[Bug 999742] Re: Partitions displayed as removable devices

[mac.ryan]

Thank you for the extra-quick follow up to the bug report!

Interesting observation about SATA being hot-pluggable. Still, I think
that would explain *why* the partition shows up like it does, but I
would argue that if the behaviour is intended, I disagree with the
design choice that was made for at least two reasons:

1. you might well remove a device, but not a single partition,
2. the partition is mounted with the nouser option at boot time, so its typical usage won't be that of a removable device such a usb stick or external hard drive that a user can plug/unplug freely, but rather it will be handled by the sysadmin via CLI.
3. SATA is taking over desktop computing, and users would simply be alienated by having their internal drives listed among the removable ones.

IMO, a good compromise would be to display as "removable" only those
partitions that the user has the possiblity to mount/unmount. I am
unaware how the fedora team solved the issue in v17 though.

Anyhow: I just wrote the above to illustrate my own thinking and support
debate. I would be very interested in reading alternative takes on this.
:)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/999742

Title:
  Partitions displayed as removable devices

Status in “util-linux” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  This is my /etc/fstab:

  # / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
  UUID=<my-uuid-here>  /                        ext4  defaults,relatime,discard,errors=remount-ro    0  1  
  # /home was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
  UUID=<my-uuid-here>  /home                    ext4  defaults,relatime                              0  2  
  # /home/mac/runtime was on /dev/sda3 during installation
  UUID=<my-uuid-here>  /media/runtime-mac       ext4  defaults,relatime,discard                      0  2  

  sda1 and 3 are ext4 partitions of the same SSD, while sdb1 is an ext4
  partition of a regular spinning HD.

  My problem is that while the mounting process works flawlessly, the
  sda3 partition is displayed as a "removable device" in gnome (although
  of course a regular user can't even unmount it).

  RELATED LINKS:
  Askubuntu related question (opened by me):
  http://askubuntu.com/q/137100/2952
  Fedoraforum identical problem (I'm not the author of the post):
  http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=272249

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
  Package: mount 2.20.1-1ubuntu3
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-24.38-generic 3.2.16
  Uname: Linux 3.2.0-24-generic x86_64
  NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
  ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Tue May 15 17:04:24 2012
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64+mac (20120425.1)
  SourcePackage: util-linux
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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