To mount or unmount?

Not really a Zorin topic - but would it not be good if Zorin overcame this issue and made things more like Windows:


What is it with Linux?

I wanted to get rid of some files on my 4GB USB stick - including the pesky files that appear when you have tried deleting everything (in case you want to restore them - which I don't).

I know, I thought, I will format the USB stick to FAT 32 and wipe all the data using Disks, replacing everything with zeros. Great - the disc was reformatted to FAT 32 and was promptly unmounted the stick from my laptop - not what I wanted at all, not so great. No way to remount in Disks or GParted that I could find (Gparted could not even see the USB Stick perhaps because it was unmounted - Doh!!!).

A quick look online about mounting a USB stick seemed to lead into ambiguous territory involving the command line - above my pay grade. This mounting concept has been one of my greatest of my bugbears with Linux in general - I never had an issue with Windows and the way it works with peripherals.

Fortunately, I remembered my hard won workaround - Format the USB stick in Windows XP, the work of seconds (the Linux wipe of the data took ~20 minutes) and the USB stick is mysteriously remounted the next time I put it in my laptop - simples!

Really, when will it be that Linux finally becomes user friendly - like XP, from many years ago, is?


Next Zorin O/S???

Let's take a look at it differently - how many times did you think you had safely removed your memory stick/thumb drive only to be told the next time you inserted it that there are File Errors and Windows needs to check it out to sort it? See it as a safety belt in a car - you wouldn't want to see your System Internals splattered all over the wheel?

Thanks, Swarf.


I did always use the eject feature of Windows XP for USB sticks and, fortunately, never had any corruption of data.

The difference is that I understood what I was doing in XP and why.


Could I have easily remounted my freshly unmounted, cleaned, FAT 32 formatted, USB stick in Disks, I wonder? I could have understood a mount button - if there had been one.

Hi

I turned blind on microsoft so I paid some attention on what I do when using an usb device with ZorinOS.

inserting a usb stick the icon comes on my desk top
removing a usb stick the icon disappears

selecting all files on my usb stick at once with 'CTRL+A'. plus deleting with 'Delete key'

what bugs me is that after under 'properties' the space freed up is not shown

formatting takes a blink (ok it was only a 32 MB SD memory card in my test case)
file system type: msdos

mount/unmount I never touch.

a field to catch up for linux yes

+++

What you need to remember is "GNU/Linux is not Windows"

Thanks for the replies and tips, both.

I had further problems with my USB stick - where even my Windows XP hack did not work.

I engaged brain and looked on line: https://askubuntu.com/questions/185815/ ... thumbdrive

Unmounted the stick > reformatted to FAT 32 > remounted the stick. No problem at all once I knew what to do

Hi Finston

well noted (with relief)

thanks for advising