Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 14:05:00 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: "Michael P. Sale" <mike@merchantsnet.com> Cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: mounting floppy file systems Message-ID: <19980407140500.56628@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <01bd61cd$2751bca0$3206bccc@708644668>; from Michael P. Sale on Mon, Apr 06, 1998 at 07:30:39PM -0700 References: <01bd61cd$2751bca0$3206bccc@708644668>
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On Mon, Apr 06, 1998 at 07:30:39PM -0700, Michael P. Sale wrote:
> Yikes,
>
> What a mess!
[sigh] I'll see if I can tidy it up a bit. Why are you using microslop
anyway?
>
> >On Mon, Apr 06, 1998 at 06:18:16PM -0700, Michael P. Sale wrote:
> >
> >> While
> >> >> trying to mount my floppy (following instructions on "the complete
> >> freebsd"
> >> >> pg 211) I ran into all sorts of fun with that darn /A. After buying a
> >> >> little sense, I did some searching and came up with the /mnt instead.
> >> Works
> >> >> just fine now, though I'm still searching for how to get the /A set up as
> >> >> well..
> >> >
>>>> We're not getting the full picture yet. Is it a DOS formatted
>>>> floppy? Have you told /etc/fstab to expect one of those when
>>>> mounting /A or not? Does the /A directory exist? Exactly what
>>>> command are you using to mount the floppy?
>>> /A does not show up in /etc/fstab. I suspected that I needed it in there,
>>Not necessarily.
> Mmmmm. OK, then how does one get it to work? Fess up the info.
If I understand this stuff correctly, you don't need /etc/fstab at
all, but you do need to be specific when you give the mount command.
You can use /etc/fstab to make life easier though. I tell it to
expect a CD to be mounted on /cdrom, so when I say "mount /cdrom"
mount goes hunting around in fstab and gets the rest of the info,
that it's a CD9660. You could do the same thing with floppies, have a
directory called /floppy and put the relevant info in fstab. I'd
never bother for floppies.
> >> If I format the floppy with freebsd I use the mount /dev/fd0
> >> /mnt command.
> >>
> >> With a win95/DOS disk I use the mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt command.
> >>
> >> Both seem to work just fine, though I went searching through the
> >> archives to find the mount -t msdos command. Up until then, I
> >> had a heck of a time figuring out how to get the file systems
> >> working right.
> >
> >So what happens, what does it say, when it doesn't work?
>
> Not sure what you're lookin for here. When what does not work?
Hmmm... that was to be MY question :-)
> If you are talking about file system incompatibility, win95 would
> declare a freebsd formatted disk unformatted. Funny though. When
> I would mount a dos disk with only mount /dev/fd0, freebsd would
> mount, write and read the disk. Win95 would read the disk as
> formatted, but would not see any files on it......
No I wasn't, and I'm not likely to come across what you described
there so I don't want to confuse myself over it just now.
> >> The point I now realize I am trying to make is "how intuitive is
> >> it for the newbie user to figure the /A out before he/she gets
> >> to that page?" If I'm just a goof (possible) and it is fairly
> >> simple and I missed it earlier in the docs, then it can be
> >> forgotten about.
Maybe you wouldn't have felt like that if it'd worked first go?
> >Now that I take a quick look at the book, it seems to be saying
> >"this is a lead-in _example_ of how you would do it with a ufs
> >floppy, but of course you'll be using FAT floppies as described
> >over the page, for reasons given over the page"
>
> True. That was the intended use from the beginning. I was trying
> to get my ppp.conf file over from the freebsd box to win95 so I
> could post it in questions. :-) I did not however understand that
> I would need to treat the disk differently until a lot of searching
> and reading later.
It's a pity you didn't know how incredibly simple this task could
have been. All you need is something like:
mcopy /etc/ppp/ppp.conf a:
> >> If getting to the /A requires new questions and searching upon
> >> getting to page 211 (I went there pretty quickly because it was
> >> the "floppy disks" chapter), then I think it would be nice to
> >> have a little blurb that says "hey you goof, if you are getting
> >> xxxx error when trying to mount the
> >
> >Yeah? Well what is your xxxx error? No secrets now! :-)
>
> Error reads as follows:
> mount: /A: No such file or directory
::BINGO::
It tells you what's gone wrong. Why didn't you say that in the first
place? I know, that would have made it a straightforward question and
you wouldn't have had the chance to chat :-)
> >> floppy, please try mount /dev/fd0 /mnt and reference page xx for
> >> details on how to get /A set up correctly in your /etc/fstab
> >> file".
