LXDE Blog

Direct UDisks support for libfm and pcmanfm is finished!

I just finished direct udisks support for libfm and pcmanfm. After days of testing, it works well. So it’s now merged back t master branch and will be available in next release of libfm.  Please help test it.
Nothing in pcmanfm need to be changed. You only need to update libfm and it works. Adventurous users are encouraged to try out the latest libfm in git repository.

In addition, I add a config value in libfm.conf.
Adding show_internal_volumes=1 to [config] section of
~/.config/libfm/libfm.conf can let you show system internal volumes in
side panes even when udisks asks us to hide them.
This option is available in config file, but this might not be provided in UI later since it’s a geek’s option.

Now, gvfs is not needed for volume management. Only dbus and udisks are needed and it’s quite lightweight.
However, due to known limitations of glib/gio/gvfs, the gvfs module doing volume management still gets loaded and there is no clean way to stop it being loaded. However, if later we finished our own gvfs implementation, you won’t need gnome gvfs and this will be solved.

P.S.: If you get the error message “GLib-GIO-WARNING **: Extension point gio-native-volume-monitor registered multiple times”, that means you’re using a glib with too old version. Earlier versions of glib causes this bug. It’s fixed in newer glib versions.

Cheers!

PCMan

20 responses to “Direct UDisks support for libfm and pcmanfm is finished!”

  1. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel(independent LXDE).

  2. Tried git version, but it doesn’t seem to work. No device is shown, nothing happens when I instert flash drive, nothing happens when I insert optical disk…
    dbus is running, udisks –monitor works, so no problem with udisks.

  4. I installed both from git. Doesn’t work for me, wonder why.

  5. Anyway, I’ll look at it later on today, i will add some printf stuff to source code and try to find where the problem is.

  6. hmm, i get only

    (pcmanfm:18873): GLib-GIO-WARNING **: Extension point gio-native-volume-monitor registered multiple times

    and crash, i can’t get it working

    after downgrading to libfm 0.1.12 all works fine again

  8. >Anyway, I’ll look at it later on today, i will add some printf stuff to source code and try to find where the problem is.

    Sorry, I didn’t have much time these days. I will do it on Saturday or Sunday.

  9. I get the same GLib-GIO-WARNING when i configure with –enable-udisks option, but if I run only
    ./configure
    then the pcmanfm works but without udisks.

  10. The error message “GLib-GIO-WARNING **: Extension point gio-native-volume-monitor registered multiple times” is caused by a limitation in old glib. That means you’re using a glib with too old version. Earlier versions of glib causes this bug. It’s fixed in newer glib versions. Upgrading glib should fix this.

  12. Thanks PCMan
    I upgraded too glib and it is working with udisks.
    But what is with Trash, need I gvfs for it to work or there is some other way?

  13. WOW!!
    Thanks for all of your work on this. This is going to be awesome, no more Gnome horay.

  15. Hmm, strange. I’ve recompiled it and it somehow works. udisks debug stuff is being printed to console, but … nothing is shown in the sidebar panel. When I mount manually NTFS partition from console, it shows up in the sidebar and I can access it from there. When I unmount it from console, it remains in sidebar. When I click it I get “Not authorized”. When I try to unmount mounted partition I get “Not authorized”. When I insert DVD, my drive is shown in sidebar. But – I can’t mount it (“Not authorized”).

    When using nautilus + gvfs and mounting my NTFS partition – nautilus asks for password using policykit and mounts the partition. Then I can unmount it (I don’t have to enter password again for some time). When mounting DVD I don’t have to enter anything.

    Sometimes, my NTFS partition is shown several times in the panel, I don’t know why. Everything is OK in nautilus+gvfs.

    As documentation for udisks says, you need authorization from policykit for some actions performed by udisks. Maybe you need to ask policykit befor doing mount/unmount.

  17. Sorry about being a bit off-topic, but this post lead me to another one you wrote a couple of months ago about external thumbnailers, and how to use them without relying on gconf. The comments are closed so I’ll post here. Thunar uses external thumbnailers without gconf too. They are simple .desktop files placed in /usr/share/thumbnailers, that point to the program used to generate the thumbnail. Pretty easy to use and add custom thumbnailers.
    PcmanFM without gnome dependency and with thumbnailer support would be a dream coming true, congrats for the beautiful work!

  18. I just updated libfm-git and mounting works perfectly. However after enabling to show internal volumes, it shows /var and root partitions as well. I just wanted to see my OSX partition :P. is there an option to allow specified volumes to show and hide the rest ?

  19. Work well on debian sid (and without disk-manager, problems on comment #15).
    Sometimes, my intenal partition icon change from hard drive icon to folder icon.
    Is there a “unmount safely option” planned ? My sd card pop out and up when i unmont it, so i don’t know if i can unplug it.

  20. Nice job, PCMan, I knew it! A dream comes true, IMO.
    And you’re welcome (your previous blog entry), I’m so glad that I could help and motivate, it’s an honour for me, and I hope more people will support this project.