Re: 8 Newbie Questions
Look at the Linux Documentation Project, in particular `The Linux Users' Guide' and `Installation and Getting Started Guide' (http://research.iphil.net/LDP/mirrors.html for a list of mirrors) 1) How do I move from one partitioned drive to another? How do I know the drive letters to use too? There are no letters. The partitions are `mounted' at various directory mount points configured in /etc/fstab 2) How do I copy files from my floppy drive to my partitioned debian drive? This would mount it under directory /mnt: $ su enter root passwd # mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt You can also include it on /etc/fstab like so: /dev/fd0/A vfatuser,noauto and then any user can mount it. Not I used `vfat' here instead of type msdos, but that only works if compiled into the kernel. tried to access 'man man' to read the manual (but get an error can't open the manpath configuration file /etc/manpath.config), Looks like it's not properly installed. Find the `man-db' package and install it (dpkg -i man-db*) Peter
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
AB == André Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: AB Since I just installed linux a few days ago from my debian 2.1 cd AB there This should also be your primary choice for software for now. You will also find mtools there. There might be newer versions of the packages out there, but you don't need the newest version, with new bugs^Wfeatures. STick with the solid and tested versions on your CD. There is more then enough software on these CDs. The current Debian developement tree counts $ grep Package: /var/lib/dpkg/available | wc --lines 3288 packages. There are less in Debian 2.1, but more than enough anyway. AB will be a slight learning curve during this week. One way or AB another I'll know linux well enough in less than a week that I can AB teach others how to install, navigate, and change the setup of AB their linux... I know computers I just don't know linux's command AB structure and syntax, yet. AB Once i start navigating I'm gonna take my linux apart kernel by AB kernel and see what makes it tick. Then I'll no longer be AB clueless. Well, Usually, there is just one kernel running, so you better learn the applications and take them appart instead :-) What I did when I installed Debian, was to browse through /etc and peek at the configfiles there. They are commented most of the time, and they will give you a clue about the system. (I'd install the mc package that will give you mc, a Norton Commander clone, for easy handling). Also take a look at the Getting Started book on the Linux Documentation Project website. And as you come from the DOS/WIndows world, look at /usr/doc/HOWTO/DOS-Win-to-Linux-HOWTO* Regarding connecting your PCs: I would by two NICs and build a small LAN. Much faster and easy to handle. You could install a ftp server on the Linux box and upload from the windows box. Or you could install samba on the Linux box, so that it will apear in network neighborhood on the windows box. Ciao, Martin
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
William R Pentney [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If you don't want to mount the drive for the entire session, you could also just try the following: I shoul proof read my articles before sending them. My /etc/fstab have almost the following lines: /dev/cdrom /cdrom iso9660 noauto,user 0 0 /dev/fd0/floppy vfatnoauto,user 0 0 [I do have some more options and this is written completly off my memory] Then neither the floppy or cdrom is mounted atomatic and any user can do it. The drawback of this is that you must be root to write the floppy. Add the users to the floppy group. Append them to the line in /etc/groups beginning with floppy. -- Peter er den mindst gamle af de gammeldags usenettere, og moderator på den eneste modererede gruppe i dk.*, so there. - citat RockBear
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
André Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Yes, I'm clueless about linux basics. I'm three days into my installation We have all been there. I must have installed something incorrectly because 'man fstab' says: can't open the manpath configuration file /etc/manpath.config Yuck, I keep forgetting tha manuals is not a default debian feature. I hate this distribution. (No I don't) -- Peter er den mindst gamle af de gammeldags usenettere, og moderator på den eneste modererede gruppe i dk.*, so there. - citat RockBear
8 Newbie Questions