> >
> >I very much doubt that that is what you would want to do.
>
> Why not? <clueless look>
You don't need, and I can't imagine why you'd want, to have floppy
stuff in your fstab, even if you were masochistic enough to ignore
mtools and try to mount and unmount the things.
Also, if you had the best help in the world to frill up your fstab
and get the mounting commands just right, it still wouldn't mount for
you if /A didn't exist or couldn't be found.
> >Generally DOS formatted floppies are used (read on to see why),
> >and there's two ways I know of to access them. Either they can be
> >mounted (with a command that says they're DOS or with an fstab
> >entry), or you can skip all that baloney and use the easier mtools
> >(described later in the chapter) which are intuitive, magic, and
> >don't require mounting to happen.
>
> See above comment on how I mounted the dos a third way (didn't work
> correctly)......Either way, I tried several different mount (no
> mtools) tactics with the /A and none worked. The only thing that
> ever worked was going to the /mnt at the end vs the /A.
And what you're telling yourself here is that the only difference
between working and not working was the name of the directory. Your
error message confirms that that's where the problem is.
> As for mtools. Not sure if I really see an advantage to mtools or
> not. The only thing I read that made an impression (granted it was
> a quick read) was the possible problem with carriage returns
> getting funked up during copies. Isn't there a unix utility that
> will fix that too though?
You sound a bit like me, always getting tied up in the most difficult
looking part of something. In this case, mtools is so simple that
only the tricky bits need explaining. Forget it. Just use mtools to
work with floppies. Pretend it's DOS but put "m" as the first letter
of each command. If your text files get funny characters at the end
of lines, delete them with your trusty text editor when they annoy.
When you've become convinced that mtools is wonderful, start looking
at what else it can do. If it doesn't work, RTFM or experiment.
> >> This was why I thought it may be a decent "newbies" topic. I
> >> doubt too many Unix guru's have too much trouble mounting
> >> floppies or figuring out how to modify the /etc/fstab file.
> >
> >Well the best you can expect here is to share someone else's
> >misinformation until it's together enough to make an answerable
> >question. Sometimes during that process the problem goes away. On
> >the other hand, that too can be a newbies illusion :-)
>
> Yikes!! I expect better than that!! :-}
Then you should have gone to freebsd-questions and had your question
ripped to shreds there instead of here :-) They handle the newest
newbies questions, but they kinda like to know what the problem is
right up front.
> >See if you read the book the same way as I do now, or not.
> >
> Yes and no. I think I understand where you are going with this. I
> have not read enough of the book to really agree or disagree. I do
> think that having a chapter with "floppy disks" in the title should
> either fully explain how to mount the darn things or point the
> newbie user someplace that can. I don't think that the pages in
> that chapter do it. Again, I have not read the whole book ( I
> think my poor little melon would explode), much less ever tried to
> write one, but I do think that the chapter makes a few assumptions
> that newbies could choke on. Greg does a great job of dropping
> hints and pointing readers to other places for information, I just
> think it may be an option here too.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I read it differently. The intro to
the section on floppies gives an "overview", four examples of how
floppies might be used. The third sounds like what you wanted to do,
and it points you straight to page 212. I think it should be pointing
to 213 but no matter, you see the big "Accessing Microsoft floppies"
heading leaping out on the right there.
> As a side note, I also understand that you can't have pointers to
> everything all over the place. That's why I posted it here, to see
> whether I was nuts or not and to see if other newbies had the same
> problems I did.
I've got this theory that no matter how clearly you make
instructions, the more desperately someone needs them the less they
are able to take in what they say. When things start going wrong
there's too much information to take in, let alone sort the
essentials from the extras. It doesn't help to tell someone they're
crazy if they can't see it, even when that someone is yourself.
People just work that way. What do you reckon?
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
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