KDE How-To - Removable Media

KDE offers some very nice graphical ways to use removable media (floppies, CD-Rom, zip), but there are a few tweeks you can do to make things nicer for you now, as well as later.

FSTAB

The place to start is in fstab. This is partly because of one small bug in the current KDE, and also because by setting up our fstab correctly, we can make things easier in any Linux enviroment.

This is just an example. You should check your own system to see if your cdrom and/or zip drive is hdb, hdc, or hdd. But for your normal preformated zip cartridge, you do have to have it be paritition 4, as shown below.

<>cat /etc/fstab
...
#/dev/cdrom/mnt/cdromiso9660user,noauto,owner,ro0 0
/dev/hdc/mnt/cdromiso9660user,noauto,owner,ro0 0
/dev/hdd4/mnt/zipmsdosuser,noauto0 0
/dev/fd0/mnt/floppyext2noauto,owner0 0
/dev/fd0/mnt/dosmsdosuser,noauto0 0
...

You also need to remember to actually create those different directories.

mkdir /mnt/zip
mkdir /mnt/dos

Creating An Icon For Your Zip Drive

Your desktop shows your cd-rom drive and your floppy drive, so why doesn't is show your zip drive. Well now it can, with just a few simple steps.

  1. Edit your fstab so that your zip drive is in it (see above)
  2. Create the directory where your zip drive will be mounted (see above)
  3. Create your zip icon (see below)
    1. Right-Click on the mouse, select 'New' 'File System Device'
    2. Name the icon. (You must leave the .kdelnk on the name)
    3. Put in the proper device name, corresponding to what is in fstab.

1-1, 1-2, 1-3 Create An Icon

List of icons


dawson@fnal.gov
Back to KDE How To
August 21, 2000