I just installed debian about three days ago and have several questions about navigating within debian and about accessing devices. If you can help me with one or more of these questions it would be greatly appreciated as I am growing a bit frustrated with not knowing what I am doing :) 1) How do I move from one partitioned drive to another? How do I know the drive letters to use too? 2) How do I copy files from my floppy drive to my partitioned debian drive? 3) Why does debian say 'only the root can do that' when I type the line below: $ mount /dev/fd0 (or any other floppy drive) I can't cd /dev/fd0 nor can I figure out how to access it. 4) How can i get a network connection or simulated network connection between my win95 pc debin pc via serial or via their modems? Windows allows direct connect with other windows pc, what can I use with debian? 5) How determine hardware which is functioning properly and how determine which kernels need to be removed or changed? I know with windows I had device manager and msd.exe. What do I have with debian? 6) How change kernels once I know the above? I'd like to remove the devices that I installed to the kernels during inital installation of debian but don't actually have in my system yet. I also want to add a new serial card since I never set one up when I installed debian. The new serial card is now in the pc. I don't know how to do this after the fact. I type 'setserial' and a bunch of stuff scrolls by that doesn't make sense to me yet. 7) Why can't I access my floppy after booting from it? I have /floppy on my system. I can see it by cd / and then typing ls. When I cd to /floppy and then try to write to it I get 'permission denied'. I read from it without error messages, it appears to be an empty directory. I can't access either of my physical floppy drives attached to my system when I read from it with ls commands and /dev/fd(x). 8) Do I have to regularly compile my own linux software? Aren't binaries available like with dos and windows? So much linux software on the net that I've seen isn't in binary format, it's rpm or plain source format. Is this standard for linux software? Can I use these with debian 2.1? * I hope you don't think I just posted without looking for the answers online. I've visited over 500 sites online, I've downloaded 40+ apps but can't use them because they are stuck on my win95 system or floppies, tried to access 'man man' to read the manual (but get an error can't open the manpath configuration file /etc/manpath.config), I've read the help menu by typing 'help' and then hitting CONTROL-Z to stop it from scrolling off the screen and then type each command to see if I can figure out what they do, and still haven't found the answers to my questions. I hope you can help. Thanks in advance! Andre p.s. I've already downloaded mtools but since I can't copy the mtools files from the floppy to my partitioned debian drive, I'm stuck!!! My debian pc seems to be up and running just fine, I just can't do this or any other commands to the floppy: $ ls -a /dev/fp0 The floppy disk drive light doesn't even light up on when entering commands. This indicates that maybe the drive is not mounted properly in my linux system (I'm guessing), though I boot into my linux system from floppy just fine. :( ¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥« Attention Web Designers and Internet Marketing Professionals! Increase your Internet Profits Without Marketing Risks Go to http://www.one-click.com a href=http://www.one-click.com;http://www.one-click.com/a
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
André Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 1) How do I move from one partitioned drive to another? How do I know the drive letters to use too? There is no such thing as drive letters. Partitions ar mounted around in the directory structure and you move around just like on any other directory. 2) How do I copy files from my floppy drive to my partitioned debian drive? Either you mount it (on /floppy) or uses mcopy from the mtools package. 3) Why does debian say 'only the root can do that' when I type the line below: $ mount /dev/fd0 (or any other floppy drive) I can't cd /dev/fd0 nor can I figure out how to access it. Because only root may mount devices as default. Edit you /etc/fstab and put auto as an option in the line mentioning /dev/fd0. Please read man fstab first. 5) How determine hardware which is functioning properly and how determine which kernels need to be removed or changed? I know with windows I had device manager and msd.exe. What do I have with debian? Use the hardware. If it works - it works. You probally can get som information out of /proc/devices and such files. 6) How change kernels once I know the above? I'd like to remove the devices Install kernel-package and a kernel-source and read the documentation for kernel-package. 7) Why can't I access my floppy after booting from it? I have /floppy on You havn't mounted you floppy. #mount /dev/fd0 /floppy as root should do it. But read man fstab it make it possible to mount the floppy as non-root. 8) Do I have to regularly compile my own linux software? Aren't binaries No. Almost any software you ever need exist as debian packages on www.debian.org. If you really really really need something that aint packaged for debian please say so. Probally others needs it as well. p.s. I've already downloaded mtools but since I can't copy the mtools files from the floppy to my partitioned debian drive, I'm stuck!!! How did you install debian? Are you sure you didn't allready have mtools installed? Read some book about unix. I'm very sorry but you seem rather clueless on some fundemental stuff and then its hard to help. -- Peter er den mindst gamle af de gammeldags usenettere, og moderator på den eneste modererede gruppe i dk.*, so there. - citat RockBear
