h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Message before last for c, read c colon close brackets.

Traveller in Time on a command line console
"Try the command mount. . .

Your system only has the 8Gigabyte drive mounted. The other Drive will be probably under /dev/hda and depending on the formatting you used under windows <?> (the only multi booters I have use win98)
mount -t vfs /dev/hda /mnt/xpdrive
mount -t msdos /dev/hda /mnt/xpdrive
you will have to create the /mnt/xpdrive directory first "

Now...that was *almost* English...

What you are saying is...I have to create a directory called '/mnt/xpdrive' (is the XP significant? I've been using '98). This I can do, I guess, in the file manager.

Then, in a Linux command prompt thingy I type
mount -t vfs /dev/hda /mnt/xpdrive
mount -t msdos /dev/hda /mnt/xpdrive

However...nope. No HD currently under /dev/hda.

There *is* an hda under /mnt...but nothing shows up inside it.


Also...my audio app plays mp3s silently. Which defeats the point. (Yes, I've made sure the volume is up).

Traveller in Time writing unpronouncable mnemonics for a living
" You got part of the idea.

Xpdrive is just a name I made up. As it is the boot drive I expected the large drive to be /dev/hda1 Ah, I forgot the one .

I use cfdisk to find out what drives are connected physically (escape to exit it is a very powerfull tool).

One of the things different in Unix / Linux is that it can handle exchangable media. This means you have to mount it before you can use it. (remember the many blue screens under musof whenever you remove a floppy ? ) You have to tell it to mount and to umount (this can be automated but that is another study) the CD and floppy already have a nice name in the /mnt directory, good.

Use
man mount
to find out more about mounting.
Or
mount --help
to ask the program self. "

Another place to look is in the fstab file. This file is a list of all the mountable filesystems (ie partitions on drives etc) and where they should get mounted, if it's automatic and so on. This is at /etc/fstab to read the file use the 'less' command (less /etc/fstab). There may be an entry for /dev/hda (or hda1) in there and a mount point of something like /mnt/windows.
Windows does things like the mounting of floppies/card readers automagically when you put them in. As TiT says under linux they have to be manually mounted (after insert) and unmounted (before removal).

Whats your audio app that's plays silently?

Nope...no /etc/fstab.

In /dev, I've cat all sorts of things labelled hda1, hda2.....hd[n][n]

in /mnt. I've got:
Auto/
cdrom/
floppy/
hd/
hda1/
hdd1/
pts/
sda1/
sys/
test/

All have an owner of 'root', except for hdd1 and sda1, which are owned by DSL.

And what about my audio?

Oh...audio app...xmms

Traveller in Time man fstab
"I do not know wich of the devices mentioned in fstab are actually present, most distributions come with a handfull of useable mounting points, but I always have to change them to my own configuration and taste.
The /dev directory is compare it with an old fashioned telephone switchboard, you have connectors to anything anywhere. The question remains what connectors are physically present. "

OK for xmms have a look in the properties and you need to select your soundcard as the output device. I have fallen over with that one as well

In unix devices are treated like files. In the dev directory you get the special files that the os uses to communicate with the devices (dev - device files). You shouldn't need to be changing stuff in there.

If you look in /mnt/hda1 or /mnt/hd there is none of your windows stuff there.
To find out what filesystems are mounted you can use the 'mount' command with no arguments (this command can also be used with some arguments to mount filesystems). The output should be a listing of mounted devices and the mount location. For your second drive there will be a line with /dev/hdd1 /mnt/hdd1 there may be one with /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 This is your first (windows C drive.

As it seems to have already got a bit technical a bit of a glossary for you Edward.

/dev/ this directory holds the files that the OS uses to talk to physical devices (hard drives, soundcards, modems, pci bus etc)
/mnt/ this is a directory that DSL uses to mount filesystems to - ie where you can read and write files on the partitions of the various storage media you use.

/dev/hda.../dev/hdn These are the device files coresponding to the ide hard drives in your system. hda is the first (primary master) hdb is the second (primary slave) hdc the third (secondary master) and so on.

/dev/hda1.../dev/hdan These are the actual partitions/filesystems on the first hard drive (and other hard drives). On a windows9x system there is usually one. If you had partitioned your main drive in two then you'd have hda1 and hda2 and can deal with them seperately. You can have many partitions on the drive and this is how you can end up with windows and linux on the same drive.

/dev/sda.../dev/sdn Linux uses these for scsi drives. But I've got no scsi drives you wonder... The system of commands to read and write to USB storage devices are so similar to the scsi commands (they may even be identical) that it's easier to program the OS to respond to USB storage as if it was a scsi device in terms of storage access (there is a whole other part to this in the plug and play bit of USB device recognition)

Ta, Phil.

You have the teaching knack. The most important thing is to recognise what the pupil doesn't know.

I'll have another fiddle later. I'm back in '98 just now and have children to dress, rooms to tidy, groceries to buy...

Thanks Edward

One place with lots of information (from basic to advanced) is the Linux Documentation Project http://www.tldp.org (or your nearest mirror) and the books in their guides section are good - see Introduction To Linux by Machtelt Garrels and Linux Installation and Getting Started by Matt Welsh (and others). The first should give you most of what you need. The second is quite old but stuff about how things like the filesystem work will still be relavent.

Nothing obvious in xmms that lets me look at properties.

There's preferences, but that just deals with visualisations and plugins.

any ideas?

OK under options/preferences (ctrl-p) you want the audio I/O plugins tab. The output plugin should be set to either OSS or ESD to get output from your soundcard. Big assumption here, that the soundcard got correctly identified and setup during the startup process.

Right...now...I can't see *anything* anymore.

So...
I have things called:
/mnt/hd
/mnt/hda1
/mnt/hdd1

Then, in dev, I have lots of things called hd[n][m] (where n is a letter and m is a number). Most of these are 0 Bytes and are coloured yellow. A few of them are 18 Bytes and coloured blue.

the mount command doesn't pick up either hard drive.

So...hold my hand, someone...precisely what commands will I need to type to mount my smaller drive (let's call it 'D') and my larger one (let's call it 'C')?

xmms seems to be set right - but of couse I can't find any files to play.

Ah...Ok...is this right?

$ mount /dev/[something] /mnt/floppy ?

Only...since /dev/ has all sorts of hd[n][m]s...which one do I mount?

Tried & mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1

Message: mount can only do this at root.

Last post but one...when I said 'floppy', I meant hda1. The page I was reading used floppy as an example, so I guess it stuck in my brain.

RTFM: http://plugintolinux.ca/damn_small_linux_quick_start.shtml

It does it all for you! Easy when you know how...

Feck!