bug#54305: disk utility fail format fat

bug#54305: disk utility fail format fat

[Roman Riabenko]

Hello

When initiating formatting of a USB flash drive in GNOME Files
(Nautilus), GNOME Disks (gnome-disk provided by gnome-disk-utility
package) opens followed by the volume formatting dialog. Currently, by
default, it is only possible to format the disk in Ext4. Other options
are grayed out, except for FAT, but choosing this option results in the
following error:

Error creating file system: Error spawning command-line `mkfs.vfat -l -
n "'/dev/sdb": Failed to execute child process "mkfs.vfat" (No such
file or directory) (g-exec-error-quark, 8) (udisks-error-quark, 0) 

(Here /dev/sdb is my flash drive.) I fixed this error by adding
dosfstools to the system profiles packages in config.scm:

(specification->package "dosfstools")

I see two issues here.

1. The FAT option was not grayed out in the formatting dialog. For
comparison, the NTFS option was grayed out until I added ntfs-3g to the
system profile too. May be GNOME Disks expects mkfs.vfat to be present,
so it does not check whether it is present like it does for other file
systems. 

So, it would be great for GNOME Disks to check whether mkfs.vfat is
available before proceeding like it does for other filesystems. It
could be easier to make dosfstools a dependency of gnome-disk-utility.
But, for comparison, the approach for UDisks seems to be to patch the
library instead of propagating system utilities:
https://issues.guix.gnu.org/41247#10

Possibly relevant patches:
https://issues.guix.gnu.org/40480
https://issues.guix.gnu.org/49128

2. GNOME Disks utility ignored the dosfstools package which I installed
in my user profile. For comparison, this applies to ntfs-3g too. In
relation to ntfs-3g with UDisks this seems to be expected behavior, but
it seemed to me as a bug at first:
https://guix.gnu.org/en/manual/devel/en/html_node/Desktop-Services.html#index-udisks_002dservice

I do not know what is necessary to make GNOME Disk utility recognize
the tools in the user profile and I am not sure it is necessary. It
just seemed against the spirit of guix that the user is forced to
reconfigure the system.

Roman

bug#54305: disk utility fail format fat

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Hi Roman,

Am Mittwoch, dem 09.03.2022 um 02:27 +0200 schrieb Roman Riabenko:
> 2. GNOME Disks utility ignored the dosfstools package which I installed
> in my user profile. For comparison, this applies to ntfs-3g too. In
> relation to ntfs-3g with UDisks this seems to be expected behavior, but
> it seemed to me as a bug at first:
> https://guix.gnu.org/en/manual/devel/en/html_node/Desktop-Services.html#index-udisks_002dservice
> 
> I do not know what is necessary to make GNOME Disk utility recognize
> the tools in the user profile and I am not sure it is necessary. It
> just seemed against the spirit of guix that the user is forced to
> reconfigure the system.
GNOME Disks inherits UDisks' limitations, as it uses it under the hood.
With that in mind...

> 1. The FAT option was not grayed out in the formatting dialog. For
> comparison, the NTFS option was grayed out until I added ntfs-3g to
> the system profile too. May be GNOME Disks expects mkfs.vfat to be
> present, so it does not check whether it is present like it does for
> other file systems. 
> 
> So, it would be great for GNOME Disks to check whether mkfs.vfat is
> available before proceeding like it does for other filesystems.
You should probably report this one upstream.  A fix would be
relatively simple to write, see [1] for the relevant line making the
Windows button insensitive.  The procedure
"gdu_utils_is_ntfs_available" spans only a few lines of code and could
easily be adapted to check for vfat instead.

Cheers

[1]
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-disk-utility/-/blob/40.2/src/disks/gducreatefilesystempage.c#L209

bug#54305: disk utility fail format fat

[Roman Riabenko]

Dear Liliana

I reported it upstream as suggested. Here is the link to track the
upstream issue:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-disk-utility/-/issues/242

I intend to report here if I get a conclusive response.