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
On 8 May 1999, Peter Makholm wrote: 3) Why does debian say 'only the root can do that' when I type the line below: $ mount /dev/fd0 (or any other floppy drive) I can't cd /dev/fd0 nor can I figure out how to access it. Because only root may mount devices as default. Edit you /etc/fstab and put auto as an option in the line mentioning /dev/fd0. Please read man fstab first. If you don't want to mount the drive for the entire session, you could also just try the following: su (enter password when prompted) mount /dev/fd0 /floppy (replace /floppy with whatever directory u want) exit Or you could enter just sudo mount /dev/fd0 /floppy if you use sudo. The drawback of this is that you must be root to write the floppy. No. Almost any software you ever need exist as debian packages on www.debian.org. If you really really really need something that aint packaged for debian please say so. Probally others needs it as well. U ... not true. I've come across a lot of software I'd like that isn't in .deb packages anywhere - or the packages are poorly maintained, like the KDE ones. Am I just not looking hard enough? - Bill
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
Peter Makholm wrote: There is no such thing as drive letters. Partitions are mounted around in the directory structure and you move around just like on any other directory. Either you mount it (on /floppy) or uses mcopy from the mtools package. Read some book about unix. I'm very sorry but you seem rather clueless on some fundemental stuff and then its hard to help. Yes, I'm clueless about linux basics. I'm three days into my installation of linux and have never seen it nor any unix operating system before now. I've been using pc's since they came out (70's onward). The funny thing is, I'm a pc tech support person working for a multi-billion fortune 200 company and I assumed that linux would work as many other computer systems work, i.e. with drive assignments. (Cocky Translation: 'If it's on a pc I can figure it out'. I've been humbled...) I know dos and windows and thousands of applications extremely well. I don't know linux other than what shows up when I type 'help' and what i've gleaned by perusing the linux newsgroups and linux web pages. Lots of stuff there that doesn't apply to navigating or altering kernels. Since I just installed linux a few days ago from my debian 2.1 cd there will be a slight learning curve during this week. One way or another I'll know linux well enough in less than a week that I can teach others how to install, navigate, and change the setup of their linux... I know computers I just don't know linux's command structure and syntax, yet. Once i start navigating I'm gonna take my linux apart kernel by kernel and see what makes it tick. Then I'll no longer be clueless. For now I can only associate what I know of other operating systems with linux. I've read a ton of sites, and none that I've come across so far are written well enough to go from install to expert. They waste a lot of words and tell very little about navigating about linux and very little about controlling linux kernels. They all assume that since I already installed linux I must know how to use linux. I think I just got lucky installing debian -- others say it's a challenging installation and it's running on my pc... sort of :) Like most pc instructions, the sites I've come across so far seem written for those who already know what to do with the information. One of my 'favorite' sites explained how to copy from a floppy. It 'said' copy some files from a floppy but didn't tell 'how'. They also said to copy mtools to your partitioned drive and then run mtools commands from there using drive assignments like a:, c:, etc. The assumption was that I already knew how to copy the files to the drive using Linux. Now if I knew that I wouldn't have searched for [+linux +how to copy files from a floppy] :) Anyhow, that's why I asked for help here (btw thanks for your detailed help. I figured I'd be lucky to get a reply to just one of my questions, you gave an answer to looks like each question I asked). Now I'm going to try to play with linux and see if I can get it to recognize my floppy and allow me to copy files to the system so I can run lots more stuff... Edit you /etc/fstab and put auto as an option in the line mentioning /dev/fd0. Please read man fstab first. I must have installed something incorrectly because 'man fstab' says: can't open the manpath configuration file /etc/manpath.config When I cd /etc and then type ls manpath.*, it shows manpath.config.dpkg-new I'm guessing this means the installation was interrupted or is this the same as manpath.config just with extra extensions? Thanks very much for your help!!! Andre' ... headed back to http://www.debian.org Read a book? Is that a text file or pdf?
