my useless device
 

I am trying to load several programs for mandrake so I downloaded then and put them on my zip disk. It is not reconzied. I then said worry later let's try my floppy. I put the programs on my floppy and lo and brhold nothing. I get a error about the block device fd0 doesn't exist. So I wonder around here and there and Google for informations and I find a post.
man MAKEDEV
I look figure something out and type

-cd /dev
-MAKEDEV fd0

-action not premitted

I was root. Then I try

-MAKEDEV fd0H1440

-Action not premitted

Finally I find

-mknod fd0 b 2 0

I go into KDE and use kwikdisk and click floppy or something and receive

-Callee: mount /dev/fd0
-mount: /dev/fd0: unknown dev

The device is there but won't mount

any help is appricated

Jarin Scott

what is there written in the file /etc/fstab

???

Alex

fstab for the floppy is
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto user,iocharset=iso8859-1,umask=0,sync,exec,codepage=850,noauto 0 0

hmmm, not sure if this has anything to do with it, but why do you have both auto and noauto for the same device?

what is the result of the 'ls -l /dev/fd0' command?

its possible its a permission problem. Can you mount it from the command line?

sorry that's probably not much help

Alex

don't you have to use "mount /dev/floppy" under mandrake 8.1?

Surely if that's where you saved something to, then that's the mount command?

Or just download thing's to your home directory, if it's an RPM, then just click it from there, you can always delete it later, or it's TAR files, maybe to the TMP directory (though I usually just save them to my home dir) then after installation delete them/it.

Oh and maybe you could track down a "magazine front" copy of mandrake 9.1 (there's one on the front of the new issue of LinuxFormat magazine) I suspect that would sort out your hardware recognition.

regards

John

/dev/floppy is just a symbolic link to the correct device (usually /dev/fd0) but you should try the commandline mount, since it should spout more errors at you

Alex

I can't use the internet with linux so I use windows. The auto should refer to filesystem and noauto refers to mounting at startup if media present. I'll try the ls command and get back later.

Thanks for the replies,
Jarin Scott

ok, ls -l /dev/fd0 gives me
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 8May18 04:41 /dev/fd0 ->floppy/0
When i try to mount the floppy i recieve
Mount: /dev/fd0: unknown device

If I enter the control center and goto mount points the floppy does not show up on any of the screens.

P.S. I figured out how to get my mouse working after switching to windows with my switch box. One small victory.

Jarin Scott

hmm it seems that fd0 is a link to floppy/0......

maybe you're using devfs, try checking the permissions on /dev/floppy/0 as well.

Alex

P.S. im obviously going senile, I have the same to autos in my fstab, and put them in for my two cd drives as well........opps

The permisions for /dev/floppy/o arebrw-rw 1 jarin floppy 2,0 may 19 02:50 0

I think I may be using devfs but am not sure.

I removed the two devices and they came back after a restart.

Jarin Scott

yes you're running it. devfs creates entries in the /dev/ directory as they are needed (and therefore eleminates the need to have loads of files there that will never be used). The links are just there for legacy support since most programs still expect to find the floppy drive at /dev/fd0 and the following numbers.

I'm afraid i have never used devfs, maybe google can yield results with this added information.

Alex

Thanks for the help webtoe, I finally got my floppy working by turning the PnP option on in the bios abd using the command "linux nobiospnp" in lilo text mode. That's the last time I listen to a how-to that says disable bios PnP.

Thanks,
Jarin Scott