Dumb Question of the Day
 

OK guys, here we go. I fugure you need at least one really dumb question a day on this board to keep you young and boy do I have a doozzy. If you have read some of my previous posts, you will realize that I am very new to Linux, and hopelessly entrenched into the Windows system. Bear with me, please.

How do you view files on a floppy disk or a CD? I spent over two hours last night trying to figure it out. I made small steps, but nothing major. In windows, if I want to view, edit, copy, or move files to a floppy disk I just click on the A: drive. How on earth do you do this in Linux. I have read the help files and what seams like thousands of pages on the internet but I think most of them are written in French or something. I understand little bits and pieces but not the whole thing. Most of the Linux terminology goes right over my head.

I would just like someone to tell me, "OK dummy. You want to look at files on your floppy. Click here, do this, do that, and your done." You know, plain dummy english. I sure hope it is that easy though. I would like to do all this using the GUI and not all of the complicated command lines. I guess what I want is to be able to do it like Windows. Click, drag, drop, done.

I am running Mandrake 8.1 using KDE. By just clicking around, I have figured out quite a bit of how this things works. If I can't figure out how to view, edit , move, and copy files from the HDD to the floppy or CD and visa versa, I might as well give up. I can do all of this in my sleep with Windows.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give. Please remember to use dummy english in your replies.

freezinbutt


:smash:

often you have to manualy mount/unmount floppies and cdroms. open up a terminal and type:

mount /mnt/floppy

that mounts the floppy

mount /mnt/cdrom

that mounts a cdrom

when you want to read abnother floppy/cdrom you first need to unmount the device

umount /mnt/floppy

unmounts floppy

umount /mnt/cdrom

unmounts cdrom

when a device is mounted i can be found under /mnt in mandrake. in this case ther floppy files are in /mnt/floppy and the cdrom files are in /mnt/cdrom

you can get a service to automatically mount/umount devices, but it often is not installed by default

hope that helps

OK dummy. You want to look at files on your floppy.

Click here, do this, do that, and your done.

alternatively you need to mount the drive before you access it. windows does it automatically, and you know fully well what happens if you remove a cd half way through loading something on it ... :rolleyes: you can use program to do the same kind of thing in linux, but that's not the point... i don't know how to do it in kde, cos kde is bobbins, but on a console you'd say:

mount /mnt/floppy

to mount the floppy drive as that directory, given that it already has an entry in /etc/fstab (it should, it's a VERY standard location) and then go to that directory in whatever nasty kde program you want, and your files will be there. same goes for cdroms (normally /mnt/cdrom as you'd guess) and to unmount the drive...

umount /mnt/floppy

there's an option in a right click menu on each device to mount them under gnome, i guess kde has got the same thing too.

it might not make too much sense to you at the moment, but it's just cos windows treats filesystem differently (worse imho)

Thanks guys!!!
 

Thanks. That's just what the doctor ordered. Nice and dumbed down for us newbies. I learned something new. Thanks again.

freezinbutt

There is a GUI within KDE that will let you do this. It's called KwikDisk. You should be able to get to it from K -> Configuration -> Hardware -> KwikDisk. This will put an icon on your task bar and when you click on it you get a list of mountable filesystems. Just put the CD/floppy in the drive and click the icon, then select the mount point. To unmount the device, just repeat the process.