floppy disk dilemma SOLVED

[dougmack]

I guess I don't understand how to deal with floppies.  I have some old dos routines and some Win install disks that I'm trying to use with wine and dosbox, but if I ever get to read a floppy it's
a wonder, and then I can't seem to exit that one and read another.  In Dolphin, it knows that there's a floppy, but most of the time it won't let me select it and open it to copy a file.
Is there a tutorial somewhere that will help me thru this morass?  

Thanx--doug

[Just17]

unmount the floppy from the command line before changing diskettes .....  should do what you need .....

There are a couple of threads on setting this up ....  or used to be IIRC .....  search for   floppy  on the forum

[dougmack]

First thing I did was search for floppy, and there are a lot of hits, but it didn't seem to be useful--maybe I didn't dig far enough.  When I try to umount the floppy from command line, it says the disk is already
unmounted.  Dolphin says the disk is already mounted, but it won't let me select it.  I may have to copy the floppy to a thumb drive with Windows just to access the files.  That doesn't seem very reasonable
to me. And I don't know if that would work for an install disk, to be used with a CD.

--doug

[old_guy]

dougmack

Check out:

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,86770.msg721756.html#msg721756

Earl

[dougmack]

That's exactly the file I referred to, and put in all the things it said to do.  Read my reply to myself.


--doug

[ternor]

Perhaps you would be better off without auto mounting.  I seem to have thrown all my floppy disks away (I wanted to check what happens when I insert one) but I had trouble using usb sticks after adding a line in /etc/fstab to mount a usb.  From memory, the result was similar to what you are experiencing.  Two components of the system told me two different things about the status of the usb.

When I insert a cd/dvd or a usb stick, the device notifier gives me the option of opening it with 'File Manager' (in my case that is Konqueror).  If I do that, the device is then mounted and available for such things as copying files.  To unmount, I have to close anything actually reading the device, right-click the entry in Konqueror 'places' and select 'safely remove [usb] ' or 'release' / 'eject' in the case of a cd/dvd.  Dolphin (I guess) functions in a similar way.

I used to have an entry in fstab for 'cdrom' but now I have no entry for usb or 'cdrom'.  Life is good.

[Just17]

Quoting from one of my own ...

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,96535.0.html

OK, PCC - Local Discs - Floppy drive .....  and there made my selections and said yes to writing the entry to fstab.

Great!

The floppy entry in Dolphin, when clicked on, mounts the diskette and displays its contents.

All good.

Unfortunately there is no  visual indication that it is mounted ....   unlike other discs in the list.

Now I wish to view the contents of a second and more discs ......  but the right click menu does not have an unmount entry for the Floppy, like it does for other devices in the Places list.

Yes I can - as user - unmount the floppy at the command line .....

Although that thread was about a different aspect of floppy use, the above information is pertinent -- set up the floppy through PCC, mount it by clicking it in Dolphin, and unmount it at the command line when you wish to view the contents of another floppy.

[dougmack]

Well, I haven't yet removed the line from fstab--can you comment out a line in fstab (#)?  But I have looked to configure the floppy in PCC, as the last correspondent suggested, but there is no entry for a  floppy disk. I know small Unix systems of 35 years ago used floppies--is there anyone here who
remembers how it was done?  Or is the kernel just not programmed to do it any more?  (this one):
     uname -a
     Linux Linux1 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Jul 8 18:01:30 CDT 2011 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
For stand-alone programs, I could copy them to a thumb drive or a usb hd under Windows, but I'm afraid that programs that need to "install"
and look for a floppy will not find it and give up.  (That's what I think happened that started this thread.)  I could even copy a stand-alone file into
my dual-boot XP, and then go and find it in pclos, but the install problem will still exist.
(The program I'd like to install is AutoCADLT release 2, from about 1993 or so. There's a floppy and a CD.  I don't know if it's possible, but without the
floppy, I think it's hopeless. I can always run it in Windows, but it's nicer to have everything in one place.)

What now, kind gurus?  --doug

[Just17]

Well, I haven't yet removed the line from fstab--can you comment out a line in fstab (#)?

Yes

[Old-Polack]

Well, I haven't yet removed the line from fstab--can you comment out a line in fstab (#)?  But I have looked to configure the floppy in PCC, as the last correspondent suggested, but there is no entry for a  floppy disk. I know small Unix systems of 35 years ago used floppies--is there anyone here who
remembers how it was done?  Or is the kernel just not programmed to do it any more?  (this one):
     uname -a
     Linux Linux1 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Jul 8 18:01:30 CDT 2011 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
For stand-alone programs, I could copy them to a thumb drive or a usb hd under Windows, but I'm afraid that programs that need to "install"
and look for a floppy will not find it and give up.  (That's what I think happened that started this thread.)  I could even copy a stand-alone file into
my dual-boot XP, and then go and find it in pclos, but the install problem will still exist.
(The program I'd like to install is AutoCADLT release 2, from about 1993 or so. There's a floppy and a CD.  I don't know if it's possible, but without the
floppy, I think it's hopeless. I can always run it in Windows, but it's nicer to have everything in one place.)

