Using Ubuntu without GNOME: pmount instead of mount

It's not so easy running Ubuntu but not using GNOME as your window manager.

In my case I have the "full" Ubuntu running, with GNOME and all that comes with it, but I now have Fluxbox installed as an alternate window manager I can select at the login screen instead of GNOME. (I also have Fvwm and Fvwm Crystal, but for now I'm focusing on Fluxbox.)

The problem is that more services than you think are part of the GNOME desktop and won't work if you're not using GNOME.

The reason I like having a "full" desktop environment such as GNOME along for the ride, even if I'm not using it all the time, is that it makes configuring the system easier for mortals like myself. I can always log in with GNOME, or more likely use the many GNOME utilities that are still in the Fluxbox menus, to make changes in NetworkManager, to my sound settings (my USB sound module makes things a bit more complicated), etc.

Even so, you want to have as many non-GNOME applications and utilities as possible so you don't have to "invoke" your system's GNOME-ishness unless you absolutely have to.

In my case I've added the Geany text editor, the Rox-filer file manager ... and not a whole lot else. Not that running gedit or even Nautilus will cause your system to drop to its knees resource-wise, because it won't. I just like having as little GNOME as possible running when I'm not ... actually running GNOME. (And truthfully I'm using Geany more than gedit because the keyboard commands for changing the case of letters — something I do all the time — is handled poorly in gedit and well in ... just about every other GUI text editor, Geany among them.)

One of the many things that doesn't work in non-GNOME Ubuntu is the automounting of USB drives. In the past (and in systems such as OpenBSD), I've done things the "old-fashioned" way, creating directories and using root privileges to mount USB drives.

I did a bit of Googling and came across this Web page that talks about using pmount, ivman and rox-filer to automount USB drives.

In the past I've just used root privileges to mount USB drives, and I suppose I could do that this time as well.

But the gPodder podcast client doesn't want to work with my root-owned USB audio player, so I have to do the mounting as my user.

I could take care of this in /etc/fstab, and I probably should (and probably will).

But I decided to try this pmount/ivman/rox combination, especially since I already know and love the Rox filer.

I couldn't get the ivman portion of the recipe to work. The drives will not automount when plugged in. Nor will Rox mount them from /dev.

But I can use pmount to mount my USB drives in my user account:

$ pmount sdb1

And with the pmount configuration done as in the page above, I can do this without specifying the path to sdb1, or where I want it to mount, which is /media.

So this is a nice little thing, just having pmount work. I don't know what's not making ivman work.

If I decide to go with this setup (Fluxbox + Ubuntu Lucid) long-term, I should probably just get into /etc/fstab and tell it how to mount the drives (and to allow my user account to do it). You know, do it the "real Unix way."

But for "casual" plugging in of USB flash drives, pmount is a nice way to go.