# Linux driver? question....

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linux-driver-question/517004>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 10, 2009, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linux-driver-question/517004 "2009-11-10T04:01:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linux-driver-question/517004/1 "2009-11-10T04:01:46Z")

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Okay. I got the new Ubuntu on my laptop but it won’t recognize the DVD drive. At all, it sees it in the computer drive list, but it won’t let you access it.

Any ideas? My laptop is an ACER Aspire 5515. I went to the website that makes the drive and there isn’t any help there.

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**Author:** ![Stathol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/71e660/32.png) [@Stathol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stathol)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linux-driver-question/517004/2 "2009-11-10T04:37:44Z")

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Pretty much any DVD drive should be functional via a generic driver. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “seeing it in the computer drive list”, though. If this is a default Ubuntu installation, the “gnome-volume-manager” package should be installed and should auto-mount a disk when you put it in the drive. For a computer with a single optical drive, it will be mounted to /media/cdrom, which is a symbolic link to /media/cdrom0. It should also create a temporary desktop item linking to the mounted disk.

If all else fails, take a look at /etc/fstab. There should be an entry similar to this:

```auto

/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

```

You could try mounting it manually yourself with (for instance):

```auto

sudo mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0/

```

The exact dev node for the DVD/CDROM drive may vary depending on your system.

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**Author:** ![HorseloverFat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8e8cbc/32.png) [@HorseloverFat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HorseloverFat)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linux-driver-question/517004/3 "2009-11-10T15:01:50Z")

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I dont think its a driver issue as DVDs dont use specialized drivers. I have seen this happen on linux boxes before, but only because the cdrom drive wasnt mounted. If you launch the terminal and type cd /media/cdrom are you able to access it?

Im not sure why gnome doesnt automount it, but if youre going to be using linux you should really get familiar with the mount command Stathol describes.