[SOLVED] Mintstick exfat

[Xain]

Hello to all,
I'm using mint xfce 19 (in italian language), and on the changelog there is a new "feature" : "The USB stick formatting tool now supports exFat".
But I see as usual the 3 options, FAT32, EXT4 and NTFS. Where is exfat?

Thank you

[Flemur]

You might need these packages:
exfat-utils
exfat-fuse

[Xain]

I've checked, these 2 packages are already installed.

[mint4all]

I've checked, these 2 packages are already installed.

Greetings!

I can confirm your observation/problem: even though the "exFat" formatting option shows up in the tooltip-popup, the actual file-format pick list does not allow for it. After looking at the source code ( @ https://github.com/linuxmint/mintstick/ ... ntstick.py ) it would appear that "exFat" was somehow omitted from the file-system choices. That looks like a bug to me since "exFat" is specifically provided for in the formatting source code ( @ https://github.com/linuxmint/mintstick/ ... _format.py ).

However, since the man-page for mintstick shows that it can be run as a non-gui command, you could try that option and see if it works (i would try it myself but do not have a spare usb stick at the moment).

In any event, i suggest that you open an issue/bug report on github (alas, you'll have to register with github to do so).

Cheers, M4A

[Flemur]

After looking at the source code ( @ https://github.com/linuxmint/mintstick/ ... ntstick.py ) it would appear that "exFat" was somehow omitted from the file-system choices.

Is that what passes for acceptable code nowadays? Yeow.

[mint4all]

After looking at the source code ( @ https://github.com/linuxmint/mintstick/ ... ntstick.py ) it would appear that "exFat" was somehow omitted from the file-system choices.

Is that what passes for acceptable code nowadays? Yeow.

Not being a python-aty myself, i'd rather give the devs the benefit of my doubts -- they are doing one heck of a GREAT job working for, ahem, nothing. What i DO find lacking in many distros (incl. ubuntu, btw) is a concerted Q/A-cycle discipline, with attendant instrumentation / automation to boot. For a moment, consider the breadth of Mint's endeavor ( @ http://projects.linuxmint.com/projects ... jects.html ) requiring Q/A. I'd say that Clem & his team of devs have their hands full, and then some. How can we make THEIR job easier? Ideas? Imho, beta- & -rc-testing goes only so far ...

[xenopeek]

Sorry, my fault I developed the exFAT support. Due to a mixup on my end one line of my code hasn't made it into the release; rather crucial, it's the line that adds exFAT to that selection box. The rest of the code to support exFAT is in place, you just can't select it... Doh! I've submitted a fix for this: https://github.com/linuxmint/mintstick/pull/66

In the mean time you can fix it locally by running the following command. This will add the missing line. After starting USB Stick formatter again afterwards, you should be able to select exFAT.

This command should be run from the terminal. Copy it from here and paste it on the terminal (you can paste through the terminal's Edit menu). Make sure to copy the entire command verbatim, without any changes. Spaces in this command are important. The command will prompt you for your password but won't give you any visual feedback as you type the password; just type it and press Enter to continue. The command will not respond with anything unless there is an error.

Code: Select all

sudo sed -i '/"fat32"/a \            self.fsmodel.append(["exfat", "exFAT",      15,        False,               False])' /usr/lib/mintstick/mintstick.py

You can also manually add the line if you prefer. Edit the file with command xed admin:///usr/lib/mintstick/mintstick.py, search for "self.fsmodel.append" and after the fat32 line add this line (again, spaces are important! the line should have same number of leading spaces as line above and below it):

Code: Select all

            self.fsmodel.append(["exfat", "exFAT",      15,        False,               False]

[mint4all]

Sorry, my fault I developed the exFAT support. Due to a mixup on my end one line of my code hasn't made it into the release; rather crucial, it's the line that adds exFAT to that selection box. The rest of the code to support exFAT is in place, you just can't select it... Doh! I've submitted a fix for this: https://github.com/linuxmint/mintstick/pull/66

Thanks, XP, for your quick response & fix -- i/we meant NO offense whatsoever, or being critical in any way, of all the work & efforts you folks are putting into LM's polish! Few here can appreciate the mountain of work, the logistics & dependencies y'all have to deal with every time a release gets bundled up ...

Btw: is there a Q/A roadmap for LM 19.1 published anywhere? I'd like to take a peek if you don't mind

[xenopeek]

There's a public roadmap https://github.com/linuxmint/Roadmap. Testing roughly consists for three stages: developer's own testing (and testing by other developers working on same parts), testing by the QA testing team during ISO preparation, public testing by users of the beta release. If you want to get involved earlier than the beta with testing, and you have experience (or willing to get into it) with building projects from source, you could of course keep an eye on the commits happening on projects you're interested in and build those projects from git master and test the development progress locally ahead of any new release—so you can report issues early.

[Xain]

Well... perfect!

Thank you very much for the fix.
Now it's working.