Hello?

I'm using SuSE 9.3 Professional. When I tried to access
the floppy drive through My Computer > Floppy as a regular
user, the following error occurred:

Error - Konqueror
The process for the media protocol died unexpectedly

But, the same attempt as a root user, the above error wasn't
generated but the access trial got hung.

However, accessing the floppy through /media/floppy was good.

Here's the line for the floppy access from the /etc/fstab for
reference:

/dev/fd0 /media/floppy subfs noauto,fs=floppyfss,procuid,
nodev,nosuid,sync 0 0

So, what's going on with my floppy drive access? Anyone?

Thanks.

The floppy is mounted correctly, that you can access the floppy fs via the mountpoint proves this.

Your problem is with konqueror - you need to check the logs.

I take it the folder "floppy" in "my computer" is a symbolic link to /media/floppy ? Check?

Hi Simon Bridge,

Thanks for your tips.

When I looked at the properties setting on the floppy icon,
I see this represented as /dev/floppy, but there's no way
this could be changed to somethingelse such as /dev/fd0 or
/media/floppy.

By the way, this floppy icon is not a symbolic link.

I was thinking about deleting this icon and recreating it
somehow, but there's no way of doing this from the context
menu I see.

I guess this isn't that much of an issue since I can access
the floppy through /media/floppy, but it'd be nicer if this
floppy icon can work also.

Anyone's having the same issue in SuSE 9.3 Pro?

Regards,

Did you check what /dev/floppy is? Bet that is a link to /dev/fd0 ... if you're lucky you'll be able to point it to /media/floppy quite easily. (But this is messy.)

Does the icon appear when you mount the floppy and dissappear when you unmount it? (In my system, desktop icons appear in a folder, ~/.desktop - they cannot be modified from the desktop.)

Note: You won't have access to a block special device, only mounted filesystems. So even if you set the icon to link to /dev/fd0 it still won't access the filesystem. You still need it to point to /media/floppy ...

Same thing happens to me, I did an update with YOU today and there was an update for the floppy drive, but I still have the same problem.

AdamCo: With ME??! Oh - you mean with "YUM"? (Oh ... I see there is an update utility called YOU - amday )
Have you checked out the links like I suggested?

pcandpc: Lookie! AdamCo has his distro in his profile

It is a good idea to edit your profile to include your distro and some idea of your location (Continent/superstate is good: USA, Africa ... More specific is nice: Washington DC, Nairobi ... "pineal gland" or "WC" is cute but unhelpful. "ZZ9 pluralZ alpha" is non specific...)

y'all got yer ears on now?

I googled: SuSE 9.3 floppy, and read around. I found this conversation
http://linuxformat.co.uk/index.php?n...viewtopic&t=73

Which included the following snippetUsually the login script makes the user the owner of the floppy.

Hi AdamCo and Simon Bridge,

Thanks for your feedback and comments.

During booting and Desktop Initializing ... phase, there
was a brief moment where the floppy drive's light was on.

Prior to this drive light-on, if I have a diskette in the drive,
this appears to automatically mount the drive, and everything
works nicely.

However, if I don't leave the diskette in during the boot,
the floppy drive isn't mounted at all, and I have the same
issue as before. Here, even if I try to mount the floppy drive
from My Computer > Floppy, this fails either as a regular user
or a root user as stated in my starting thread. The drive remains
unmounted even though its device node is correctly pointing to
/dev/fd0.

AdamCo,
I haven't updated my SuSE 9.3 Pro yet as I'm trying to make
my Intel chipset modem working, but if you've updated yours
already, and you're still experiencing the same issue as I do,
that tells something about this particular version, doesn't it?

I mean when the floppy drive wasn't mounted during the boot,
shouldn't mounting it again after the boot either as root or user
make the drive work?

Regards,

You said, in your first post, that accessing the floppy "through /media/floppy was good"? This has been guiding my advise to you.

You did not answer my questions (see post #4).
1. you do not mount drives, you mount filesystems. If there is no floppy in the drive it will not be mounted.
2. you have noauto in fstab, which is supposed to stop the floppy being mounted at boot. Do you expect the floppy to automount when you insert it?
If this is the i537 or i536 chipset - don't bother. It won't go.

I have a hate-hate relationship with SuSE fstab entries.

/dev/fd0 /media/floppy subfs noauto,fs=floppyfss,procuid,
nodev,nosuid,sync 0 0

I thought this was the standard SuSE thing. However, when I checked
http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/fstab.html

I discovered that a more typical one would be:
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto rw,noauto,user,sync 0 0

My system uses "owner" instead of "user" there.

Hi Simon Bridge,

Thanks for your feedback.

Let's see. The answers to your post #4 are as follows:

1. My Computer > Floppy icon actually points to /dev/fd0.

2. The Floppy icon appears always unmounted when I left
the drive blank during boot, particulary during SuSE's "Initializing
Desktop System ..." process.

So, if I have a diskette in during the desktop initialization,
things work nicely; otherwise, I have the same issue as
indicated in post #1, back to the starting point.

So, it appears that if I could mount the Floppy icon to /media/floppy,
things will work nicely, but mounting the Floppy by right-mouse clicking
on the icon doesn't work with the errors as stated in post #1.

Should I change something in the /etc/fstab like the one you've found
out at tuxfiles.org?

Regards,

This is indeed a problem with some Suse 9.3 boxes.

SUSE is apparently aware of it and blame a bug in KDE. Hopefully, they will release a patch soon.

One quick fix is as follows. Disable HAL via the YAST runlevel services section. Edit the file /etc/fstab. Scroll down to your floppy and cdrom references and change 'noauto' to 'auto' on both. Reboot. Not sure if disabling hal will open up any other problems though. And an easier way might just be to use the link to the floppy in the /media directory until a proper fix comes through.

seldon2 has all good suggestions.

Well it should link to /media/floppy - that's why it don't work.
You may have to be logged in as root to alter it.

2. The Floppy icon appears always unmounted when I left
the drive blank during boot, particulary during SuSE's "Initializing
Desktop System ..." process.
What do you mean by this? You cannot mount icons, only file systems!

In the initialisation process, SuSE is checking your mounted filesystems, then displaying the appropriate ones on the desktop. If the floppy is in the drive at boot, then it would seem the fs on the floppy mounts at that time.

Is this KDE you use? Have you tried gnome?

Hi all,

I'm back to LQ and happy to see some feedbacks
on my old postings.

I'd dropped SuSE 9.3 from my system but I'll come
back to it with seldon2's comment in mind in near
future.

Thanks, Simon Bridge for your interest.

yeah, as far as I can figure out, this is a problem with HAL.

I saw some interesting logs in /var/log/messages after trying to access the floppy. I think it could be fixed by tweaking the hal filesystem access lists, but I don't know enough about how to do that.

I hope suse will fix it in the near future... seems silly that such an obvious and seemingly simple bug isn't getting fixed.