how copy a file from a cd into the computer using the comand line?
 

I would like to install gnuplot on an old computer with red hat 5.2. It is not connected to the internet and for some reason I am not being able to install that package from the installation cds. I want to copy gnuplot on a cd, downloading it from internet using another computer, and then copy the file to my old computer. My question is, how to copy a file from a cd using the command line (red had 5.2 does not have features of dragging to copy)? I need to know a command such a the ones used in mtools (which works to my knowledge only on diskettes and that program will not fit in a diskette) to be used with cds. I need to do that from the command line. Is there such a command? Thanks.
Maria

Why in the world are you running RHL 5.2???

To answer your question, from where the CD is mounted to from the console or xterm session type something like;

cp filename_in_full /where/you/want/the/file/filename_in_full

But all you really need to do is from where the CD is mounted to from the console or xterm session type something like;

rpm -ivh <the_name_of_the_rpm_package_file_name_in_full>

The trouble with downloading individual rpms is that they are very likely to throw dependency errors. If you use the on-line method or the install cds, you system will automatically download any other packages that may be required. If you give it only a single package without access to anything else, it often won't work and before long you will be hunting the internet for more packages to download and install (which may produce their own dependency issuess...).

As Lenard said, why go to all the trouble when you can get so many brand new distros for free?

first do a ls /mnt look for /mnt/cdrom
If it's not there do a mkdir /mnt/cdrom
then "mount /dev/cdrom -t iso9660 /mnt/cdrom"
now you can do anything you need to with the cd

now for my 2cents worth
If your running that old of a version of red hat because the computer is badly out dated
try a newer version of slackware start with slackware 8.0 and go down from there
be ready to install from source at the veary least read the README that comes with all source code
for what dependices and what you need to do th install the program