User Guide - Media

This chapter covers how to use media such as hard drives, DVDs, CDs, and flash drives in Fedora.

Understanding

When you insert or connect a medium - such as a CD, DVD, hard drive, or flash drive - to your computer, Fedora automatically recognizes and makes it available for use; an icon is placed both on your desktop and in the Places menu in GNOME.

Mounting Media as Volumes
When Fedora detects that a new medium has been inserted or connected, it mounts it as a volume. The hard drive that Fedora is installed on is mounted by default during start-up and cannot be ejected, or unmounted, like other volumes.

When you are finished using your media, you must unmount the medium before removing it from the computer. To do this, right-click on the device's icon and then select Unmount Volume or Eject, depending on what type of media you are using; during this process any remaining changes to the data on the media is written to the device, allowing safe removal without data loss. Removing the medium without unmounting it first could cause data to be corrupted; if this is the case, you will not be able to get your data back in the future.

There are several multi-media applications available for GNOME and KDE desktops. Remember these applications will run on any Fedora desktop environment.

Exploring Media

GNOME Media Applications

All of these programs are opened by Selecting Applications > Sound and Video > Your Application, with the exception of CD/DVD Creator go to Places > CD/DVD Creator to open the application. The programs installed on the GNOME desktop by default are:

CD/DVD Creator, a CD and DVD burner.

Cheese Webcam Booth takes photos and videos with your webcam.

: K3B is a CD burner and DVD creator. Select Applications > Sound and Video > K3B.

Rhythm Box plays CDs and is a music collection manager.

Sound Juicer, the CD ripping tool.

Sound Recorder are installed on both GNOME and KDE desktops by default.

Totem movie player that plays DVDs, CDs, and VCDs.

GNOME Programs in the Repository

Here are two applications that are not installed by default but are in the Repository.

Brasero, a CD/DVD player and burner.

GNOMEBaker another CD/DVD player and burner.

• To install packages please, read the chapter on managing software. You can install applications by either using the PackageKit application or on the command line by using Yum.

KDE Media Applications

The applications installed on the KDE desktop at installation are:

Amarok which is a CD player and collection manager.

Cheese Webcam Booth takes photos and videos with your webcam.

Dragon Player is a video player.

Juk is a music player.

Kaffeine plays DVDs.

KMix, as sound mixer.

KsCD is a simple CD player.

Rhythm Box plays CDs and is a music collection manager.

Sound Juicer, the CD ripping tool.

Sound Recorder are installed on both GNOME and KDE desktops by default.

Totem movie player that plays DVDs, CDs, and VCDs.

Burn Media in GNOME:

1. Open a Nautilus window, by double-clicking Home or Computer (Nautilus is the graphical file manager).
2. Select Places > CD/DVD Creator.
3. Use the initial Nautilus window to navigate to the files you wish to burn, then drag and drop them into the empty CD/DVD Creator window.
4. Click Write to Disc in the CD/DVD Creator window.
5. In the dialog box, you can change the name of the disc and the write speed if they are incorrect. It is probably safe to leave the default options for the write speed.
6. Click Write.

Kb3: When you are ready to burn the files or folders to disk click the Burn button.

Adding Files
To add files to your K3b project, drag the files into the project pane at the bottom of the screen. Everything in this project pane will be burned to your optical medium.

When you are ready to burn the files or folders to disk click the Burn button.

To burn an ISO image file such as the Fedora 8 DVD installation image, use the Tools > Burn DVD ISO Image. Navigate to and select the .iso image, then click the Start button. To burn an ISO image file such as the Fedora 8 DVD installation image, use the Tools > Burn DVD ISO Image. Navigate to and select the .iso image, then click the Start button.

GNOMEBaker: * To burn a specific file to a CD click the Data CD action button, and then drag and drop the file from the top pane into the right hand side of the bottom pane. Entire folders can also be dragged and dropped. Click the burn button to burn the files or folders to the disc.

• Burning an ISO image file such as the Fedora 9 DVD installation image is done through the Tools > Burn DVD Image menu. If the .iso file is for a CD, choose Burn CD Image. Navigate to the image, select it, and click the OK button. Click the Start button in the next window to confirm burning your disc image.

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