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
=?iso-8859-1?Q?Andr=E9?= Bell wrote: I just installed debian about three days ago and have several questions about navigating within debian and about accessing devices. If you can help me with one or more of these questions it would be greatly appreciated as I am growing a bit frustrated with not knowing what I am doing :) Some documentation you will probably find very helpful is the Debian Tutorial at http://www.debian.org/~hp/debian-tutorial.html. You should also install one of the doc-linux packages and read the HOWTOs. 1) How do I move from one partitioned drive to another? How do I know the drive letters to use too? The first (boot) device is /. Any other devices are mounted on directories under /, so that they all make a seamless whole. For example: /mnt is normally an empty directory. When you mount another device on it, it suddenly contains all the tree in the filesystem of that device. As a user, you don't need to know that it is on a different device. 2) How do I copy files from my floppy drive to my partitioned debian drive? That very much depends on how the floppy is formatted. I would guess that you have a W95 formatted floppy, so: # mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /floppy Now the directory tree on the floppy is under /floppy. If the mtools package is installed, you can instead say: # mdir a: # mcopy a:* ... and so on. 3) Why does debian say 'only the root can do that' when I type the line belo w: $ mount /dev/fd0 (or any other floppy drive) Remember that Linux is a multi-user system. Therefore disk-mounting is one of the operations reserved to the administrator, so that other users don't get the rug pulled out from under them without notice. I can't cd /dev/fd0 nor can I figure out how to access it. /dev/fd0 is a device node, not a directory - $ ls -l /dev/fd0 brw-rw 1 root floppy 2, 0 Oct 22 1998 /dev/fd0 b or c as the first letter says the entry is a device; directories have d there and ordinary files have -. You can treat a device as a file, but you had better not try to write to it! (you would destroy any data on the device) 4) How can i get a network connection or simulated network connection between my win95 pc debin pc via serial or via their modems? Windows allows direct connect with other windows pc, what can I use with debian? Look at the Serial HOWTO; you can probably connect the serial ports and start a telnet session from W95. You would have to have a getty running on your serial port (getty is a program that waits for someone to try to connect and sets up the session). 5) How determine hardware which is functioning properly and how determine which kernels need to be removed or changed? I know with windows I had device manager and msd.exe. What do I have with debian? /proc is a pseudo-filesystem that contains information about the running kernel. /proc/interrupts, /proc/ioports, /proc/pci and /proc/scsi are `files' that may prove useful. If your hardware is working, leave your kernel alone until you have learnt a bit more. 6) How change kernels once I know the above? I'd like to remove the devices that I installed to the kernels during inital installation of debian but don't actually have in my system yet. I also want to add a new serial card since I never set one up when I installed debian. The new serial card is now in the pc. I don't know how to do this after the fact. I type 'setserial' and a bunch of stuff scrolls by that doesn't make sense to me ye t. To understand what you are seeing, start with `man setserial', which should print an explanation of that command. 7) Why can't I access my floppy after booting from it? I have /floppy on my system. I can see it by cd / and then typing ls. When I cd to /floppy and then try to write to it I get 'permission denied'. I read from it without error messages, it appears to be an empty directory. I can't access either of my physical floppy drives attached to my system when I read from it with ls commands and /dev/fd(x). By default, you have read access only (except when you are logged in as root). To change that, you need to add your own user name to the floppy group by editing /etc/group (you must do that as root). In /etc/group you will see a line that says floppy:*:25: Add your username immediately after the last colon (no spaces): floppy:*:25:olly,dan extra usernames are separated by commas, as you can see. Log off and log in again; you should now have write access to the floppy drive. (But DON'T write directly to /dev/fd0!) 8) Do I have to regularly compile my own linux software? Aren't binaries available like with dos and windows? So much linux software on the net that I've seen isn't in binary format, it's rpm or plain source format. Is this standard for linux software? Can I use these with debian 2. 1? .rpm files contain compiled code, for Red Hat Linux. Debian
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
