Add xapp status icon for drive dirty/writeback cache

[billyswong]

From time to time, there are users who copy too many files to a removable drive. Then when they want to unplug it, they find themselves stuck in a long wait with no idea when the sync will finish. This kind of issues has appeared in Linux Mint Forums a number of times. Some users may get impatient and unplug prematurely. Some poor users may not even know they are not ready to unplug as the indication of "things not ready" is often not clear enough.

For this problem, I came across a script suggestion at https://www.kaper.com/notes/linux-sync-buffer-progress-monitoring-e-g-for-copy-to-usb/

watch "grep -e Dirty: -e Writeback: /proc/meminfo"

Yes, such script will help a knowledgeable user to monitor the amount of data still in the cache and plan accordingly. But it still takes a steep learning curve for users who know nothing about disk cache mechanism. However primitive that is, if we can wrap such information into a more user-friendly format and present it automatically as an xapp status icon, this will sure help many people running Linux Mint.

Another feature we may integrate to this status icon is to let users click it to fire the sync command. Users will no longer need to type command in terminal just for a routine removable drive handling.

[spamegg1]

I second the proposal.
I've also ran into... way too many forum posts about this.
People keep losing their files all the time.
It would be nice if sync was pre-built into and automated for file transfers that are above a threshold of total amount / total number of files, maybe?

[Hawaiihemd]

I support this idea!

This exact problem is one of my very few gripes I do have in Mint, having set up a handful of PCs for my relatives.

While it is easy to blame the user if they do not use the eject button at all, it is IMHO really hard to expect the user to wait - sometimes minutes - for any kind of feedback after clicking to eject.

I think some kind of notification should be presented to the user. If it would not only say "trying to unmount safely, please wait..." but would include even a rough estimate based on the code billyswong mentioned above, that would be all one could ask for.