Diskettes And Cd-Roms; Using Diskettes - Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 3 - STEP BY STEP GUIDE Manual

Chapter 11.

Diskettes and CD-ROMs

Using diskettes and CD-ROMs with Red Hat Enterprise Linux requires some understanding about
removable media. This chapter discusses how to read and write files to and from diskettes, how to
format diskettes, and how to read and copy data from a CD-ROM. This chapter also covers using
CD-writable and CD-rewritable drives.

11.1. Using Diskettes

Diskettes are one of the oldest removable media solutions available for the personal computer (PC).
Diskettes are ideal as a portable storage solution for small files that need to be physically moved
around. For example, if two PCs are not on the same network, diskettes are a great solution to transfer
files from one computer to the other.
11.1.1. Mounting and Unmounting a Diskette
A diskette must first be mounted before it can be used. To mount a diskette, insert it into the diskette
drive and type at a shell prompt.
mount /mnt/floppy/
The diskette drive activity light should blink as the diskette's file system is mounted to the
directory.
/mnt/floppy
You can access the contents of the diskette by changing into that directory with the
cd
command.
/mnt/floppy/
Alternatively, you can also mount a diskette by right-clicking on the desktop and choosing Disks =>
Floppy. This mounts the diskette and adds a desktop icon which you can double-click to explore the
diskette contents.
Now that the diskette has been mounted it is available to be copied from or written to. You can open,
save, and copy files to/from it as you would normally do to your hard drive. You can even explore the
diskette's contents in Nautilus (as shown in Figure 11-1) or Konqueror.
Figure 11-1. Viewing files on a Diskette with Nautilus
When you are done using the diskette, you should unmount it before ejecting it from the drive. To do
this, close any applications that may be using files on the diskette or exploring the diskette's contents
(such as Nautilus or Konqueror), and at a shell prompt type the following command :
umount /mnt/floppy/