On Tue, 2008-04-29 at 19:24 +0100, Alan Bartlett wrote:
> 2008/4/29 Lanny Marcus <lannyma@gmail.com>:
> [root@dell1602 ~]# grep ^hdc /var/log/dmesg hdc: DV-516D,
> ATAPI
> CD/DVD-ROM drive hdc: ATAPI 50X DVD-ROM drive, 256kB Cache,
> UDMA(100)
> [root@dell1602 ~]#
>
> Good(-ish). The optical device is there but it's an old combo
> CD/DVD-ROM drive.
>
>
>
> >Then looked at the symbolic links? ls -l /dev/ | grep hdc
>
>
> [root@dell1602 ~]# ls -l /dev/ | grep hdc
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 29 12:30 cdrom-hdc ->
> hdc
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 29 12:30 dvd -> hdc
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 29 12:30 dvd-hdc ->
> hdc
> brw------- 1 lanny disk 22, 0 Apr 29 12:30 hdc
> [root@dell1602 ~]#

When I do that, I get nothing. But, this is promising (BTW, my prev
ide-cd thingy was left over from another CentOS box. It's not effective
on this one.).

]# ls -l /dev|grep -i "dvd\|cd"
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 cdrom -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 cdrom-hda -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 cdrw -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 cdrw-hda -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 cdwriter -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 cdwriter-hda -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 dvd -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 dvd-hda -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 dvdrw -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 dvdrw-hda -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 dvdwriter -> hda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Apr 26 17:52 dvdwriter-hda ->
hda

And

# ls -Ll /dev|grep -i "dvd\|cd"
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 cdrom
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 cdrom-hda
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 cdrw
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 cdrw-hda
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 cdwriter
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 cdwriter-hda
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 dvd
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 dvd-hda
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 dvdrw
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 dvdrw-hda
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 dvdwriter
brw------- 1 wild-bill disk 3, 0 Apr 26 17:52 dvdwriter-hda

I popped a CentOS DVD in, got one image on the desktop and one mount
listed from the mount command and one nautilus box popped up..

I removed that and inserted a Mark Knopfler DVD and totem automatically
popped up to do it's usual bitch about plugins.

Mount showed one on /media/SHANGRILA and desktop had one ICON for it.

So what does grep ^hda /var/log/dmesg tell you about your optical drive Bill?

Being a Unix user of 25 years, I'm always a little suspicious of these new-fangled things like desktops. ;-)
However, if you're using Gnome then please have a look at System --> Preferences --> Removable Drives and Media
I know that there is a difference in the automount of a data CD/DVD when the user is root (basically it doesn't, you would have to right-click on the icon and select mount manually) and when the user is a normal user (automount err automounts).