What now, kind gurus?  --doug

Go back to the instructions I gave you here...

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,86770.msg721756.html#msg721756

...and follow them exactly. They worked for you then, and they will work for you now, if you follow them properly and don't make any typos. Nothing has changed in the basic way Linux handles floppy disks in the entire time I've been using it. HAL and udev, as well as various other auto mounting schemes over the years, have offered alternatives that sometimes work and sometimes don't, but the method shown here has never changed in the past 13 years, and has worked with every version of Linux from then to the present.

If you have an actual /mnt/floppy directory and the proper line in your /etc/fstab file, KDiskFree (kdf) will also offer an entry from which you can mount or unmount your floppy, and allow you to open the mounted disk in your File Manager.



Saying, "I did that" is not the same as showing your actual work, which you have not done. Show us what you've done and we can probably spot the errors.

[dougmack]

Here is what I have done.  Note that I did not change the text of the file at all, I copied and pasted it, just added #! /bin/bash on the first line, since, as I mentioned, clicking on the icon before I did that simply opened the text file on the desktop.  Now it opens Dolphin with floppy highlighted, but nothing in the whitespace window where files ought to show. And, as I said before, right-clicking on the icon just produces the usual right-click desktop menu, either before or after I made it an executable file. Here is the actual file, copied and pasted, with my first line addition:

doug@Linux1 etc]$ cat /home/doug/Desktop/Floppy
#! /bin/bash
[Desktop Action Format]
Exec=kfloppy %v
Name=Format

[Desktop Entry]
Actions=Format;
Comment[en_US]=
Comment=
Exec=mount /dev/fd0; dolphin /mnt/floppy
GenericName[en_US]=
GenericName=
Icon=media-floppy
MimeType=
Name[en_US]=Floppy
Name=Floppy
Path=
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
TerminalOptions=
Type=FSDevice
Dev=/dev/fd0
UnmountIcon=media-floppy
X-DBUS-ServiceName=
X-DBUS-StartupType=none
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=

If I need to add ServiceName or Username, you didn't specify--I copied it exactly.

Here is fstab, in full:

[doug@Linux1 ~]$ cat /etc/fstab
# Entry for /dev/sda9 :
UUID=3d6bb7a2-fd4c-474d-b52b-8f4597169f35 / ext4 defaults 1 1
# Entry for /dev/sda11 :
UUID=0209a7d5-9e9a-4c9b-8c97-9f6f13f2e267 /home ext4 defaults 1 2
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=6e282f10-0e54-46bb-96c6-eb22a10ab999 swap swap defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda10 :
UUID=b37f7039-454f-4c65-8fda-f23b489c2443 swap swap defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
/dev/fd0        /mnt/floppy     auto    rw,user,noauto,exec  0 0
here is the root directory with /mnt, some leading and trailing entries snipped (/)

[doug@Linux1 /]$ ls -la
total 120
drwxr-xr-x  22 root root  4096 Mar 16 03:06 ./
drwxr-xr-x  22 root root  4096 Mar 16 03:06 ../
-rw-r--r--   1 root root     0 Mar 16 03:06 .autofsck
-rw-------   1 root root   113 Feb 14 13:02 .bash_history
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Mar 18 17:22 bin/
/snip/
drwx------   2 root root 16384 Feb 14 12:58 lost+found/
drwxrwxr-x   4 root root  4096 Mar 17 22:23 media/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root  4096 Mar 17 21:23 mnt/                         <<<<<<<
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  1045 Jan 31 11:57 Module.symvers
-rw-rw-r--   1 root root     0 Feb 14 13:02 null
/snip/
drwxr-xr-x  19 root root  4096 Mar  9 20:28 var/
[doug@Linux1 /]$

in the subdirectory /mnt is /floppy, and in the subdir /floppy is

[doug@Linux1 floppy]$ ls -la
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 17 21:23 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 17 21:23 ../

**************************************
Researching KDiskFree, it seems that you have to have KDE 4.8, which is not in the repo. (Neither is 4.7)
This is what I have:  Platform Version 4.6.5 (4.6.5)

I have downloaded kdf-0.5.1-1.src.rpm but have not unpacked or installed it yet, awaiting comment from the forum.

--doug

[Old-Polack]

Here is what I have done.  Note that I did not change the text of the file at all, I copied and pasted it, just added #! /bin/bash on the first line, since, as I mentioned, clicking on the icon before I did that simply opened the text file on the desktop.  Now it opens Dolphin with floppy highlighted, but nothing in the whitespace window where files ought to show. And, as I said before, right-clicking on the icon just produces the usual right-click desktop menu, either before or after I made it an executable file. Here is the actual file, copied and pasted, with my first line addition:

doug@Linux1 etc]$ cat /home/doug/Desktop/Floppy
#! /bin/bash                        <--- Remove this from the file
[Desktop Action Format]
Exec=kfloppy %v
Name=Format

[Desktop Entry]
Actions=Format;
Comment[en_US]=
Comment=
Exec=mount /dev/fd0; dolphin /mnt/floppy
GenericName[en_US]=
GenericName=
Icon=media-floppy
MimeType=
Name[en_US]=Floppy
Name=Floppy
Path=
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
TerminalOptions=
Type=FSDevice
Dev=/dev/fd0
UnmountIcon=media-floppy
X-DBUS-ServiceName=
X-DBUS-StartupType=none
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=

If I need to add ServiceName or Username, you didn't specify--I copied it exactly.

