CD / DVD eject button. Does it work for you?

[killbot]

I have to say honestly, I like kubuntu. It is quite awesome in appearance and runs like a breeze (on my LaVie L LL800R/7 laptop), but only for one thing that I consistantly find with linux installations... The CD/DVD eject button.

One of the very (by "very" I of course mean "very very very very") few reasons I *shudder* like *barf* that microsoft thingy is the fact that when I press the eject button on my CD/DVD drive, it ejects. Sure, if the program running deems it necessary (or the OS in some cases) it may give me a warning or blue screen of death as it is so called, it still (98% of the time) will eject my disc.

Now why, why will linux tell me nothing. Why can't the OS understand that when I press that little button on my CD/DVD drive, I want it to spit out my CD/DVD!!! No questions asked!!!!

I seriously appologize for all the exclamation marks, but this is a problem that has haunted me through Kubuntu/Ubuntu, Knoppix, Morphix, Fedora, DSL, and many more.

I don't care for a DIY solution, I would quite enjoy seeing an OS, especially this one (Kubuntu of course) take a stand and solve this, most annoyingly simple, problem!

Is anyone with me!?

-Stephen

[killbot]

Re: CD / DVD eject button. Does it work for you?

I have an addition to this message. There seems to be no forum or method (that is easily detectable) for myself and others like me to easily submit forum feedback to the administrators. Maybe the plural on "administrators" is un-necessary as it seems this forum is un-frequently viewed, but anyway, my second complaint would be the lack of a Feedback forum, where my post would better be at home, and I'm sure others would as well. But what can I do? I'm just a 22 year old English teacher and programmer-annalyst with nothing to do in his spare time. You ask "where?"? Japan, but that dosen't matter. What matters is that Kubuntu lacks basic feedback support and ease of usability.

I appologize for any spelling mistakes, as I happen to be rather lazy (again, another reason why the eject button deal is a negative factor of linux for myself).

[Rob]

Re: CD / DVD eject button. Does it work for you?

You must have missed it: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?board=61.0

[Fenyx]

Re: CD / DVD eject button. Does it work for you?

Ok, first all, take some deep breaths and calm down. Done? Good.

Next, I didn't vote because I couldn't find any option for what I feel about the eject button. My answer would have to be "it does nothing (if a CD is inside the drive), but it's something that I expected".

You see, this isn't really a bug, or a "problem" per se. It the way Linux works. It's one of those little things that differentiates Linux from Windows. Linux and Windows handle files and media differently. For the sake of security and stability, Linux does not allow you to simply use/remove media. You have to mount/unmount them first. The reason behind is that you (the user) cannot be 100% absolutely sure that the OS is done reading/using the media. And who knows better when the OS is done, than the OS itself. That's why we have to specifically tell the OS to eject the media first. In Windows, this type of media handling is only applied to removable media such as USB drives. In Linux, the CD is also a removable media, which kind of makes sense. The CD drive isn't the media, the CD is.

Now, you do make one point I do agree with. Sometimes, even when I have closed everything that is supposed to be using the CD, it still gives me errors that the drive is busy. Sometimes, it turns out that I have to quit Konqueror. I bet that if I check the running process (KSysGuard), I'm going to find that there's a kio_file process that's still accessing the CD, until I close Konqueror. This is something I haven't experienced in Breezy, though. But I'm not sure whether it's a Breezy bug, or a KDE 3.5.3 bug.

That being said, there are 2 possible solutions I could think of that could address the "problem" without affecting the way Linux handles these media. But neither of these solutions would satisfy you because one depends on the distro's devs, and the other is a very simple DIY.
1. If there was some way that the eject button could be mapped to a command that will ask the OS to eject the CD. Something like a keyboard shortcut, except it uses the eject button instead.
2. Create a keyboard shortcut that uses the "eject" command, the same command the Kubuntu uses when you right-click on the CD icon and tell it to eject. I've done this in Breezy, although I only had around 90% success rate. But then, it's a DIY solution, so I won't bother typing how to do it.

As regards the forum:
Rob already pointed you to the Forum feedback section. In terms of authority, there is only one administrator, Open Source. He's the owner and creator of the forum. He's (still) out of town, I think, to attend to his own life. But there are moderators who keep the forum running smoothly as it should.

True, we have a relatively lower membership when compared to ubuntuforums.org. But that isn't really the fault of the forum, is it? The other forum has an advantage of being older, more publicized, and more encompassing, and therefore, more members. This one is relatively new and tries to cater primarily to Kubuntu users.

Also, if you are looking for a place to post feedbacks for Kubuntu development, you're welcome to post here, but you would probably be heard better if you posted a wishlist in Launchpad, Ubuntu's (and of course, Kubuntu's) support system. But some devs (like Patrick) also visit here once in a while. You could also get community feedback if you also post here.

Hope that helps, even a bit.