In my installation of the 64-bit openSUSE Leap 42.1 operating system the application k3b did not report “finding” my computer’s Digital Video Disc/Compact Disc (DVD/CD) drive. And in my Konqueror Web browser I did not see any evidence of it either after inserting a previously written DVD into my computer’s DVD drive. I have my openSUSE operating system as a Virtual Machine (VM) installed within Oracle VM VirtualBox. In openSUSE the response to the Linux command “wodim –devices” included “rwrw-- : ‘VBOX’ “CD-ROM’”, which is accessible as /dev/sg1. What’s the most user friendly way for me to enable my DVD/CD drive to be recognized in 64-bit openSUSE Leap 42.1 for all users or even a specific user of it within Yet another Software Tool 2 (YaST2)? On the Internet I have read of some commands one may enter for mounting a CD drive or of adding a line to /etc/fstab to enable such recognition for all users of openSUSE operating system. But I’m hoping that there is something I can do just one time, perhaps within YaST2 and without typing any commands, to make my computer’s DVD/CD drive recognizable every time I’m using 64-bit openSUSE Leap 42.1. There is also the possibility that by typing some commands I might in ignorance be trying to do something which has already been set up within the software. By getting the best answer here perhaps I can avoid “messing something up” or duplicating some function within the software of my installation of openSUSE.
It is also imaginable that there might be some permission problem in a non-root user trying to use the DVD/CD drive. Of course for an application like k3b I would want users to have permission to write onto DVDs and CDs.
September 23-24, 2016
Gratefully I had partial success! First with 64-bit openSUSE Leap 42.1 running as a Virtual “Machine” (VM) in Oracle VM VirtualBox I clicked on openSUSE’s “Devices” menu, selected “Optical Drives,” and then clicked on “Host Drive ‘D:’” in order to have a check mark on the left-hand side of “Host Drive ‘D:’” Then I put a Recordable Compact Disc (CD-R) with some files written on it into my Dell computer’s Digital Video Disc (DVD)/CD drive. I saw “Please select the action you want to perform:”. I agreed to “Open in File Manager.” This first opened the file manager PCManFM 1.2.3 to display that CD’s contents. Eventually in the bottom of the items displayed in the left pane of my preferred file manager Konqueror I could see a round image and to the right of it the title or main item on my CD-R. Clicking on that portion of that pane allowed the folders and files not in any folders of my CD-R to gratefully be displayed in Konqueror! So now gratefully I can see the contents of a written CD-R in the file manager Konqueror.
But the CD- and DVD-”burning” application K3b “reported” “No DVD/CD/BD writer found” on my computer, even though it has a DVD/CD writer. Nevertheless on clicking on K3b’s “Device” menu and then selecting “Media Info,” some correct information about the CD-R in my DVD/CD writer was displayed in K3b! So since K3b can obviously “read” the contents of my CD-R, it appears that I have to somehow enable writing onto CDs and DVDs in my DVD/CD writer in the openSUSE or VirtualBox software. Unfortunately starting K3b as a root user by opening the file browser Konqueror as a root user (via the Alt and F2 keys of computer’s keyboard; entering “kdesu konqueror” in the ensuing window, entering my root-user password in the ensuing window), browsing to /usr/share/applications/kde4, and then double-clicking on the icon labeled k3b.desktop in Konqueror still resulted in “No DVD/CD/BD writer found” being reported within K3b. That’s hard to understand because K3b showed that a root user is supposed to have permission to use the software device /dev/sr0 in my installation of openSUSE. In YaST2’s (Yet another Software Tool 2’s) “User and Group Management” I had my openSUSE user name highlighted, then clicked on “Edit” and then on the “Details” tab. Then I put a check mark in the check box beside the cdrom group and probably clicked on or two “OK” software “buttons” after that (I later added my user name to the groups lp, wheel, floppy, video, and disk in this way. In most, if not all of these additions to groups, a reboot into openSUSE was required to make those changes effective.). In Konqueror as a root user I right-touchpad-button-clicked on /dev/sr0 and selected “Properties.” Then on the “Permissions” tab I clicked on “Advanced Permissions.” I could then see that my user name had read and write permissions for /dev/sr0. But unfortunately these permissions apparently did not get passed along from /dev/sr0 to K3b because it showed the permissions for VBOX CD-ROM, which is /dev/sr0, as probably only root. So this might be a problem within K3b. When I clicked on “Modify Permissions” within K3b, the ensuing window was too long at its bottom.–That is I at first could not get the bottom of it up to where I could see all of the areas of the software “buttons” at the bottom of it. However, gratefully Martin Helm within https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/467496-Window-too-large-cannot-resize wrote to in effect hold down the left “mouse” (touchpad in my case) button while holding down the Alt key and then to drag the window upward by in my case moving a finger over my computer’s touchpad. Then I could see the software “buttons” at the bottom of the window. But I was unfortunately unsuccessful in modifying the write permission for my user name for /dev/sr0 within K3b. Is there a way to do that within K3b via a command in a terminal program?
In YaST2’s Software Management I deleted the software packages k3b and k3b-lang and then reinstalled them. But K3b still could not “find” my DVD writer.
I have usually been using the Lightweight X Windows System, version 11 (X11) Desktop Environment (LXDE). But also in the K Desktop Environment (KDE) Plasma Workspace K3b could not “find” my DVD writer.
According to https://en.opensuse.org/YaST_CD-ROM_Drives, which I “visited” on September 24, 2016, there is supposed to be a YaST module called the CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory) drives module. But in my installation of 64-bit openSUSE Leap, 42.1,” in superuser mode following the command “yast2 –list” I didn’t see any modules with names beginning with “cd” or “dvd.” So I guess that the instruction to use the YaST CD-ROM drives module could apply to one or more versions of openSUSE prior to 64-bit openSUSE Leap 42.1. But within CD-ROM of YaST2’s “Hardware” I did see /dev/sr0, /dev/cdrom, /dev/dvd, and numerous /dev/disk… “software devices” listed. I also found “vendor: VBOX,” and “/dev_name2: /dev/sg1” listed within “CD-ROM” of YaST2’s “Hardware.” I checked and found that /dev/sg1 also has read and write permissions for my user name.
The command dbus-launch k3b did not enable K3b to “find” the DVD/CD drive. I entered the optical-disk-”burning” program Brasero for the first time and received no notice of a DVD or CD drive not “found.” So with some ignorance of mine concerning the operation of Brasero, this might mean that my problem is with my installation of K3b.
I installed 64-bit openSUSE Leap 42.1 as an upgrade from 64-bit openSUSE 13.2. I didn’t see an optical drive mentioned in the output of an lspci command in 64-bit openSUSE Leap 42.1. My 64-bit, Dell Inspiron-15, 3521 notebook computer is using a TSSTcorpDVD±RW SU-208CB, DVD/CD drive.