value all map to key, type and value in the merge and match xml tags.
The info.parent property was the most unique item I could find for the memory stick reader so it shouldn’t get confused, having looked at it through gnome-device-manager  making sure you’ve gone to View -> Show Properties

After you’ve added the device section to your configuration restart hal /etc/init.d/hal restart
You can create policies for all devices managed by hal, this means; usb disks, memory sticks, mp3 players, cameras, video devices and much much more.

So before you go diving into your fstab - give hal policies a go !

For more info/references:

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Mounting_to_Static_Mount_Points

http://people.redhat.com/davidz/hal-spec/hal-spec.html#fdi-policy 

I found it quite hard to get simple info about doing this so i’ve got no idea about good practice or even if there is a nice gui tool to edit the policies (other than gnome-volume-manager - which doesn’t do this kind of thing)  please let me know :)

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Ubuntu UK Elections

Sunday, November 16th, 2008

Important: Voting Opens For Team Leader

Michael Wood
Sat Nov 15 23:18:45 GMT 2008

Never mind the US elections, Never mind the by-and-local elections..
This is the election you've all been waiting for !

Seriously though, *Voting opens* [0] at Midnight tonight *00:00 15/11/08
GMT* (approx 40min time) for the position of Ubuntu UK team leader/Point
of Contact.

This is an important decision so please take your time to review all the
candidates [1].

To be eligible to vote you must join the Ubuntu UK team on Launch Pad
[2] which requires a registered launchpad account - if you haven’t
already got one.

*Voting closes at midnight  00:00 30/11/08 GMT*

[0] *https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-uk/+poll/teamlead09
*- more information about the vote is available on this page also

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/TeamLeadCandidates
[2] https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-uk/+login

Kind Regards,

Michael Wood
(Returning officer*)

*where’s my badge and hat!?

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Daily Mail RIRO principle explained

Saturday, November 1st, 2008
Daily Mail RIROThe RIRO Principle Explained.

..seriously though, if you want to read rubbish, why pay money for it when you can read youtube comments for free?

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