Format SD card

[CDR0224]

How do I format an SD card?

I can see it in Dolphin under devices and it is mounted, but when I right-click on it, there is no "format" option.
In Partition Manager, same thing, no way to format it.

Do I have to first unlock something?

[oshunluvr]

You can't format a mounted file system. In other words, if it's mounted, it already has a file system on it.

Here, when I insert a removable device - sdcard or USB - it appears in Dolphin but is not automatically mounted. When I right-click, Dolphin offers "Reformat" as an option.

KDE Partition Manager should be able to do this also.

[CDR0224]

Hmm, in Dolphin, when I don't mount it, it automatically mounts when I left-click on it.
Annoyingly, if I unmount it, it disappears from the removable devices and I have to unplug/plug it to see it again.

When I don't mount it, but instead first right-click, there is no format option either.

[cookiemuncher]

I know you can format a USB drive using Gparted. Not sure about the rest.

[kc1di]

on my machine KDE 25.10 if i unmont the sd drive it allows right clicking and first entery in the list is reformat. So I'm wondering if you have changed anything since installing, Have you changed any setting in Dolphin?

[oshunluvr]

Hmm, in Dolphin, when I don't mount it, it automatically mounts when I left-click on it.
Annoyingly, if I unmount it, it disappears from the removable devices and I have to unplug/plug it to see it again.

When I don't mount it, but instead first right-click, there is no format option either.

So don't left-click on it. Hover over it and right-click instead.

[kc1di]

Yes right click on the drive

[CDR0224]

Is I wrote in my post, my screenshot is what I get when I right-click ... No format option.

[kc1di]

Is I wrote in my post, my screenshot is what I get when I right-click ... No format option.

You have to unmout it first you can not format a mounted drive. Other alternative would be to install gparted and use it to format the disk but you have to be very sure your formating the correct one.

[Snowhog]

A drive can not be mounted if you want to format it. If the drive is already mounted; and that is very likely the case with your SSD Card when you insert it; then you must unmount it.

Normally, when you plug-in a drive device, a pop-up notifier appears: Disks & Devices; that identifies the device with Mount and Open V shown. Click on the V and you are presented with options. For me, they are:

Mount
Reformat or Edit with Partition Manager
Download Photos with Gwenview

You can click on Reformat or Edit with Partition Manager.

[CDR0224]

Please read my post and look at my screenshot!
The device is unmounted (else the "mount" option wouldn't be there, right?) and the there is no option to format.
Even in partition manager, it's difficult. I managed to do it there, after lots of searching.
Those are the things that will piss off new users coming from Windows. Simple things that should be as easy as "right-click, select format, confirm, done". Windows will unmount, format and re-mount automatically.
Why does this have to be so complicated in Linux?

[oshunluvr]

Yeah OK, something is wrong. Here, it offers reformat even if it IS mounted so that's not it. It looks like this might be simply a version difference.

My 24.04 VM install behaves like yours. I'm unsure if this is a bug or a setting or just a function that wasn't available in the earlier versions of Dolphin, since I've never attempted to use Dolphin to format a USB device. Newer versions have the "format" option in Dolphin. I suspect when you upgrade to a more current release the issue will be resolved. In the mean time, learning how to use the KDE Partition Manager tool to complete this task might be useful. Selecting the device options (down arrow to the right of the device name) in the system tray "Removable devices" icon offers the option to "Reformat or edit with Partition Manager." Alternately, formatting a USB device from the terminal is rather easy,

I suspect part of the reason this function wasn't initially part of Dolphin is simply because it's a file manager, not a partition manager.

Re. your additional comments, for sure, Linux is not Windows. Nor is every Linux distro or Desktop Environment the same. In the case of formatting file systems, Linux is far more complex than Windows because Windows has far fewer file systems available and (at least as far as I can recall) doesn't really offer much in the way of file system options.

Linux also has vastly more options for the user the Windows environment. For example, there is a very basic tool called "gnome-disks" that is in the package named "gnome-disk-utility". It has a simple GUI interface and can format USB devices. It's not included by default because it's not a KDE tool but that doesn't stop you from installing it.

[CDR0224]

Thank you for the tips, oshunluvr.
I have no problem using partition manager per se. It's just an unnecessary complication to do such a simple thing (especially if you come from a system where it was simple).
The fact of completely seperating file management and partition management sounds logical, but some things may be better if not handled so strictly. These are the things that put off users coming from other systems. They will just think "why is this so complicated?", especially if they have to search for it, instead of finding it where they'd expect it to be.
In the meantime, I think I can add something to the dolphin context menu myself. Could be fun

[vanadiumboy]

Thank you for the tips, oshunluvr.
I have no problem using partition manager per se. It's just an unnecessary complication to do such a simple thing (especially if you come from a system where it was simple).
The fact of completely seperating file management and partition management sounds logical, but some things may be better if not handled so strictly. These are the things that put off users coming from other systems. They will just think "why is this so complicated?", especially if they have to search for it, instead of finding it where they'd expect it to be.
In the meantime, I think I can add something to the dolphin context menu myself. Could be fun

I agree.
I think the problem is that Linux tools are fragmented instead of being complete packages.
For example, if you want something to deal with zip files, you can find the tool in Dolphin but once you install it, you find out, it is just a command line tool.
Then you have 3 other projects that are called the “front end” for that ZIP compressor.

