For your vfat problems, try doing a "man fstab". That man page describes all the fields in the fstab so you can understand what you're putting in, and maybe you can figure something out based on how your system is configured.

Good work! You're really persistent.

Sorry I missed it. That's odd. - "I can read and write thru root, but no other users are able to do anything but read." - I use the same fstab I posted earlier and I can read/write on them through any accounts. However, last night I experienced your situation. The solution I came up with is

Open terminal/console
su
enter root passwd
cd /mnt/win_c(whatever)
mkdir temp
exit

Now you should be able to write/read on temp folder.

"I was able to dlld star office and get that instald, working smoothly so far."

If you must use Wine, look for CodeWeaver's. It's free. People reported they had better chance with it.

Tip: to use downloader, you right-click on a file link and copy the link, paste it in downloader, then go.

Don't give up!

sorry for the delay, between going out of town and designing two databases for the palm it has kept me hopping. Got the read and write issue resolved thru the open terminal method listed above, thank you so much.

came across an interesting tid bit for what it is worth with star office, not sure if it is my end or a glitch, but when attempting to sync a usb palm pilot cradle and star office, i have to change the settings to dev/ttyUSB1 and check the activate, hit ok, hit the hot sync, go back under and reconfigure the settings, hit ok again, all this time a message is popping up saying that it can not work, and while it says that, the dates and addresses are syncing on the screen. rather odd, but it works.

Ended up going with vmware, I ran into a friend that had it running, and helped me set it up. I will probably end up getting CodeWeavers as well, if nothing else, to try to learn it.

had another offbeat question, I am considerig looking into developing a couple palm apps and was curious about that thru linux. I have not done a lot of research on it yet, but was curious if anyone knew of a good way for someone that has no programming expierence to get into it.

just another for what it is worth, if there are any photographers or residdents of Bloomington, IN viewing this, there are a couple of databases that you might find useful on my website www.chriscphotography.com I have already had to explain that I am not insane for giving these away instead of trying to make money, well, try to explain...

thanks for everyones help i getting me up and running,

cassady