I don't know about this distro

I'm running the Fedora Core 3 Live CD and I've tried doing a couple of things and failed. First I want to be able to access my zip drive and my usb drive. So I opened up a console window and followed the same procedure I used in Mandrake to create a new directory:

cd /mnt Change your location to the /mnt directory
ls List the current contents of the folder

I had to stop there cuz when I typed cd /mnt it said:

3 usb

Now what does that mean? Why didn't it list the filesystems mounted like:

Windows Floppy etc

Then I tried typing mkdir /mnt/zipdrive to create a new directory. But it said:

Cannot create directory. Read only file system.

These same commands I used in Linspire and Mandrake to create a new directory for the purpose of mounting my zipdrive and displaying its contents don't appear to be working in Fedora. This makes no sense. This just makes switching to Linux all that more impractical.

What do I need to type in the console in order to create a new directory? And will the mount command I used in the other distros work here?

mount -t auto /dev/whatever /mnt/zipdrive


Another problem was I don't have a clue as to how to set up my printer. I wanted to print out the contents of the console window but when I hit Print it said:

An error occurred while retrieving the printer list. Connection to CUPS server failed. Check that the CUPS server is correctly installed and running. Error: connection refused.

And I did stumble upon an Add Printe Wizard but that didn't work cuz all the options are greyed out.

it didnt list those things in the mnt directory cause fedora doesnt use it. look in /media. also, you wont see your windows partition listed because fedora is a 100% free distro, it does not include ntfs support by default, nor does it automount your windows drives.. you cant create a directory in your /mnt, or basically any directory but /home/yourusername because your not suppost to be able to, su into root, or log in as root to do this, if you are able to in another distro, you are either given too much power under your username, or you are logged in as root, which is not safe. mkdir will make a directory if you are in root (or in your home directory).

as for your printer im not sure, mine automatically popped up and set itself up perfectly, but im sure someone else on here would know more about cups..

sorry bout the rambling, kinda tired, lol

fedora isnt hard once ya figure out that it needs a bit more attention to make it do what ya want it to.

Looked around but did not see a folder called /media.

I'm running the Fedora Core 3 Live CD

You're running A Fedora Live CD, not THE Fedora Live CD. There is no official Fedora Live CD. The Fedora Core team didn't create the Linux4All (aka Basilik) CD; a clever German did. There are other live CD's based upon Fedora. None of them are THE Fedora Live CD either. This is an important point.

Cannot create directory. Read only file system.

It is the nature of live Linux CDs to have read-only file systems, as it is the nature of CD-ROMs to be read-only. Some directories that must be read-write are created in memory. If you open up a file manager (e.g. Konqueror in KDE or Nautilus in GNOME) you will see which directories you can write to (including creating directories) listed under the /livecd directory (/etc, /home, /root, etc. They're symlinked to their proper places in the filesystem hierarchy).

This is Basilisk-specific. Obviously, if you had Fedora installed to your hard drive, you could write to /mnt.

Regarding mounting your zip and USB drives, if you're running as root, look under /root/MyMounts for mount points already created and ready for your use. If you have them connected when you boot into Basilisk, they might even already be mounted.

Again, this is Basilisk-specific. In a Fedora Core 3 installation, most of the default mount points are under /media.

Originally Posted by 357mag I'm running the Fedora Core 3 Live CD and I've tried ... Another problem was I don't have a clue as to how to set up my printer. I wanted to print out the contents of the console window but when I hit Print it said: An error occurred while retrieving the printer list. Connection to CUPS server failed. Check that the CUPS server is correctly installed and running. Error: connection refused. And I did stumble upon an Add Printe Wizard but that didn't work cuz all the options are greyed out.

I had this exact problem on a brand new freshly updated Fedora Core 5 system and a google search pulled up this page as the 2nd hit. What I had to do was bypass the stupid KDE add printers and instead go to the cups administration web interface at http://localhost:631/admin following these instructions:

http://www.linuxprinting.org/cups-doc.html

Hope this helps someone else.