The second problem is permissions. As root I tested Safely Remove with USB flash drives and Eject with an optical disk. The icons disappear for both, and the optical disk physically ejects. Although after the disk ejects the "eject -T dvd" command stops working until after I use the drive eject button. Then the "eject -T" command works.
I can't figure out what the permissions problem might be. I don't see any special suid permissions on any of the TDE bin files or the eject command. Could the TDEHW code cause this behavior?
Could pmount be causing this behavior? I never have used pmount before so I am a complete noob.
Group assignments for my normal user account:
disk lp wheel floppy audio video cdrom plugdev power scanner users
Darrell