Ubuntu
kdebase package

  1. Bug #222041
  2. Comment #17

Comment 17 for bug 222041

Revision history for this message
Paul Worrall (nicknak) wrote :

I wonder if this is the correct solution to this bug:

The HAL device for USB sticks does have an 'Eject' method. Whilst this doesn't actually make the USB stick pop out of the socket ;-), it does have the effect of removing the block device file (e.g. /dev/sdf1) and hence causing the desktop icon to be removed.

When 'Safely Remove' is selected, kdeeject is executed. This script does not call the HAL method, instead it calls the 'eject' program and this works only if the user has write access to the device file. But starting from Hardy, the device files are no longer owned by the plugdev group (see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Specs/HardyHardwareDetection for the reasons) and hence 'eject' fails and kdeeject displays the error message mentioned in this bug.

For this reason I recon a better solution would be to patch kdeeject to use HAL's eject method as this does not depend on the user having write access to the device. Bug #217550 has such a patch but it might need some improvement?