Most of you know that under Linux, you can’t unmount a device if it’s still “in use”. Less
of you know that there are tools that actually deal with this. Most notably “lsof”, which
lists open files on a directory or devicenode. There’s also “fuser” which can even kill all
the processes that are using files on a specific device. The latter should be used with care, of
course.
Using guidance’s mountconfig,
you’re likely to encounter the same problem at some point – and that’s exactly what last week’s
coding efforts tackle. Umounting a device that’s still in use will now launch the dialogue shown in
the screenshot, identifying what’s preventing you from unmounting the device so you can deal with
these applications. The rude might choose to kill processes, but they have been warned.
Coming up next: Will the user interface survive Simon’s critical review? :-)