Auto-Mounting and Unmounting CDs, DVDs, USB drives etc.

[Gustavo Seabra]

fedora-list at webterminate.com wrote:

>Dear Fedora List,
>
>When I show off my brand new FC3 system to Windows-centric friends, we 
>invariably get to a point where they'd like to see me open a Windows Media 
>File, or a MS Word Document. I'm proud that Xine and OpenOffice can do that, 
>only to be embarassed when my computer won't return the CD they've given me 
>the files on. I am not a friend of manually mounting and unmounting drives on 
>my home PC (I do know the arguments about security, etc), and to my dismay I 
>have found that FC3 continues a long tradition of Linux systems I have used 
>in that automounting still does not work properly.
>Please Help!!
>I'm using KDE, and the system has been upgraded from FC2 (where I also had to 
>mount manually, and possibly messed up the setup through installing both 
>autofs and am-utils), so maybe that's why I still can't get it to work.
>Is it too much to ask for Linux/KDE to do what Windows 95 could do almost 10 
>years ago? (sorry ...)
>I find the layers of complexity surrounding UDEV and HAL quite disturbing, 
>and, frankly, I hope there is a way to get things to work simply and nicely 
>without manually editing HAL's XML config files.
>So, can somebody please explain to me how to get the following to work as 
>non-root user:
>1) insert CD
>2) find CD mounted somewhere (eg /media/cdrom)
>3) browse the directory with konqueror
>4) press the eject button on the drive
>5) get the CD back a couple of seconds later
>6) possibly have the Konqueror window close automatically, or react in some 
>way (that's not really important; after all, I know the directory is not 
>accessible any more)
>with gnome-device-manager (under KDE) the mounting seemed to work fine, but it 
>did not unmount (I had to do it manually as root)
>
>I've found in earlier versions of Fedora I always had to kill FAM after 
>accessing a CD in KDE, otherwise the CD would still be considered in use. 
>Apparently FAM does not exist any more in FC3. Is this correct?
>
>If the above procedure is in fact the standard behaviour of FC3 anyway, I 
>guess my setup is to blame. Then I'd ask you to give me some indication of 
>what FC3's default setup for handling CDs is. Is am-utils installed? Is 
>autofs installed?
>
>Sorry for the rant. I'm simply quite frustrated.
>
>Many thanks,
>
>Florian
>
>  
>
I'd have to check (my FC3 machine is at home), but I think that, in KDE, 
if you right-click on the CD icon on the desktop, you'll have the option 
to eject. Click there and the CD comes... isn't it even fancier (for the 
show-and-tell) than mechanically having to push-a-button? (which isn't 
too different than sticking a paper clip into that little hole in the 
front :-)

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Gustavo Seabra* 
<http://www.ksu.edu/chem/personnel/faculty/grad/jvo/ortiz/people_seabra.html> 
- Graduate Student
E-Mail: seabra at ksu.edu <mailto:seabra at ksu.edu>
Phone: (785) 532-6072 Chemistry Department <http://www.ksu.edu/chem/>
Kansas State University <http://www.ksu.edu>
Manhattan, KS 66506-3701