Brain fart: no format option on a pen drive pop-up menu?

[Fernando Cassia]

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 18:55, Alan Cox <alan at lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
> No another meaningless option that wouldn't actually do anything.
>
> If you want to blank a drive into a new file system format you just need
> to be sure to clean up any confusing superblocks and get the type right.
> For the same fs you will hit the metadata anyway.
>
> And if you want to blank a disk you need to issue a security erase
> command, not just overwrite the data. The latter does not do what you
> would always want on modern storage systems, particularly flash.
>
> Alan

Yes "blank a drive" aka "formatting" it.
With the same file system it previously had. (fat32).

Doesn´t need to be a "full format", a "quick format" would do.

Let´s please not get into semantics here. If you say "reformat a
removable drive" everybody knows what it means. It is not
repartitioning, it is not low-level formating, it is not "secure"
erasing all data so that no files can be recovered, it´s just, well,
formatting... erasing its contents... like a "format e: /q" does in
windows.

Notice how all posts, are titled "formatting"
http://linuxwave.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-to-format-your-flash-drive.html

Even while in the end the tutorials tell to use mkfs...

So, I maintain my original comment... I think it should be possible
from the Gnome GUI to right click and select an option to "format" the
drive (who partitions a thumb drive?? 99.9999% are used in a
single-partition mode)

Hey, look here
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/disk-format.html.en

"If you have a removable disk like a USB memory stick or an external
hard disk, you may wish to completely remove all of the files you have
on there. You can do this by formatting the disk - this deletes all of
the files on the disk and leaves it empty."

Wow, plain English. No misconceptions about what formatting means. :)

So let me rephrase my original post: on removable drives, shouldn´t
there be a "Format" option (or "wipe" if you wish) that invokes ´disk
utility´ with the right params to beggin formatting it?.

FC