Using USB Drives in Linux

To access removable media, Linux needs to be told when it is available. Letting Linux know that a drive is available is called “mounting” the drive. Because disk accesses are slow, Linux often delays copying, reading, or writing to a disk for a more convenient time. It lets the user proceed with other tasks while these slow operations are performed in the background. Because Linux might have tasks yet to be completed, it needs to be warned before you remove a disk from a drive. Telling Linux to finish using the drive so that you can remove a disk is called “unmounting”.

There are many different types of USB drives. Most of them use the same protocol for communicating and generally work on lab machines. There are, however, some that don't. If your drive does not work, DO NOT bring us a driver. We do not provide additional support for these drives. If it works, great; if not, too bad.

1. Insert your USB drive.
2. Click on the USB icon near the time in the panel . A menu should pop up showing any USB devices Linux has detected.
3. If its icon has a red square over it like this: , then your drive is not yet mounted. Click the icon to mount it.
4. Once the square is green like this: , it is now mounted and you should now be able to access your files.
5. You can also mount it by clicking on it in dolphin (the file manager for KDE) and it will automatically mount and display the files.

1. Click on the USB icon on your task bar.
2. Click on the eject icon to unmount the disk.
3. You should now be able to remove your USB drive safely.