Here is fstab, in full:

[doug@Linux1 ~]$ cat /etc/fstab
# Entry for /dev/sda9 :
UUID=3d6bb7a2-fd4c-474d-b52b-8f4597169f35 / ext4 defaults 1 1
# Entry for /dev/sda11 :
UUID=0209a7d5-9e9a-4c9b-8c97-9f6f13f2e267 /home ext4 defaults 1 2
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=6e282f10-0e54-46bb-96c6-eb22a10ab999 swap swap defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda10 :
UUID=b37f7039-454f-4c65-8fda-f23b489c2443 swap swap defaults 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
/dev/fd0        /mnt/floppy     auto    rw,user,noauto,exec  0 0
here is the root directory with /mnt, some leading and trailing entries snipped (/)

[doug@Linux1 /]$ ls -la
total 120
drwxr-xr-x  22 root root  4096 Mar 16 03:06 ./
drwxr-xr-x  22 root root  4096 Mar 16 03:06 ../
-rw-r--r--   1 root root     0 Mar 16 03:06 .autofsck
-rw-------   1 root root   113 Feb 14 13:02 .bash_history
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Mar 18 17:22 bin/
/snip/
drwx------   2 root root 16384 Feb 14 12:58 lost+found/
drwxrwxr-x   4 root root  4096 Mar 17 22:23 media/
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root  4096 Mar 17 21:23 mnt/                         <<<<<<<
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  1045 Jan 31 11:57 Module.symvers
-rw-rw-r--   1 root root     0 Feb 14 13:02 null
/snip/
drwxr-xr-x  19 root root  4096 Mar  9 20:28 var/
[doug@Linux1 /]$

in the subdirectory /mnt is /floppy, and in the subdir /floppy is

[doug@Linux1 floppy]$ ls -la
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 17 21:23 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 17 21:23 ../

**************************************
Researching KDiskFree, it seems that you have to have KDE 4.8, which is not in the repo. (Neither is 4.7)
This is what I have:  Platform Version 4.6.5 (4.6.5)

I have downloaded kdf-0.5.1-1.src.rpm but have not unpacked or installed it yet, awaiting comment from the forum.

--doug

That's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. You don't follow instructions, you modify them, then wonder why things don't work.

Remove the line you added to the file, save the file to the desktop. Right click the file and choose Properties. Click the Permissions tab. Check the box in front of Is executable, then click the OK button at the bottom.

Put a floppy in the drive. click the desktop Floppy icon. The disk will mount and Dolphin will open to show the contents.

When you want to remove the disk, close the Dolphin window, right click the desktop Floppy icon, choose Unmount. Wait for the drive light to stop blinking, (the final writes are being made while the light blinks) then press the disk release button on the drive. Remove the disk.

Open Synaptic, click Reload. When that process is done, click Search, then in the box enter kdf ... click the Search button. You will see two choices kdeutils4 and kdeutils4-kdf. Mark both for installation then click Apply and Apply in the confirmation window. When done installing, close Synaptic.

You will find the application at PC --> More Applications --> Monitoring --> KDiskFree.

[dougmack]

OK, Thank you.  I don't believe I saw the instruction to set the properties as executable.  I didn't even know this option was available, or I would
have tried it.  Now everything works as you say, and the icon is a picture of a floppy, not the word "txt" as it had been.

KDiskFree appears to mount the floppy, but Dolphin doesn't seem to recognize that.  Anyway, the script and other instructions are working now.

As to mounting and unmounting floppies, SOLVED. Thanx again.

[Old-Polack]

OK, Thank you.  I don't believe I saw the instruction to set the properties as executable.  I didn't even know this option was available, or I would
have tried it.  Now everything works as you say, and the icon is a picture of a floppy, not the word "txt" as it had been.

KDiskFree appears to mount the floppy, but Dolphin doesn't seem to recognize that.  Anyway, the script and other instructions are working now.

As to mounting and unmounting floppies, SOLVED. Thanx again.

In KDiskFree, if you right click the floppy entry you will see an option to mount. Once mounted you'll see the bar that shows the used space. Right click on that line and an option to Open in File Manager should be seen. Left click on that.

I leave a KDiskFree window open all the time on my desktop #16 and do any mounting or unmounting of any partitions or devices listed in my fstab. The main difference between this and using the Dolphin Sections is that it only shows what is listed in /etc/fstab and you have the ability to always have the exact same mount point, wherever you choose it to be.



Here you can see the right click menu from a mounted partition.