Yes, I'm clueless about linux basics. I'm three days into my installation of linux and have never seen it nor any unix operating system before now. I've been using pc's since they came out (70's onward). The funny thing is, I'm a pc tech support person working for a multi-billion fortune 200 company and I assumed that linux would work as many other computer systems work, i.e. with drive assignments. (Cocky Translation: 'If it's on a pc I can figure it out'. I've been humbled...) Don't freak out or give up. It's not so bad once you get used to it. I recommend picking up a guide to UNIX for DOS users (there are many of them out there; UNIX in Plain English is an example of one book which helps the DOS-to-UNIX transition.) Check out www.linux-howto.com as well. And buy O'Reilly's Linux in a Nutshell; you will find it to be very useful in time. (There's nothing in it that isn't in the manpages, but it's nice to have paper docs sometimes.) I know dos and windows and thousands of applications extremely well. I don't know linux other than what shows up when I type 'help' and what i've gleaned by perusing the linux newsgroups and linux web pages. Lots of stuff there that doesn't apply to navigating or altering kernels. You're familiar with the man command, I hope. If not, type man man in Linux. You will find man to be your best friend when you start out. And man -k keyword can be used to search the online manual for any keywords. For now I can only associate what I know of other operating systems with linux. I've read a ton of sites, and none that I've come across so far are written well enough to go from install to expert. They waste a lot of words and tell very little about navigating about linux and very little about controlling linux kernels. They all assume that since I already installed linux I must know how to use linux. I think I just got lucky installing debian -- others say it's a challenging installation and it's running on my pc... sort of :) Yes, Linux needs better documentation, and Debian is tougher to install than Red Hat or the other common distros. Pick up a good UNIX-to-DOS book, as mentioned, and it should get you started. - Bill
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
If you really really really need something that aint packaged for debian please say so. Probally others needs it as well. U ... not true. I've come across a lot of software I'd like that isn't in .deb packages anywhere - or the packages are poorly maintained, like the KDE ones. Am I just not looking hard enough? Thanks Bill for the perspective. Since I don't know much about RPM's and the like that after the last comment I thought maybe I'm gonna be stuck with the ability only to use apps found at www.debian.org I'm glad that's not the case because that would defeat the purpose of opensource software. Maybe he meant that the files found to be most reliable and require least compiling with debian are found at debian.org Thanks again. Andre'
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
Yes, I'm clueless about linux basics. I'm three days into my installation of linux and have never seen it nor any unix operating system before now. I've been using pc's since they came out (70's onward). The funny thing is, I'm a pc tech support person working for a multi-billion fortune 200 company and I assumed that linux would work as many other computer systems work, i.e. with drive assignments. (Cocky Translation: 'If it's on a pc I can figure it out'. I've been humbled...) You gotta start somewhere, I suppose. I know dos and windows and thousands of applications extremely well. I don't know linux other than what shows up when I type 'help' and what i've gleaned by perusing the linux newsgroups and linux web pages. Lots of stuff there that doesn't apply to navigating or altering kernels. Ok. If you really want to take a try at compiling your kernel, now that you are only 3 days into installsure. Here is how you do it: Note that you have to be root for everything down here: 1. Install kernel-source package (you might need to install as86 package). 2. It is usually put in directory like /usr/src/kernel-? (Not sure hwo it is in slink, but it's that way in hamm). 3. Go into the directory and type: 'make menuconfig' for shell config menu, or 'make xconfig' for GUI config tool. 4. I prefer GUI one, just because it's easier to use it. So then you see what your kernel currently has. But I think you havent installed X yet. Correction: you talk about kernels, as in plural..there is only one kernel working at any time. 5. Once you have configured it, you can start compilation by doing these: make dep make clean (you can omit this) make zImage or make bzImage. The first one is uncompressed kernel. Reason why you want a compressed kernel, is because programs like LILO (LInux LOader) have limit on kernel size. I think it's around 750K. So if you use a lot of options, use bzImage. 6. Once it compiled, mv to dir /arch/i386 and get the kernel from there. Put it into boot, fix the symlink if necesary, and reboot. If you are running LILO, you need to rerun it before rebooting. Btw.doesnt your computer have a modem? Since I just installed linux a few days ago from my debian 2.1 cd there will be a slight learning curve during this week. One way or another I'll know linux well enough in less than a week that I can teach others how to install, navigate, and change the setup of their linux... I know computers I just don't know linux's command structure and syntax, yet. Once i start navigating I'm gonna take my linux apart kernel by kernel and see what makes it tick. Then I'll no longer be clueless. One week, uh? Good luck. ANyway.get a book on Unix/Linux and read it through. Before you get really good with Linux, I suspect you might need to learn some bash scripting, or whatever shell you useit just makes your life easier. Andrew --- Andrew Ivanov [EMAIL PROTECTED] UIN 12402354 http://members.tripod.com/AnSIv --Little things for Linux.
