Sorry if my comment came across as if your bug report would be totally unreasonable -- it is not. I do (personally) disagree with your reasoning, but the reason why I closed the bug is as stated in the first part of the comment: This is not a clear bug, but instead something where opinions will vary and which therefore should be better discussed at a mailing list for example.
But let me also explain a bit why I think this whole issue is more fundamental than just disallowing average users to format removable media. The problem is: If you allow users to auto-mount removable media (which you might not in a company setting but which typical users certainly want), the media is mounted *under their username*. This means for example that they can delete any files on it, at least on the "root" level of the media. If the media is formatted with a filesystem like ext4 or ext3, you can have some rights management on the external disk (for most USB sticks etc., formatted with a FAT filesystem you cannot do this at all) but giving real "read only" access is not possible. Having said that: If your use-case is using an external USB drive as if it were an internal drive, the best method for not allowing unprivileged users deleting the data would be: 1) not allowing those users to auto mount external media 2) mounting this particular device via an entry in /etc/fstab (like internal hard disks) -- optionally mounting it as read- only. -- Non-admin users can format removable media https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/595823 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Desktop Bugs, which is subscribed to gnome-disk-utility in ubuntu. -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs
