plug proposal: Disk Management

[jepotter1-archive]

From elementary/installer#324.

There should be a new switchboard plug that allows the user to:

• See what partitions are on their disk and how much space each is taking graphically
• Visualize used vs free disk space
• Boot into recovery mode to edit partition
• Delete elementaryOS

                          Hard Drive Layout
|-----elementary-----|-------------Ubuntu-----|
         32 GB                          103 GB
[Reboot into Recovery Mode] [Remove elementaryOS]

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[danirabbit]

I think a utility like this is outside the scope of Switchboard. I would recommend installing GNOME Disks from AppCenter.

Would love to hear any other opinions from @elementary/ux but I think for now I'll close this as "Out of scope"

[cassidyjames]

@danrabbit I can see some argument for managing disks/storage in System Settings. In other operating systems I can check somewhere in the system to see what's using my storage (with something like a Granite storage bar), a way to free up space, and possibly a way to format new partitions (i.e. when adding a new hard drive to an existing machine).

I don't think it's an urgent need since third-party tools exist, but I do think having it integrated into the system a bit more would be nice and sane.

[danirabbit]

Hm yeah I think I'm worried about a runaway scope here for Switchboard, but I'll reopen for the sake of discussion

[megatux]

Also, some people ask for ways to handling automatic mounting at startup. (e.g. in Slack channel) and using a gio mount /dev/whatever at startup is not a very user friendly thing to do.
Adding a link to a related discussion in Files.

[cassidyjames]

@mmstick I was just thinking… would using distinst here make any sense for a disk formatting utility, or would it make more sense to use the underlying libraries more directly?

[Justinzobel]

An initial concept seems to have been made here:
https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~optimisme/+junk/switchboard-drives/files

It's based on this mockup:

If anyone wants a base to start from. The code doesn't compile, it calls for a package that I'm guessing has been renamed or obsoleted:

Command-line option `--thread` is deprecated and will be ignored
error: Package `pantheon' not found in specified Vala API directories or GObject-Introspection GIR directories