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
Subject: Re: 8 Newbie Questions Date: Sat, May 08, 1999 at 09:04:27AM -0500 In reply to:André Bell Quoting André Bell([EMAIL PROTECTED]): Peter Makholm wrote: There is no such thing as drive letters. Partitions are mounted around in the directory structure and you move around just like on any other directory. Either you mount it (on /floppy) or uses mcopy from the mtools package. Read some book about unix. I'm very sorry but you seem rather clueless on some fundemental stuff and then its hard to help. Yes, I'm clueless about linux basics. I'm three days into my installation of linux and have never seen it nor any unix operating system before now. I've been using pc's since they came out (70's onward). The funny thing is, Ahh, so you might rember CP/M ? I'm a pc tech support person working for a multi-billion fortune 200 company and I assumed that linux would work as many other computer systems work, i.e. with drive assignments. (Cocky Translation: 'If it's on a pc I can figure it out'. I've been humbled...) [snip ] Edit you /etc/fstab and put auto as an option in the line mentioning /dev/fd0. Please read man fstab first. I must have installed something incorrectly because 'man fstab' says: can't open the manpath configuration file /etc/manpath.config The basis install doesn't include some rather necessary packages. Get the man-db and manpages packages. Those will take care of the basics. If you are going into this deeper also load the manpages-dev package. do ls /usr/doc/HOWTO/*(thats like C:dir \windows\startup ) You will file a lot of files that that have a lot of what you are/will be looking for. When I cd /etc and then type ls manpath.*, it shows manpath.config.dpkg-new I'm guessing this means the installation was interrupted or is this the same as manpath.config just with extra extensions? try less /etc/manpath.config( like more c:\windows\help ) Thanks very much for your help!!! Andre' ... headed back to http://www.debian.org Read a book? Is that a text file or pdf? uhh, yes :-) HTH -- In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only we can't control when the five year period will begin. ___ Wayne T. Topa [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: 8 Newbie Questions
André Bell wrote: I just installed debian about three days ago and have several questions about navigating within debian and about accessing devices. If you can help me with one or more of these questions it would be greatly appreciated as I am growing a bit frustrated with not knowing what I am doing :) Welcome to the wonderful but extremely frustration-prone world of Linux. 1) How do I move from one partitioned drive to another? How do I know the drive letters to use too? Drive letters are a DOS/Windows concept. In *NIX, each partition/drive is mounted onto a directory name. For example, if you've got two physical drives that DOS would refer to as C: and D:, your Linux system might have them mounted on / (the root directory) and /my_other_drive respectively. Or they may be mounted on / and /mount/d, etc. Then to list the files on Drive D:, you'd just type ls /mount/d. Or you could cd /mount/d to change to that drive/directory. The mounting process is usually done by the system during boot-up, or by the system administrator (known as root or sometimes referred to as the SuperUser, which I believe is where the su command gets its name, which allows you to temporarily become root). In the Windows world, you log into Win95/NT and you remain that user for the duration of the session. With Linux, if you know the root password, you can temporarily become the SuperUser with the su command; then exit back to your normal account privileges. In the Windows world, Windows expects only one person to use the computer; in recent years, Microsoft has mangled the system even further trying to make it appear to be a multi-user system, but at its heart, it is a single-user system. Linux on the other hand, is a multi-user system at heart (although it works just fine if only one person ever logs in). The ability to do things on a Linux system is controlled by privileges assigned to the user account by the root user. For example, normally, normal users can not mount a floppy drive; only root can. 2) How do I copy files from my floppy drive to my partitioned debian drive? I'm relatively new to Linux (9 months or so), and I never have need to use the floppy, so don't take my