USB Behavior with Gnome 46 and Gnome 47

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1

I would like an inserted USB thumb drive to automatically mount when inserted in a running OS.
I would also like a USB inserted before startup to be automatically mounted by the OS when it starts.

Ubuntu 24.04 with Gnome 46 has both of these behaviors.
Ubuntu 24.10 with Gnome 47 has neither - the USB must be manually mounted with Files or Disks before it is accessible by an application in both cases.

My question:

Is there a setting to have Gnome 47 behave like Gnome 46 in this regard? I can’t find it if there is. Thanks.

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2

You can add an entry in /etc/fstab to define the mount point and options you desire.

3

Hello Dennis N, nice to see another refugee from ubuntuforums.org

Now, I can’t reproduce your issue
A USB inserted before start up is automatically mounted in both Ubuntu 24.04 and 24.10
I’m not aware of any special setting

Edit: Hang on a moment, it seems to depend on the file format of the USB
24.10 FAT32 mounts automatically
24.10 EXT4 does not mount automatically but appears in the left pane of Files

4

Yes. This is what I see in 24.10.
You have to open the Files or Disks application and mount an inserted USB before you can open or save to it from an application you are using. That’s inconvenient.

That was not necessary when using Gnome 46 (Ubuntu 24.04).

And I see the same behavior in Fedora with Gnome 47.

5

This has always been the case, as far as I can recall. FAT and FAT32 partitions can be mounted, but EXT4 (and other native Linux partitions) aren’t, until specifically mounted by the user, or unless they’re explicitly mentioned in the /etc/fstab.

6

I found that ext4 formatted thumb drives automount in Ubuntu 24.04 (Gnome 46) in both use cases.

7

@Dennis_N
Just performed another test with 24.04 and you are correct
FAT32 mounts automatically
EXT4 also mounts automatically
Both mount under /media/user/device_id

Yes, a certain inconsistency between 24.04 and 24.10

8

@tea-for-one
Thanks for confirming this behavior!

9

How to make ext4 usb thumb drives in Ubuntu 24.10 automount when inserted, and automount on startup.

Source of Solution : information in udev manpage

Solution - create a symbolic link in /etc/udev/rules.d with:

link name: 64-ext4.rules
target: /dev/null

Terminal commands to create the symbolic link:

cd /etc/udev/rules.d
sudo ln -s /dev/null 64-ext4.rules

Restart to take effect.

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10

Just to say thank you, this issue was driving me nuts for a couple of hours on a specific setup where USB mounts were critical.

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