KDE 3.5.4?

Yes you could. Check out the mepislovers forum, there is a couple of threads on this issue.

However, be forewarned. The kubuntu implementation of KDE is different from Mepis's. You might break things, and I know it may affect automounting of CDs or USB drives.

Ask yourself why you want to upgrade... The latest is not always the greatest. If 3.5.3. runs OK for you, keep it like that, at least if you want your system to work for you. If you just like to tinker, well, tinker away....

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

Thanks. I'll wait for Mepis to offer the upgrade itself.

KDE 3.5.4-3 does break the automounter. Somehow, the Debian packages muck up the "system://media/" file op. Probably just a config problem. If I knew exactly how Warren was getting the automounter to work right, I could probably do a repack of the KDE 3.5.4-3 packages with the correct configs and upload them to MEPIS.

I've never liked the whole automounting thing as it just doesn't seem to work the way I think it should, i.e. miscellaneous mount points strung out all over the filesystem. IMHO, there's ONE base mount point for everything that isn't the root filesystem: /mnt. Nothing else is acceptable. I've worked with automount under Red Hat 7.3 and it often refused to release a CD properly. Always had to eject from the desktop. Pushing the button on the drive wouldn't work.

Warren has done a great job getting a consistent automounter to work. I think the KDE guys need to take a look at his work and see what they can do about incorporating it into the code base.

Michael
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"Reality? Oh, yeah. That has nothing to do with me."

All of the distros I have tried would not eject the cd's by pressing the drive button if they were mounted. I've had to unmount them first

Having them unmount and eject immediately on pressing the button is a great idea . Windows can work that way so why not Linux?

I just tried this with SimplyMEPIS 6.0.

It works exactly the way one would expect with windoze.

In other words, the CD or DVD is automatically mounted upon loading into the drive; and the CD or DVD is automatically unmounted and ejected when the media eject button is pressed on the front of the drive.

"You have two labs?"
"Each has its place. At the university, I try to please the Federal Government. Here, I negotiate with God."

If the contents of the disk are being accessed in any way, like viewing them through konqueror, my drive door remains locked, which IMHO is a good thing.

Mike P

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Life may not be the party we thought, but while we're here, we may as well dance.
Break M$'s shackles from your feet and free yourself with Mepis

Which is, of course, what you would expect from a true multiuser OS.

"You have two labs?"
"Each has its place. At the university, I try to please the Federal Government. Here, I negotiate with God."

Although MEPIS 6.0 handles this through it's automounter, there a some distros that still don't. MEPIS is geared for the home user making the switch from Windows. It NEEDS to function as closely to Windows as is reasonable. Other distros don't do this because they are geared for the uber-geek/server market. The difference between how these systems are used is great.

Is there a physical reason why Linux handles CD/DVD mounting/file access differently? Under Linux, hardware devices are attached to the filesystem as though they are a file themselves. File actions are given higher priority than device level actions.

Windows on the other hand treats hardware devices seperately and attaches them to a device tree first then file access is given. Device-level actions are handled with higher priority than file access. That's why you could eject a CD while burning one under Windows XP. (I don't know if this still happens or not.)

Michael
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My idea of a dream date? Simple!
DATE, $HOME, TOUCH, FSCK, MAKE CLEAN, SLEEP