word for it, but I believe you need to su to the root account and then mount the floppy with the command mount /dev/fd0 /floppy. This assumes that a directory named /floppy exists on your system. If not, just create it with mkdir /floppy (as root). You could also use any other name you want instead of floppy, and it doesn't have to be on the root. For example, you could use mount /dev/fd0 /mount/little-plastic-cased-data-storage-device (unless the name is too long or something; I've never tried this). (BTW, a neat trick you'll learn to love is command completion (NT offers this with a registry hack). For example, suppose you wanted to change to the above mentioned directory; you could simply type cd /mount/littl and then press the TAB key and the rest of the directory name would fill in for you automatically.) 3) Why does debian say 'only the root can do that' when I type the line below: $ mount /dev/fd0 (or any other floppy drive) I can't cd /dev/fd0 nor can I figure out how to access it. See answers above. 4) How can i get a network connection or simulated network connection between my win95 pc debin pc via serial or via their modems? Windows allows direct connect with other windows pc, what can I use with debian? I know you can do a direct link, but I've never done it, so can't give you any help. You can also use modems, but I've only used modems to dial into an ISP, not directly between two boxes. 5) How determine hardware which is functioning properly and how determine which kernels need to be removed or changed? I know with windows I had device manager and msd.exe. What do I have with debian? Again, I have to defer to the more experienced Linux users here. 6) How change kernels once I know the above? I'd like to remove the devices that I installed to the kernels during inital installation of debian but don't actually have in my system yet. I also want to add a new serial card since I never set one up when I installed debian. The new serial card is now in the pc. I don't know how to do this after the fact. I type 'setserial' and a bunch of stuff scrolls by that doesn't make sense to me yet. Again, I have to defer to the more experienced Linux users here. 7) Why can't I access my floppy after booting from it? I have /floppy on my system. I can see it by cd / and then typing ls. When I cd to /floppy and then try to write to it I get 'permission denied'. I read from it without error messages, it appears to be an empty directory. I can't access either of my physical floppy drives attached to my system when I read from it with ls commands and /dev/fd(x). The /floppy directory was probably created by the install routine; however, until the floppy drive is actually mounted to that directory, it's
Thanks to You All! (Re: 8 Newbie Questions)
Thanks all for the help. Seems after reading all the suggestions and linux/debian commands you posted I found that not all of the packages installed the first time through (some of the subdirectories are empty and files are missing elsewhere). My paths weren't correct either. I'm now running dselect and having it install the uninstalled packages and will go from there to copy my files from floppies, navigate within the separate partitions to create the subdirectories and programs I want, and connect my win95 system to my linux system so I can transfer files easily and play multiplayer games against the kids... er test my perl scripts remotely prior to uploading to my domain. =^) After reinstalling the uninstalled packages and getting everything running I'll post the results. Thanks again for all the help! Andre'
Thanks to You All! (Re: 8 Newbie Questions)
Thanks all for the help. Seems after reading all the suggestions and linux/debian commands you posted I found that not all of the packages installed the first time through (some of the subdirectories are empty and files are missing elsewhere). My paths weren't correct either. I'm now running dselect and having it install the uninstalled packages and will go from there to copy my files from floppies, navigate within the separate partitions to create the subdirectories and programs I want, and connect my win95 system to my linux system so I can transfer files easily and play multiplayer games against the kids... er test my perl scripts remotely prior to uploading to my domain. =^) After reinstalling the uninstalled packages and getting everything running I'll post the results. Thanks again for all the help! Andre'
