Linux setup tips

Part 1: mounting drives, copying and installing files

Despite what Linux adherents would have you believe, Linux can be maddeningly obtuse when it comes to some operations that are as simple as a double-click in other operating systems. Take, for example, the process of accessing a file on a floppy disk.

First, you have to read the floppy disk. In some recent versions of Linux, reading a DOS-formatted floppy can be as easy as invoking the command:

mdir

CorelLinux is even easier, providing icons right in the file browser for the floppy, CD-ROM and Windows hard disks and network connections.
If, however, a DOS-formatted floppy doesn't seem to work, your version of Linux may require mounting the drive.

As noted in a recent Usenet post by Martha Adams, there can be quite a few steps to mount an MS-DOS floppy.

Says Martha:
Here's how I mount my floppy drive for msdos floppies:

as root, go to / and make a mount point: > > mkdir floppy
now go to /etc/fstab and add a line at the bottom of it:
/dev/fd0 /floppy msdos noauto,user 0 0 > >and note the `noauto,user' does not feature an included blank.
now still as root:
mount -a

this will re-read /etc/fstab and perform its bidding.

Actually, this step is unnecessary; edits to the /etc/fstab file take effect almost immediately. (I say "almost" because existing mounts aren't affected; however, subsequent mount commands will read /etc/fstab.) This is the beauty of Unix/Linux: no reboot required. :-)
Now I expect you will find that when you have a formatted-with-files floppy >in the floppy drive, you can say,
mount /floppy
you will notice a slight drive activity, and then when you say,
ls /floppy > >you will find your files there.

Then you can say,
umount /floppy
and try ls again, and no files.

Martha also notes that it is possible to use a non-empty directory as a mountpoint. The results are slightly anomalous, but no more than one might expect. (The usefulness of this "capability" is unknown to me personally :-).)
If you mount as a user you will find owner and group for your files in
/floppy are you.
If you mount as root you will find owner and group for your files in
/floppy are root.
I added two lines in my .profile,
alias fdm='mount /floppy' > alias fdu='umount /floppy'
and I added these in my /root .profile too.
When you do this remember to umount the floppy you have mounted before you remove the floppy or change floppies.

Incidentally, after you've done all the preparations above, the next time you need to do this, the operation is a little easier:

Boot to Linux. Mount your floppy drive, if it doesn't automatically mount at boot up: mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy (to see Windows long file names)

If you need to copy a file to or from your hard drive, well.... that's a bit tricky too.

As noted above, you first need to mount your floppy. Remember the command? Here it is again, for a DOS formatted floppy:
mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt

Once you have it mounted, you can copy a file to or from the floppy like any other file using the cp command
cp /mnt/[filename] [path/filename]

...where filename is the file being copied, and path is the path to copy to.

See the manpage for mount for more info. Type

man:mount

...at any Linux prompt (e.g., in a terminal in the graphical mode).

Working with the Linux Command Line
Sometimes, you may prefer -- or be required to -- work with the Linux command prompt. Say, for example, you have downloaded vmware 1.x and are running Linux under Windows NT or Windows 2000. In order to enable Linux's graphical modes, you need to install "vmware tools." Assuming that you have downloaded this 1394K file using a Windows machine and copied it to a DOS-formatted floppy, you would launch Linux, and type:

mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt
cd /mnt

The ls command would then reveal a file called vmware~1.gz on your floppy.
then: cp /mnt/vmware~1.gz /home/foo

to copy the file to your Linux hard drive's "home" directory (Don't forget the leading slash!)

then,
cd /home

Then, you need to unpack it:
tar xzf foo

Go to the vmware-linux-tools directory:
cd vmware-linux-tools

Become root:
su

Run the install script: (Don't forget the leading period!)
./install.pl

At this point, VMware Linux Tools has been installed.

This process has been tested and confirmed to work with Red Hat 6.x and CorelLinux, with the only wrinkle being the need to type "./install.pl other" (without the quotes) for the VMware Tools installer to recognize CorelLinux, Debian, or other less well-known Linux distributions.

Conversely, CorelLinux is one of the easiest Linux distributions when it comes to installing an application such as WordPerfect for Linux (this should come as no surprise, as both products are from Corel). We downloaded WordPerfect from linux.corel.com and, instead of the usually convoluted process of un-gzipping and un-tarring files, running Perl scripts and so on, we were able to double-click the file. It opened up in Corel's Archive Administrator application. Then, we simply clicked the Extract icon, then double-clicked the Run Me icon -- done! (Corel WordPerfect includes detailed installation instructions for other Linux distributions, most of which require a number of commands to be typed into a Linux console.) Once installed, you may have to use your Linux system's file browser to navigate to the WordPerfect directory (we put it in a dir called "wp") and, from there, run "xwp" to start the program. Again, CorelLinux's Run command makes this easier than it is on most other Linux distributions.

Comments?

For Further Reading:

11/17/99 CorelLinux - a Linux for the desktop.
11/13/99 LinuxOne, Inc.'s LinuxMac is an application for Linux on Intel PCs that reads and writes Macintosh-formatted storage media.
9/29/99 Linux under NT? - Yes, thanks to VMWare.
4/20/99 Linux_versions - Red Hat, Caldera Open Linux and SuSE
05/3/99 Linux_versions-pt2 - SuSE 6.1, PPC Live! and Red Hat 6.
1/29/99 Red Hat Linux 5.2.2 - a hand-on test.
5/03/99 Red Hat Linux 6.x - installation tips, etc.
1/29/99 Linux - Salvation for the "anything but Microsoft" crowd.
10/16/99 Linux GUIs - Part 1: GNOME 1.0.
05/06/00 Dual Booting - including info on how to remove LILO. Updated!
05/21/00 www.learnlots.com: Linux topics: setting up an FTP server, networking basics, reviews, etc.

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