I either have to be the owner of the floppy device (in the example above /dev/sdb) or I need to use sudo on the command line to be able to format.
Now i have just tested sudo with gfloppy and here are my findings: Inserted disk Unmouted disk Opened gfloppy I was greeted with the following error: Cannot initialize device You do not have the proper permissions to write to /dev/floppy/0 or /dev/fd0, formatting will not be possible. Contact your system administrator about getting write permissions. Program auto closes. Opened sudo gfloppy Error is gone. This is what happens when I try to format: DOS - Quick [OK] Format Works DOS - Standard (default selection) [FAIL] Could not determine current floppy geometry. DOS - Thorough [FAIL] Could not determine current floppy geometry. ext2 - Quick [FAIL] Floppy formatting cancelled. ext2 - Standard (default selection) [FAIL] Could not determine current floppy geometry. ext2 - Thorough [FAIL] Could not determine current floppy geometry. -- gfloppy could not determine current floppy geometry https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/274904 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Desktop Bugs, which is a bug assignee. -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs