I am a newbie that has tried several times over the years to get into Linux and make the jump. But alas, I seem to hit OS bumps that dampen my spirits.

So here's my current problem. I am using Mandrake 9.1 on a Compaq Armada laptop. I can play CDs just fine but I am unable to read or write (I/O) to my USB connected Zip100 or my SanDisk mini Cruzer. In addition, I am unable to do I/O to the floppy drive. The system sees these devices just fine when you probe the USB port. In all cases, permissions seems to be part of the problem. This is extremely frustrating and have to say what good is Linux to me if I can't do I/O to these devices to back up and/or transport files. I REALLY do want to cut the ties w/Windows, but until I can do what I need/want to do with Linux and feel comfortable with doing it, I am not inclined to make the final leap and find no compelling reason to do so.

Here are some details:

Armada E500
Mandrake 9.1
Kernal = 2.4.21

/etc/fstab:

/dev/hda1 / ext3 noatime 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0
/dev/hda6 /home ext3 noatime 1 2
none /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/hdb,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0
none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0
none /mnt/zip supermount dev=/dev/sda4,fs=auto,--,zip,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/removable auto user,iocharset8859-1,kudzu,codepage=850,noauto,umask=0,exec 0

Thanks to anyone willing to spare a little time to help me get this resolved and show me the path to OS nervanna. A programmer I am, a techie I am not.