Starting at Zero - HELP

[Optiker]

New Micron Athlon; dual boot Win2000Pro and Linux; setup by my company's UNIX/Linux tech support with RH7/KDE.

My first order of business after driving around KDE and various web sites to try to learn a little, I need to know how to access local and network DOS drives. I have two hard disks, one of which is partitioned for Win2000 and Linux, a second that is Win, a CD-RW, DVD, Zip 250 and Jaz 1GB. In addition, I need to access network drives. I do all of that (except, of course accessing my Linux partitions) in Win2000 but no idea where to start in Linux. Being more of a user than developer, the more I can do from KDE the better.

I am set up as the administrator (su or whatever the correct terminology is) and know how to log in to su mode from the terminal or using the su file manager in KDE.

Where do I start?

Thanks!

[pbharris]

hello,
if you are in linux and want to mount (i.e. have available) a NT/win9X network drive then then you will samba filesystem setup. This is pretty easy to do, it is something like:
smbmount //computer/share /mount/point/

I don't know if there is a kde front end.
on other drives it should be pretty easy. if you bring up the file manger they are probably there at the top level (i.e. /),

if you use linuxconf then find the area which says 'access local drive' all the partitions which are available locally should show up.

paul

[Optiker]

Paul...

Uuuh...you're already beyond me! :o

If I understand what you're saying, I need to boot to Linux, then logon as the administrator (su?), then at the command prompt (sorry, DOS words), enter the line below...correct?

smbmount //computer/share /mount/point/

Where does that get me? Does it bring up a menu of available network drives, or do I enter the name of my network drive someplace?

Then, it is true that when I open file manager in KDE, I see listings in the mount directory of soem drives - actually, my Zip drive and one of the two CD-ROM drives (the DVD) is there. Should I be able to just click in the Zip item and have it show me what's on the disk? Whatever is on there will have been written uder Win2000.

Sorry to be so slow - I am a true newbie!

Regarding linuxconf, is that something I just type in at the command prompt? Or do I run it from KDE?

[mychl]

Welcome to Linux, just try stuff, it won't hurt, and if it does, then its easy to re-install.

Once you do the smbmount thing, then the drive you specified wil be mounted and you should be able to cd to it :D

good luck

[Optiker]

Once I mount a drive, does it stay mounted forever - until I unmount (dismount? :) ), or do I have to mount it every time I login?

[Dru Lee Parsec]

Hi Optiker:

It sounds like you could get a lot of good from the book "Running Linux" from O'Reilly. This is not meant to say "Stop asking newbie qustions". In fact, that's exactly why we're here. But that book has a lot of great information for new Linux users without going overly technical.

As far as mounting a drive here's what's up with that. I use Mandrake 7.2. In that installation it already recognizes my Windows partitions and puts them under the /mnt directory. Remember, in Linux different partitions and physical drives just look like new directories. For example, I have 2 Windows partitions that show up on my machine as /mnt/win_c and /mnt/win_d My cdROM drive is at /mnt/cdrom and my floppy disk is at /mnt/floppy

If your Linux distrobution didn't do this for you then a fairly easy edit of the /etc/fstab file will get you there. Look at that file and then look at the man page for fstab by typing (At the terminal window)

man fstab

You'll see directions like "The first parameter is . . .", "The second parameter is . . ." and so on. Check out the file that you already have before you edit it and make sure you understand what it's doing. But then you'll be able to mount your windows drives permanently with no problems by simply adding a line for each new drive.

BTW, Linux can read and write to Windows FAT formatted drives, but it can only read NTFS drives (NT and Win 2K ).

I hope that helps and welcome to the Linux Family.

[Optiker]

Dru...

Thanks! That sounds helpful. I'll try it.

[Strike]

Originally posted by Optiker:
My first order of business after driving around KDE and various web sites to try to learn a little, I need to know how to access local and network DOS drives.
Local drives - search around here for that info, there's plenty
Network drives - check www.samba.org (http://www.samba.org) and this free online book (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba/chapter/book/index.html)
I have two hard disks, one of which is partitioned for Win2000 and Linux, a second that is Win,
Same as above - plenty of info on the forum

a CD-RW,
Check out the CD-Writing HOWTO here (http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/CD-Writing-HOWTO.html)

DVD,
can't play DVDs yet, I don't think - search for LiViD to see how it's going, but it can be used as a CD-ROM drive just fine (DVD-ROM, I don't know)

Zip 250 and Jaz 1GB.
Iomega has released versions of their IomegaWare for Linux - get it here (http://www.iomega.com/software/featured/iomegawarelinux.html). Also - here (http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Jaz-Drive-HOWTO.html) is the Jaz HOWTO, and the Zip Drive mini-HOWTO (http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/ZIP-Drive.html)


In addition, I need to access network drives.
Those are really just mounted points within your SMB network (SMB = networking protocol used by MS for Network Neighborhood and the likes), so Samba can do this.

I do all of that (except, of course accessing my Linux partitions) in Win2000 but no idea where to start in Linux. Being more of a user than developer, the more I can do from KDE the better.
You do now :)

[ 03 April 2001: Message edited by: Strike ]

[Optiker]

Strike...

Thanks...will check out the links.