mounting things in Debian and the mount command
 

I just did a hard drive install using KNOPPIX 3.4 and at first I thought my fstab file was wrong, so i messed with it for several hours, trying all sorts of tricks on the /dev/cdrom line. Nothing seemed to work, and when i went to my /mnt directory via KDE, the CD-ROM icon was "locked".

Do I ALWAYS have to mount Cds manually in Debian using the mount command?
If yes, what is the exact right command? I have tried reading the how-tos and man pages but the more I read, the more confused I get. Can somebody simply tell me what the mount command for CD Roms is?
I have already put in over 4 hours trying to find out how this works. I am sorry to say this, but I think Linux has a long way to go before it can become user-friendly if a simple mount of a CD cannot be made easier.

I do not know if Knoppix has changed the Debian (Woody) default.
"mount /cdrom" is all I need. Followed by "umount /cdrom" to unmount the device when done.
Floppy is "mount /floppy".
An fstab entry and mount directory can be made for any other device.
I throughy enjoyed Debian's manual mounting after fooling with some Mandrake supermount problems.

Another way
 

If you really don't want to drop to the shell and you use KDE then just right click on the desktop > and create a link to your device, normally /cdrom on debian systems. The mount points are taken care of by debian so if you add another driv it would most likely become /cdrom0 or /cdrom1. You need to make sure the fstab looks something like this

/dev/hdc /cdrom iso9660 users,ro,noauto 0 0 <------ Those are zeros.

The users will allow users to mount and unmount the cdrom otherwise you'll get a root only wants to do this error or something like it. Now when you put in a cd just click on the new device shortcut you created on your desktop and it will mount the cdrom and open a konqueror window for you. See............ all point and click. You can always open up Home also and choose devices from the tree on the left and voila your drives are all right there. Oh yeah.. don't use /mnt/cdrom just use /cdrom. If for some strange alien reason that doesn't work, look in the /media folder and see if your cdrom is there. I am running debian SID with a custom 2.6.7 kernel and I let debian handle my drive symlinks and it is showing that it is in /media/cdrom but /cdrom links to that so either will works... just preference.


Hope it helps.

Thanx to both of you for the replies. The mount /cdrom command did work and creating a cdrom link to the desktop worked also. It sure was easy, once I knew what to do. ..;-)

There's also a graphical mounting/unmounting utility called "xvmount" and it works in any window manager. For moving files from your home directory to floppy (or from floppy to your home directory) there's a special file manager, called "mtoolsfm".

Contrary to what most people think, Knoppix is not Debian and it doesn't behave as Debian. The simple reason for this, is that it is an amalgamation or debian repositories which include woody, sarge, sid, experimental, marillat, and iirc, katame. Consequently, the dependencies are all varied, knoppix is a hell of a distro to use as a live-cd if you leave home, or to install to the hd AS IS, that's why there is a new version every 3 months, or to troubleshoot other os.

Read this article, you will find a reference to fstab:

Knoppix - Instant Gratification
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?res...review-knoppix