Comment 183 for bug 441835

This really is a stinker of an old bug. Martin Pitt, this is fixed in other linux distros, in fact it never really became a problem in them. What is needed is some determination and the will to get a grip on it in Ubuntu.

I concur with NoOP that a permissions problem seems to be at the heart of it. I have made launchers to demonstrate how sudo can mount and dismount the floppy drive and hope this helps somebody, somewhere to get a grip!

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On the very top panel right click then left click to select 'add to panel'.
Select 'Custom Application Launcher', press the Add button

Set the following fields:-
Type: Application in Terminal
Name: Mount floppy drive
Command: sudo mount /dev/fd0/ media/floppy0 -o user
Comment: Use this short cut to mount the floppy drive

Press OK and a new launcher icon should appear in the top panel.

You can repeat the process to set up a launcher to demount the drive. In this case you could use:

Type: Application in Terminal
Name: Unmount floppy drive
Command: sudo umount /dev/fd0
Comment: Use this short cut to unmount the floppy drive
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Count me in to do any testing etc as the dev thinks fit. I can't code or I would volunteer for that.

We can't keep living in denial that this is not a major user turn off by pretending floppy drives are entirely obsolete.