I've always thought this was an issue with linux distros, why do most linux systems not automatically mount external drives when one is detected? I know this is more of an upstream issue but i feel like if it was implemented with mate it would add to the (at least in my opinion) user friendliness ubuntu mate has over plain ubuntu.
The reason of why i think this is a problem is because if a user wants to automatically mount their drive, they have to figure it out through the output of fdisk, then make a script at /etc/rc.local to make a directory for mount point then mount the drive on startup, while this is easy for a tech savvy user like me, it's not for the average joe, and i think if desktop linux wants to gain any momentum, we should stop expecting the average user to be tech savvy.
I'm not advocating for ripping out advanced functions and control, far from it, that's the reason i quit windows, but i am advocating for an easier avenue for the users who do not want to take the advanced route, and i think auto-mounting drives would be a step in the right direction.
Auto mount does work for external devices, definitely for FAT formatted devices, which most USB are, used by non-technical users. One doesn't have to do anything in command line for accessing external drives in UM. Even if the device is not auto-mounted, the device is listed under 'Devices' in file manager 'Caja' and mounts (read) when we click on it.
Edit: If you experienced some external devices not working for you, it may be that the system does not have necessary filesystem support. For eg., I could not find exFAT installed, so had to manually install the necessary tools.
I've never once found this to be the case, everytime i have plugged in a USB or sata drive i had to always manually mount it or make a script in rc.local that auto mounts on boot, and to be clear these are all drives with compatible filesystems like ext3/ext4.
I find it highly unlikely it's due to an issue with my install as well because i had used this distro in 18.04 LTS and did a completely clean wipe when this current version came out.
I've never seen a case of Ubuntu or UbuntuMATE where the automount did not work, and I've been using it for about 18 years.
I can only think that there is a leftover from previous manual mounts blocking such an automount ... or ... defective hardware.
On my system, I had to specifically add entries into /etc/fstab for me to prevent automount.
So, having said that, you would need to give some very detailed specifics on OS distro and version, and the hardware involved, USB cards and devices, for which such automounts are failing before most of the Community could offer such declarations any real consideration.
At a minimum such statements should be accompanied by the results reported by the command
inxi -J -v6
ONLY then would the Community have something tangible that can be analyzed, digest the details and provide concrete feedback.
I can confirm that automounting of removable USB flash drives (aka sticks, pen drives, etc) works flawlessly. At the same time I do confirm that automounting of external hard drive (with multiple partitions) in the USB-enabled compartment/box does not work.
A quick Internet search reveals many topics on the subject. Interesting, that automounting of every of HDD's partitions is declared to be the default behaviour which it is not. Unfortunately, none of these topics provide definite recipe to enforce removable HDD automounting.
And yes, that failure can distract new and unexperienced UM users.
You're in luck
both 22.04 LTS as 24.04 LST automount all USB devices regardless if it's a pendrive or a multi partition HDD
(just tested this on both 22.04 LTS as 24.04 LTS on two different computers with a USB HDD with 3 partitions: EXT4, EX-FAT and NTFS)
All mountable partitions automount regardless whether the HDD is plugged in before boot or after login.
If it doesn't do that on your computer, something is not right in your setup, be it failing/nonstandardcompliant hardware or an install that has gone awry.
internal disks vs usb disks:
Contrary to USB disks: Internal HDDs never automount by default.
This is by design (because reasons) but easy to change using 'disks' or editing /etc/fstab
Drives that are one way or the other automatically added to /etc/fstab are default set to noauto, which is a very sane decision because usually only fixed drives are in /etc/fstab. Removable drives should not be listed in /etc/fstabat all unless you have special mounting needs.
If you use 'disks' and you have special mounting needs, there is no need to edit /etc/fstab by hand.
'disks' will edit /etc/fstab for you.
