Getting mypodder to work with FC6

I use a java client called mypodder to download podcasts I like to listen to. It's all part of the service available at PodcastReady. It's pretty simple really, you load the application on your USB drive and when you plug it in the program is supposed to autorun. Well it works on Windows but it wouldn't work on Fedora Core 6. Research time!

It seems Fedora Core 6 uses the gnome volume manager which is well... lacking in features let's say. I'm not sure who made the decision but someone decided that we should mount USB thumb drives with noexec. OK, fine I understand the security concerns but I also want mypodder to work when I plug in my USB drive. Despite the fact that I'd set my preference to "Auto-run programs on new drives and media" this won't work since the file system is marked as noexec.

So what can you do to get around this?

Well I decided to simply enable the exec option on all vfat filesystems that are mounted. Here's how to do it.

From the command line:
gconftool-2 --type list --list-type=string --set /system/storage/default_options/vfat/mount_options "[shortname=winnt,uid=,exec]"

* make sure it's all on one line.

From a gui:

use gconf-editor
system -> storage -> default_options -> vfat -> mout_options

Add "exec" to it's string value

That's it! All you have to do is insert the thumb drive and your autorun should work. No need to reboot.

You might also want to think about adding the "sync" option to mount_options as well. It will slow down the writes but when the application tells you it's downloaded a new podcast it really has completed downloading the podcast.