On Fri, 17 May 2002, Michael Bovee wrote: > The vanilla SuSE 7.3 install on my Mac PowerBook (PPC) contains a > line in /etc/fstab for /dev/fd0. > 1) does fd0 strictly mean floppy disks or can that generically be > used for zip disks, too?
/dev/fd0 -generally- means the first "real" floppy disk. However, one could always create a link to some other, real, device file should the situation warrant (eg. "cdrom" to /dev/hdc, or "mouse" to /dev/psaux). Note that the traditional use of fd0 doesn't include things like USB floppies and Zip disks, etc... but, as just described, it doesn't mean you couldn't break with tradition for convenience's sake, so long as you're aware of potential "wupses" from possibly breaking scripts, etc. > 2) if there's any value in adding lines to /etc/fstab for Mac and PC > formatted zip disks, can I call them special devices of my own > choosing such as /dev/hdc1 and /dev/hdc2 or perhaps /dev/hdb? See, > I'm unclear on the rules of naming devices, basically. No -- /dev/* refers to a *device*, not to a volume. (The Amiga used to make a very obvious, and handy, distinction between the two. Ah, the good ol' days...) So it's irrelevant what format floppy you put in the device; it's still handled by the same /dev entry. > 3) if I set up zip devices and they work, is it still inadvisable to > remove the fd0 entry? If you don't have a real floppy disk installed, there's not really any driving need to have /dev/fd0 except, again, for scripts etc. that might be looking for it. There's a -slew- of stuff in /dev that nobody generally uses... but they *might*, so the distributions continue to include them. This was the whole idea behind devfs: a filesystem that would *dynamically* create /dev/ entries as needed. Alas, for reasons generally having to do with the embedded developers, it really isn't going anywhere. At some point Linus may lay down the law, but I'm not sure I'd hold my breath. > (I'm new enough to *nix that I'm timid about adding things to this > file without being certain of the consequences ahead of time :0) Always good to ask! Thanks for the well-reasoned, well-written questions! -Ken > Thank You, > --Michael > > ***************************************************************** > To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. > ***************************************************************** > > ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
