John W. M. Stevens wrote:
device only when the sync is complete. I am surprised Gnome doesn't do so.
Sorry, the above sentence was supposed to be: "I am surprised OP's Gnome doesn't do so."
This, however, may be the issue: your system may be misconfigured, or this undesirable behaviour may be a result of the file system you are using on your USB device.
I suppose the above sentences are aimed at the OP and not me. I have no issues with the icons of automounted devices on my desktop (both KDE and gnome).
So the question is: what file system do you have on the device that disappears immediately when you umount it, and if applicable, what are your fstab options for this device? Finally, how do you have your system configured to automount hot attached mass storage devices? John S.