Optical Drives

  • Optical drives use removable storage media.
  • Common types include CD-ROM, DVD, and Blu-Ray.
  • Some drives are read-only, others support writing (burning) data.

Writable Optical Disk Types

  • CD-R / CD+R – Write once
  • CD-RW – Rewritable
  • DVD-R / DVD+R – Write once
  • DVD-RW / DVD+RW – Rewritable

Mounting Optical Drives in Linux

  • Modern Linux systems mount removable media under /media
  • Older systems commonly use /mnt
  • Example mount point:
/media/usbthumb

Using Optical Media

  • GUI systems usually prompt an action when a disk is inserted

  • Examples:

  • Open file browser

  • Play media automatically

  • Disks must be unmounted before removal

  • Using GUI option

  • Or with the umount command