Re: [gentoo-user] How do I eject an audio CD inside Gnome?

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Stroller.

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 12:26:45AM +0100, Stroller wrote:

> On 30/5/2011, at 11:10am, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > ...
> > Right clicking on "Audio Disc" gives an "eject" menu point.  YUCK!!!
> > If I'd've wanted an Apple Macintosh, I know where to buy one.  I just
> > want my drive's eject button to work.


> Your Linux box isn't working, and you're complaining about Macs?

No, comPARing, not comPLAINing.  :-)

> That seems a little inappropriate.

> Let me assure you: when a Mac has a hardware button, it will work just
> fine. It won't be disabled for no reason. 

I seem to remember an old Mac back in ~1992 not having a button to eject
the floppy.  That forced you to use the mouse in the trash can method,
just as Gnome is forcing me to use the mouse to eject.

> This is why I use Mac for the desktop. Because when I get home after a
> hard day's work fixing computers I don't want to have to do a "bat shit
> crazy amount of work to keep things working" [1]. I don't want the kind
> of grief you've been experiencing with this issue. I'd *love* to use
> Linux on the desktop, but it's stuff like this that discourages me.

Yes, I can understand.

> Right-clicking a CD to get an eject menu is very well-established
> across all UIs. It's better established in Windows, in fact (since c
> 95), than it is in Macs, which used to be criticised because one
> dragged the CD "to the trash" (actually, the Trash icon changes to an
> eject icon as soon as you start to drag a CD in MacOS). I would be
> *extremely* surprised to hear that KDE didn't have a right-click eject
> menu option when I last used it seriously a decade ago. None of this
> need prevent the drive's physical eject button working - it should be
> possible for the o/s to be aware of that (as it is in Windows, for
> instance).

Totally agree.  I don't object to their being a clicky way to eject a CD;
I object to it being the _only_ way.  My CD/DVD drive is behind a sturdy
sliding door.  Sooner or later, I'm going to try to eject the disk with
this door shut, with undefined results.  I'd prefer not to get into
dangerous habits.

> I'd be the first to admit that Macs have flaws, but this isn't one (or
> two) of them.

The biggest flaw the Mac has is that it's a computer.  ;-)

> > It gets worse.  If you double click on "Audio Disc", it opens a
> > window with the "files" uselessly displayed.  

> I'll bet it doesn't display the actual files. Audio CDs don't have
> files, they have a single spiral of wav-like audio data. AIUI Linux
> desktops *present* audio CDs so that they *appear* as audio files, so
> that you can more conveniently drag and drop them to your MP3 music
> collection.

Ah, right.  I dragged a track to the desktop, which converted it to .wav.
When I tried to play it, it was a cacophony, a sort of mixture of two
streams one to seconds apart.  I think I'm better just playing the disk
with Aqualung.

> Typically there is a preference which allows you to choose between
> copying them as MP3, AAC, FLAC &c - the audio data will be transcoded
> to the selected format only after you drag & drop the icons in another
> folder. 

> Stroller.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).