Thank you!
Roman


У чт, 2022-03-10 у 09:00 +0100, Liliana Marie Prikler пише:
> Hi Roman,
> 
> Am Mittwoch, dem 09.03.2022 um 02:27 +0200 schrieb Roman Riabenko:
> > 2. GNOME Disks utility ignored the dosfstools package which I
> > installed
> > in my user profile. For comparison, this applies to ntfs-3g too. In
> > relation to ntfs-3g with UDisks this seems to be expected behavior,
> > but
> > it seemed to me as a bug at first:
> > https://guix.gnu.org/en/manual/devel/en/html_node/Desktop-Services.html#index-udisks_002dservice
> > 
> > I do not know what is necessary to make GNOME Disk utility
> > recognize
> > the tools in the user profile and I am not sure it is necessary. It
> > just seemed against the spirit of guix that the user is forced to
> > reconfigure the system.
> GNOME Disks inherits UDisks' limitations, as it uses it under the
> hood.
> With that in mind...
> 
> > 1. The FAT option was not grayed out in the formatting dialog. For
> > comparison, the NTFS option was grayed out until I added ntfs-3g to
> > the system profile too. May be GNOME Disks expects mkfs.vfat to be
> > present, so it does not check whether it is present like it does
> > for
> > other file systems. 
> > 
> > So, it would be great for GNOME Disks to check whether mkfs.vfat is
> > available before proceeding like it does for other filesystems.
> You should probably report this one upstream.  A fix would be
> relatively simple to write, see [1] for the relevant line making the
> Windows button insensitive.  The procedure
> "gdu_utils_is_ntfs_available" spans only a few lines of code and
> could
> easily be adapted to check for vfat instead.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> [1]
> https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-disk-utility/-/blob/40.2/src/disks/gducreatefilesystempage.c#L209

bug#54305: disk utility fail format fat

[Roman Riabenko]

Hello

The upstream implemented the check for vfat and closed the issue.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-disk-utility/-/commit/15462f9c87c08c5af77a31993c1d87cb34d04861

(It is not included in Disks version 42.0, so I haven't tested it yet.)

Roman

У нд, 2022-03-13 у 18:56 +0200, Roman Riabenko пише:
> Dear Liliana
> 
> I reported it upstream as suggested. Here is the link to track the
> upstream issue:
> https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-disk-utility/-/issues/242
> 
> I intend to report here if I get a conclusive response.
> 
> Thank you!
> Roman
> 
> 
> У чт, 2022-03-10 у 09:00 +0100, Liliana Marie Prikler пише:
> > Hi Roman,
> > 
> > Am Mittwoch, dem 09.03.2022 um 02:27 +0200 schrieb Roman Riabenko:
> > > 2. GNOME Disks utility ignored the dosfstools package which I
> > > installed
> > > in my user profile. For comparison, this applies to ntfs-3g too.
> > > In
> > > relation to ntfs-3g with UDisks this seems to be expected
> > > behavior,
> > > but
> > > it seemed to me as a bug at first:
> > > https://guix.gnu.org/en/manual/devel/en/html_node/Desktop-Services.html#index-udisks_002dservice
> > > 
> > > I do not know what is necessary to make GNOME Disk utility
> > > recognize
> > > the tools in the user profile and I am not sure it is necessary.
> > > It
> > > just seemed against the spirit of guix that the user is forced to
> > > reconfigure the system.
> > GNOME Disks inherits UDisks' limitations, as it uses it under the
> > hood.
> > With that in mind...
> > 
> > > 1. The FAT option was not grayed out in the formatting dialog.
> > > For
> > > comparison, the NTFS option was grayed out until I added ntfs-3g
> > > to
> > > the system profile too. May be GNOME Disks expects mkfs.vfat to
> > > be
> > > present, so it does not check whether it is present like it does
> > > for
> > > other file systems. 
> > > 
> > > So, it would be great for GNOME Disks to check whether mkfs.vfat
> > > is
> > > available before proceeding like it does for other filesystems.
> > You should probably report this one upstream.  A fix would be
> > relatively simple to write, see [1] for the relevant line making
> > the
> > Windows button insensitive.  The procedure
> > "gdu_utils_is_ntfs_available" spans only a few lines of code and
> > could
> > easily be adapted to check for vfat instead.
> > 
> > Cheers
> > 
> > [1]
> > https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-disk-utility/-/blob/40.2/src/disks/gducreatefilesystempage.c#L209
> 

bug#54305: disk utility fail format fat

[Roman Riabenko via Bug reports for GNU Guix]

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У вт, 2022-05-24 у 10:38 +0300, Roman Riabenko пише:
> The upstream implemented the check for vfat and closed the issue.
> https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-disk-utility/-/commit/15462f9c87c08c5af77a31993c1d87cb34d04861
> 
> (It is not included in Disks version 42.0, so I haven't tested it
> yet.)
> > > 

The issue was fixed upstream and I do not experience it anymore with
the current version of Disks (44.0) in Guix.

Roman

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