For example, K3B is like that.

I have encountered this problem with a OCR software I downloaded from Discover. When you run it, it gives you a messagebox saying some component is missing. It turns out, the command line thing is not installed.
I guess Discover should have installed that automatically.

Another example:
When you run Discover, sometimes it hangs at 99% forever. I reported this bug and was told that the bug doesn’t come from Discover. It is an issue with some component that someone else writes and that Discover is a front end. My bug report gets closed.

Imagine being told by Adobe the bug in their Photoshop doesn’t come from Photoshop. It comes from libpng.dll and now I have to contact whoever makes that library.

I think that such improvements to software needs to be handled by the programmers. They should cooperate and come to an agreement as to what kind of communication interface they want between their apps.

Another big issue is when you run an executable and it crashes or a certain SO file is missing or there is a version number problem with an SO.
When you run it, nothing happens. No messageBox.
You have to figure out where the executable is, you have to run it in a Konsole to get a feedback.
There is no communication between the OS and libc so they just spit out Konsole text rather than catching that and displaying a MessageBox.

[oshunluvr]

I agree.
I think the problem is that Linux tools are fragmented instead of being complete packages.
For example, if you want something to deal with zip files, you can find the tool in Dolphin but once you install it, you find out, it is just a command line tool.
Then you have 3 other projects that are called the “front end” for that ZIP compressor.

For example, K3B is like that.

I have encountered this problem with a OCR software I downloaded from Discover. When you run it, it gives you a messagebox saying some component is missing. It turns out, the command line thing is not installed.
I guess Discover should have installed that automatically.

Another example:
When you run Discover, sometimes it hangs at 99% forever. I reported this bug and was told that the bug doesn’t come from Discover. It is an issue with some component that someone else writes and that Discover is a front end. My bug report gets closed.

Imagine being told by Adobe the bug in their Photoshop doesn’t come from Photoshop. It comes from libpng.dll and now I have to contact whoever makes that library.

I think that such improvements to software needs to be handled by the programmers. They should cooperate and come to an agreement as to what kind of communication interface they want between their apps.

Another big issue is when you run an executable and it crashes or a certain SO file is missing or there is a version number problem with an SO.
When you run it, nothing happens. No messageBox.
You have to figure out where the executable is, you have to run it in a Konsole to get a feedback.
There is no communication between the OS and libc so they just spit out Konsole text rather than catching that and displaying a MessageBox.

Some of the "issues" you describe are a feature of Linux, not a problem. For example, imagine if you want to install zip/unzip but when you install it, you also have to install the 100's of programs that also include the ability to zip or unzip files. Instead, unzip is a command line tool, period. Then each application developer of any and every Desktop Environment (there are dozens) need only call the command line tool from their GUI program.

I believe the nature of the above is one of the reasons Linux is way smaller on disk than the most basic Windows installation.

Re. the original topic of this thread, for myself, the lack of an additional GUI tool to format a thumb drive goes unnoticed because I generally use the command line to format USB or sdcard drives.

As far as bugs effecting some application outside of the control of the application developer? - this is also a feature of Linux. Imagine instead a giant corporation that controlled the development of every tool and demanded $100s of dollars from you every year just to keep the system running and 100's of other companies also asking for payment just so you can add more features to your operating system to make it usable. That's Microsoft.

In the Linux world, we have 100's (maybe 1000's) of developers working (mostly) totally free. Of course, this also means we - the users - are subject to occasional issues like one developer or another not keeping pace with others. Also, since the developers are not paid, they and only they get to decide what's available. The topic of this thread is a good example of that - someone wants a basic formatting tool for one purpose and no one else has offered it yet. Our options are to look for the tool elsewhere (outside Kubuntu) or develop it ourselves. You can use Linux totally free of cost and add features yourself or voluntarily fund projects you find to be of value.

The bug reporting problem you describe IMO is also part of the nature of what makes Linux better than Windows. Since you now now the bug wasn't in Discover you might be able to figure out where the bug actually is, report that to the correct developer (not some faceless corporation), and then yourself have become part of the solution and you have contributed to the improvement of your operating system. This simply isn't available in the MS world. You never have actual access to any developers, and lodging complaints with "AI" chatbot of a Microsoft rarely if every results in anything.

In my now 30 years using Linux I can say confidently that developers generally do respond to bug reports that are valid and properly filed and do so in a timely manner. They do collaborate on many, many things, but not everything. The totality of the entire Linux word is simply too vast and diverse for any one group of unpaid volunteers to try and do everything. Instead, most focus on their one thing that interests them. If you want an idea of the vastness of variety that exists in Linux, go over to Distro Watch and count how many Distros are active then multiple that by thousands of "packages" required to keep all that running.

I for sure can agree Discover still needs a lot of work. If I was to point at one thing Kubuntu has lacked for many, many years, it's a single, easily usable, complete package manager. Discover is not that, not yet at least. I only use Discover to update flatpaks and a few other odd-ball things like Tor browser. I update my system with apt (or pkcon) in the terminal so I can see what "barfs" when it rarely happens. This gives me the info needed to trouble-shoot and find a solution on my own.


Anyway - back to the thread topic. It seems to me having a limited (few options) formatting tool for portable devices is a good idea. I'm wondering if a simple Dolphin Service Menu already exists or if one could be easily created.