Version:            (using KDE 4.0.5)
Installed from:    Fedora RPMs
OS:                Linux

When a removable media storage is plugged into a computer running KDE, regardless 3.x, 4.x, or even in SVN version, KDE just blindly ignores the mount option settings in HAL, such that all legitimate characters in file names coded in UTF-8 in VFAT partitions (used by many removable media devices) cannot be displayed correctly, or the letter case conversion is inappropriate for synchronization operation with the default option "shortname=lower" of mount.

In KDE, there is no way for regular users to set these default mount options, other than manually re-mount the media storage. However Gnome has done an excellent job on this task and thus provide a great experience for regular users by either making some ad- hoc change to mount options in gnome-mount or using gconf-editor to change the default settings.

This bug is so persistent in KDE release series, and check out the following filed bugs:

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=133456 for KDE 3.5.4
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=161588 for KDE 4.0.3

And even in the latest Beta 1 build of KDE 4.1, the source code still reflects such a bug. Check out the source code:

kdelibs-4.0.80.tar.bz2 -> solid -> solid -> backends -> hal ->
halstorageaccess.cpp

The codes around line 230 show such a bug: only uid is considered and hard coded in the source code, and all other mount options specified in HAL configuration in /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/ are discarded. Therefore, from the perspective of pure user experience, I strongly suggest KDE development team to consider the option of letting KDE fully cooperate with HAL to deal with plug-and-plug hardware manipulation feature in order to provide smooth experience to regular users.

Thanks!