Linux - NewbieThis Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question?
If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
sometimes works, other times it ties up the drive making me afraid to remove it. Also its really verbose. Any tips about the nuance of safely removing drives?
Reading the man page on the umount command would be a good tip. You don't unmount the device, but the mount-point, and unless you're in the right groups you need to be root or use sudo to run it. If you have /dev/sdx mounted on /home/user/path you'd type in:
You should be able to unmount with either the device path or the mount path. So if your USB device is /dev/sdb1 mounted on /mnt/myusb, using umount /dev/sdb1 or umount /mnt/myusb should work. If you get a message like device or resource is busy, you can use lsof to see what's keeping your device busy. Ex. lsof /mnt/myusb.
The eject button in Fedora's file manager works great but I want to get better at the command line.
Code:
$ umount /dev/sdx
usually does nothing.
I've never known umount to "do nothing". Either it works silently and a subsequent run of mount shows the device gone, or it fails and gives you an error message (usually "device busy"). Did you run mount immediately afterwards to check if anything had happened?
Remember that Linux commands don't usually give you any feedback when they work. They give you an error message when they don't work. It's the Napoleon principle: only wake me if there's bad news.
A simple df will remind you what's mounted where, so you can verify the correct filesystem to umount. It probably isn't /dev/sdx that needs umounting, but /dev/sdxy, or its mount point.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.