> > KDE presents my drives in much the same way as Windows - although I > > assume on KDE this does not extend any deeper than the level of the > > interface itself? > > I do not use KDE myself (Volker!) but I am fairly confident that it is > just GUI window-dressing, as is the way that GNOME presents the > removable media as being separate from the file system tree when they > are really part of it too. (MacOS X pulls the same trick.)
All your removable media shows up in their own directory just under /media. Your dvd may be /media/dvd. If no disk is in the drive, the directory is empty. If you put a disk in, the files on the dvd show up under /media/dvd/. There's some extra magic going on behind the scenes, because for optical media there's an auto-mounter running, which mounts the dvd when the directory /media/dvd is accessed, and unmounts it again immediately afterwards. For USB media, a directory is created under /media and removed again when you pull the stick out. Now the KDE interface is really really sophisticated - Microsoft couldn't beat it, not even gnome *vbg* - when you click on the DVD icon on your desktop after putting in a disk, KDE opens - drum roll - a copy of your file manager (aka konqueror) with the directory set to /media/dvd. Ho hum. Actually there's a bit of special case handling going on afterall. If you're on optical media, there's an eject entry under the file menu, which isn't there when you're on hard disk. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is possibly list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
