Recognizing the CD-RW in Slackware 10.2

Nav · 03-25-2006, 02:34 AM

Hi everyone. I recently installed Slackware 10.2 and everything seems to be working fine, however I cannot access my Samsung CD-RW. I did a "dmesg | grep CD" and the following was output:

Code:

hdc: Compaq CRD-8322B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-252B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdc: ATAPI 32X CD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache, DMA
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
hdd: ATAPI 52X CD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 8192kB Cache, UDMA(33)

So I know it should be under /dev/hdd. I also know I should do something to /etc/fstab to get it to find it, however I do not know what. Currently, my fstab looks like this:

Code:

/dev/hda1        swap             swap        defaults         0   0
/dev/hda2        /                reiserfs    defaults         1   1
/dev/cdrom       /mnt/cdrom       auto        noauto,owner,ro  0   0
/dev/fd0         /mnt/floppy      auto        noauto,owner     0   0
devpts           /dev/pts         devpts      gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0

There is no entry for /dev/hdd and there is no cd-rw under /mnt or anything similar. I'm kind of new to all of this, so how do I get Slackware to see my CD-RW? Thanks.

Bruce Hill · 03-25-2006, 04:23 AM

Welcome to LQ!

Right now you can mount that Compaq as root by issuing "mount /mnt/cdrom" in a terminal. If you'd like to do that as a normal user, more sane for sure, then you'll need to change that line in your /etc/fstab file like this:

Code:

/dev/cdrom       /mnt/cdrom       auto        noauto,users,ro  0   0

That /dev/cdrom is a symbolic link, not a real device.

Code:

bruce@silas:~$ ls -l /dev/cdrom
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 2006-01-27 01:32 /dev/cdrom -> /dev/hdc

will show you the linked device. Slackware fixed that for you.

The Samsung wasn't setup by default, being the second ATAPI device. You can do something like:

Code:

/dev/hdd         /cdrw            auto        noauto,users,ro  0   0

and make the mount point as root with "mkdir /cdrw" then you can mount it as users issuing "mount /cdrw"

There are other things you'll need to do if you want to use it for more than burning CDs, such as playing music or movies.

For music, in XMMS, choose Preferences > CD Audio Player 1.2.10 > Configure and on the Device tab at the bottom Add drive. Then click on Drive 2 and put /dev/hdd for the Device and /cdrw for the Directory and click on Digital audio extraction and then Check drive...

For movies, from a terminal as a normal user issue "xine-check" and follow it's directions.

Edit: I didn't read correctly the first time.

Nav · 03-25-2006, 04:44 AM

Thanks, that works perfectly, and you're right, I do like the idea of being able to mount the drive as any user.

Bruce Hill · 03-25-2006, 05:14 AM

Never take the name of root in vain. That's why Windoze gets hosed so often. They setup the system with Administrator (code word for root) priviledges, so it's easy to run programs which can execute in the system files.

Run your Slackware system as a normal user (read responsible behavior), and only "su" to root when you have to have root priviledges. You can also issue commands like this:

Code:

bruce@silas:~$ su -c "cdrecord -v -eject driveropts=burnfree dev=/dev/hda /path/to/file.iso"

That (the -c switch) causes the next argument to be treated as a command, and runs the command that is within the quotes as root, but returns you to a user prompt as soon as it finishes.

You can also add yourself to the wheel group (issue "vigr" as root, and then add your username to the wheel group). Then uncomment (remove the # from in front of it) this line:

Code:

# %wheel ALL=(ALL)       NOPASSWD: ALL

in the file /etc/sudoers and then you can issue "sudo -i" as a normal user to "su to root" without a password.

This is convenient if you're the only one with that user account you add to the wheel group, and it should have a good password. If your system isn't basically a single user system, or if it runs any servers, I would recommend that you don't change that. For my server I have a pretty darn good root password, and only "su" to become root.