In Linux World, formatting a Usb Flash Disk is not an easy operation for end-user; in Pardus we always use one sentence: “Make it easy !“. So, we have to find an easy way to formatting a removable disk !
Yet another creative developer from Pardus, Renan Çakırerk has created Quickformat. And I wanted to let you know !
It is also integrated to Dolphin !
You can find a lot of information about Quickformat from Renan’s Blog. Have fun !
Tags: planet.kde, planet.pardus
It is nice to have easy formatting but does it work on all? HDD/SSD’s and DVD-RAM etc?
And the “Volume name” and “Volume Label” are in conflict by my opinion.
I think the “Volume name” should be just as “Volume”
And is it easy to switch partition (volume…) if memory stick has multiple ones but not visible on dolphin etc?
I think this is one of small, but important peaces, which was missing for years, will this go to upstream? I also think the dialog should show device size/free space values – in some cases it might be scary to press “format” button if one comp has multiple flash drives inserted and device names like /dev/sda1 are not very helpful, but the total size+free size combination is usually a good identificator to understand that formatted drive is the correct one.
Nice work – would love to see this in other KDE distributions such as Kubuntu.
Wow, awesome!
It’s the small details like these that makes all the difference :)
@Fri13 Quickformat works on every removable storage device. You are right about the conflict, I will make a patch today. Quickformat only sees what KDE sees so the answer would be no to that question. Thanks for the comment =)
@anton Thank you for the compliments. I will contact KDE developers for the inclusion. Actually there are more details in the list. You can check the screenshots on my blog at http://cakirerk.org/index.php/2011/06/quickformat-an-exciting-removable-disk-formatter-for-pardus/
@Danny Thanks! I will soon contact KDE developers for inclusion =)
@Znurre Thanks! Glad you liked it =)
Nice work!
The UI is a bit too technical IMHO though: e.g. low level device names (/dev/sdb1) and file system names.
For file system you could have a selection of “Linux”, “Windows”, “OS X” (respectively Ext$someversion, NTFS, HFS+) and “Other…” where the last would unhide a second combobox with your current selection.
Thats really nice! Having it in dolphin is cool and easy.
@Fri13, @Renan: Don’t make it just “volume”, make it “name” instead. Volume tells not that much about what it menat by it. Actually, you are going to give the device a name, so just “name” it.
There’s similar app from Chakra project http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Quick+Usb+Formatter?content=137493
I like the Pardus gui more though but does it have the same kind of device notifier integration that the Chakara one has?
@Kevin, @Burke I’ve actually done a mini poll about showing the path of the partition with the Pardus developers while developing Quickformat and you can guess what the result was. So you are very right about it’s technical looking. I will patch it soon to make it more user friendly. Thanks for your supportive comment! =)
@hoka Quickformat project has started way before the Chakra formatter but until now I didn’t have time to develop it. We have discussed if the formatting option should be in the notification area or not. I believe formatting option shouldn’t be that easy to access in case of any accidents that makes the user lose data. That’s why Dolphin is a safer point for accessing Quickformat. But of course it is still open for discussion. Thanks. =)
I like it shows the device path as that is one thing what sometimes people really need to find out easily. Example when writing a LiveCD image to USB stick with dd program so they can check what the device file is. So dont remove the /dev/sd?? thing.
@Burke It is not about naming a device but naming a partition. Memory sticks are not anymore just 128MB or such but 16-32GB where people have started to use partitions for them, like one normal partition and one encrypted partition. So it is very important that people know that they are dealing with volumes, not with devices.
Thats why it should be “Volume” with /dev/sd? and then “Volume name”
Yes, the whole application could be tweaked to be so minimalistic that user only need to click “OK” and sees nothing else. But does it serve it purposes? Programs can be very simple (programs like cp, mv, dd) but applications offers more information and possibilities with GUI.
Currently the tool would allow easily user to connect memory stick and right click the device on dolphin (and save/open dialogs, right!?) and choose “format” and application has settings right for that device and its volume.
If the application allows user to choose volume (/dev/sd?) what is being formated, it is great standalone without need to launch it from dolphin.
And understanding that one device have volumes match with the information what comes with other applications (like truecrypt, partitionmanager) and programs (like cfdisk) what user can use to edit partitions (and volumes like LVM setups).
It’s important to show all information you can show, including the device node. You really don’t want the user to accidentally format the wrong device! What if they have more than one “Removable USB” device? You also want to show the disk label if available.
Of course just “Removable USB” would be stupid, however the device name usually does not add any information of value for a user.
How would a user know about the device path? Does it show elsewhere? I am not on the most recent release, but neither Dolphin’s Places nor the device notifier show me that kind of information.
I also can’t remember a workspace like Windows ever showing me an internal device ID and I would be surprised if OS X did.
Anyway, this part of the UI is only necessary when invoking the program from the application menu or krunner, if you invoke it from Dolphin or the device notifier applet thn the context is already known.
We’d love to see that in Pardus :P
Anyway, why don’t you place that in kde-apps guys? So people can easily try it and give feedback. You can also write the dependencies of the package to kde-apps page, people may not have python & pykde & pyparted.
Groovy. When is this going to be pushed into upstream KDE?
I have packaged this for my Fedora Respin Synergy-Linux, I ran into issue with PyKDE4 being broken in 4.6.3 and had to reapply a patch that was removed it seems upstream in KDE or maybe it was just Fedora, I don’t know. However I have tested this app on plain old Fedora 14 with KDE 4.6.2 and all seemed well. In any case if you’re running Fedora and KDE 4.6.2 (or a patched version of 4.6.3, some thing later than 4.6.3-1) you can try my rpm which should work fine.
http://synergy-linux.com/rpms/synergy/2/x86_64/quickformat-0.0.1-1.syn2.noarch.rpm
Sonunda geldi, bu tür bi özelliği gerçekten uzun süredir bekliyordum.
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