VanLUG Email Archive
(if the gurus see mistakes, please tell me, I've just learned this all this
week. I figure teaching is the best way to learn)
some helpful hints:
- use 'man mount' for help on the mount command (or 'man manycommands'
where manycommands is what you are looking for...not everything has a 'man'
page but they help)
- hard drive partitions show up as:
hda1 first partition on your first hard drive
hda2 second partition, 1st drive
hdb1 1st partition, 2nd drive
and so on *for IDE or ATAPI drives*
I think (but I'm not sure, I don't own one) SCSI drives look like this:
sda1, sdb2, etc.
Floppy drives show up as fd0 (drive a) and fd1 (drive b)
None of these are usable in this form, to use them and access the info on
them use the 'mount' command.
First, you make a directory...this is an example and you may want to change
the name of it.
Type 'cd /'
This brings you up to the root directory
Type 'mkdir temphd'
This creates a directory name temphd
To mount a partition on your hard drive to that directory, try this:
mount -t auto /dev/hda3 /temphd
It will probably complain that the partition is already mounted somewhere.
This is the correct syntax though. If it doesn't complain, go into that
directory and see if you can view the contents of that partition.
You can remove the directory with 'rmdir temphd' if it complains, try this
first:
umount /temphd
which unmounts the partition
to mount a floppy, the same things apply
first make a directory
/fd
then stick a floppy in the drive...now you might need to know how the
floppy has been previously formatted
if it came from Win95, it's formatted with 'vfat'
if it came from linux it's formatted with 'ext2'
if not sure that's ok, this usually works without it
mount -t auto /dev/fd0 /fd
if it doesn't work, change auto to 'vfat' or 'ext2'
you can then 'cd /fd' and see the contents of the floppy.
The best thing for you to do is get a Linux or Unix book and study it...the
most annoying thing about Linux I've found is just not knowing all the
commands...since Linux is a free version of Unix basically, a Unix book
will help and provide some reference material for you. If you find a good
Linux book let me know.
Hope this helps a little,
Greg
When you talk about your troubles, your ailments,
your diseases, your hurts, you give longer life
to what makes you unhappy. Talking about your
grievances merely adds to those grievances. Give
recognition only to what you desire. Think and
talk only about the good things that add to your
enjoyment of your work and life. If you don't talk
about your grievances, you'll be delighted to find
them disappearing quickly.
-Thomas Dreier