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Ubuntu uses at least three different icons for identifying USB storages. What are the criteria used to diferentiate those?

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For instance, I have two nearly identical Sandisk Cruzer Blade USB drives, one 4 GB and other 8 GB. (The output of lsusb is the same for both: Bus 001 Device 009: ID 0781:5567 SanDisk Corp. Cruzer Blade). On Linux, one is displayed with the flash drive icon and other with the generic USB storage icon. Sometimes a third, purple icon is used too.

What is the cause of this behavior? Are there other icons? What are the rules for Ubuntu picking different USB drive icons and what do they mean?

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    Please be more specific with your question.
    – user278630
    May 7, 2014 at 17:19
  • 1
    How much more specific could he be? Anyway, I'm curious as to the answer to this question, also... May 15, 2014 at 8:20
  • Here's a quick thought: Why not simply locate the path of all different "external media" icons, then pick on and replace all the other you don't know or like. That might not answer your question perse, but it's a way to go! Also that way you simply can compare the icons names and maybe make sense of their meaning.
    – v2r
    Jun 29, 2014 at 12:50
  • @v2r I don't particularly dislike any icon, I just want to figure out what are the differences and how (or if) Ubuntu treats those external storages differently (mounting, caching, removal, any other aspect). Good idea on locating the icon paths, how do I proceed? Jun 29, 2014 at 16:10
  • The location depends on the icon theme you use, which might be default or custom. Check in the folder(s), called "devices" in /usr/share/icons/Humanity/devices/ and/or under ~/.local/share/icons/SPECIFIEDTHEM/devices. I found a visual match here /usr/share/icons/unity-icon-theme/places/svg/devices.svg and /usr/share/icons/Humanity/devices/48
    – v2r
    Jun 29, 2014 at 17:23

2 Answers 2

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Ubuntu differentiates between filesystem builds (ISO formats) and displays the relevant icon.

The standard USB icon is for generic removable media devices. The one with the purple usb stick is for UDF filesystems (Info here). The larger icon is for mass storage devices.

You may come across any of these depending on the hardware specifications of the device.

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The icons appear based upon the partition type of the device. As of Ubuntu 21.10, older types show a rectangle with a USB symbol and newer types show a USB image with a connector at the bottom.

As of this moment, on my Ubuntu 21.10 system, they are (as listed in Disks app):

W95 FAT32 (LBA) W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Basic Data Basic Data, NTFS/exFAT/HPFS, UDF

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  • The differences isn't related with the file systems (in any case it's not about partitions) but with the device type. The last is used only for USB flash drives. Any other external USB drive, SSD or HDD, typically a "disk" as opposed to "stick"/"dongle" is represented by the first. Exceptions do exist where some flash drives that have been "burned" from ISOs may show differently. Apr 25, 2022 at 0:21
  • In my testing, it did not matter which type of device or which format was used. I used the same physical device and tested with multiple changes. In all, the only thing that altered the displayed icon was the partition type as reported by the Disks app. The larger icon were where the partition was an older type; e.g., the W95 FAT. All devices that appeared with the newer icon were newer partition types; e.g., exFAT/NTFS/HPFS, UDF, etc.
    – AdvApp
    Apr 27, 2022 at 0:20

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