openSUSE 11.1/KDE 4.3 - Short filenames and upper/lower case

When copying the image files from a (CF) memory card to my openSUSE computer I have been used to having the filenames given to me in lower case. There have been times, though, when the openSUSE repos have been undergoing a lot of update activity, that the filenames have suddenly appeared in upper case. Then, after another round or two of updates, things have returned to normal. I now have two computers running openSUSE, one 32 bit, the other 64 bit. At present my 32 bit openSUSE computer gives me lower case image filenames, while my 64 bit openSUSE gives me upper case image filenames. What I want is a bit of consistency, and since lower case has been a standard, sort of, I wish I could get lower case filenames.

Ages ago, when memory cards were mounted using fstab, the parameter “shortname=lower” could be used. Fstab can still be used, but it tends to get in the way of the automatic mounting mechanisms.

This topic has been brought on to the table before, but as far as I can see, no simple answer has been given as to how I can decide whether a short (fat/vfat) filename is translated into upper, lower or mixed case, without resorting to fstab, or worse, doing it manually as a post copying process. A working solution was suggested for Gnome users, but I use KDE (4.3), and the “Gnome solution” obviously doesn’t work for me.

Does anyone know the answer?

Have you tried asking on Index page • KDE Community Forums as it appears to be KDE4 related?

I suspect that it must have something to do with HAL and its policies, because when I insert the word “lower” into one line of the file
/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/20-storage-methods.fdi,
here:
<append key=“volume.mount.valid_options” type=“strlist”>shortname=lower</append>
it seems to solve my problem, although I’m quite sure, without knowing why, that this is not the correct way of doing it.

I have also been searching the KDE Community Forum and have found nothing there about (short) vfat filenames.

Obviously, removing the entire line
<append key=“volume.mount.valid_options” type=“strlist”>shortname=</append>
also seems to solve the problem. Isn’t there anyone who knows why? Hellooo, ye openSUSE developers!

> Hellooo, ye openSUSE developers!

not so many ‘developers’ hang out here…
here is mostly users…

developers mostly respond to bug reports, see:
http://en.opensuse.org/Submitting_Bug_Reports


goldie

Thanks, that’s apparently the way to go.


Tor