On 10/07/05, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Sunday 10 July 2005 16:39, Gil Weber wrote:

...

Hey, everyone. I know this might be a really stupid question, but I need to know if I am in the wrong on this matter or if my use of Linux is being unfairly blamed for someone else's problems.

A guy I have to work with asked me to e-mail him some files off a CD I was given. The files are supposed to be PowerPoints that have been imbedded so that they'll play on a Windows machine. But I cannot access the PPT files directly.

The 3 files on the disk have the following names: autorun.inf udfrchk.exe udfrinst.zl

Does you friend (hmmmm) not realise that every e-mail he sends or receives could quite possibly have been routed through numerous Linux or other flavour nix servers? -- Take care. Kevan Farmer 34 Hill Street Cheslyn Hay Staffordshire WS6 7HR

Gil Weber wrote:

Unfortunately the folks at this organization are all Windoze apologists and cause me no end of headaches over the fact that I use Linux. They use XP and IE because they are "secure." That should tell you something. ;o(

Gil

We have a mixed environment were I work. Linux servers providing file sharing services for several Linux workstations and many windows machines. None of the files are ever corrupted for the windows users. Your "friend" doesn't understand the nature of file systems and how they work. Have him read up on the smb protocol, which Linux, via Samba, handles beautifully. Not to mention the windows users who get their files via ftp on our Linux boxes. No problems there either. As far as windows being secure, I wish I had a dollar for every windows computer I had to rebuild after it was infected with a virus. ~James

...

As far as windows being secure, I wish I had a dollar for every windows computer I had to rebuild after it was infected with a virus.

~James

'Snap!' The amount of people out there who still don't have any security or rely on Microsoft Firewall....... ah well, it gives us something to do :-)

-- Take care. Kevan Farmer

Man, if computers just worked right all the time. Or even if users worked right all the time, I wouldn't have a job. Thanks Windows and hapless Windows Users! -Nick __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

On Sunday 10 July 2005 16:58, Gil Weber wrote:

Hi, Anders! Those are the only files on the disk (unless others are somehow hidden). I have konqueror set to show hidden files, so if there are others on the disk they are WELL hidden. ;o)

The CD is a so-called multisession CD. The most common use for multisession is when you have music CDs that also contain data files. But in this case you have one session that is formatted as ISO9660 and one formatted as UDF. The reason for this is that some (all? I'm not sure) windows versions can't read UDF by default, so they include an ISO9660 session thta contains only the drivers needed for reading the UDF session, and the UDF session contains the actual data Linux, by default, will mount the primary session, and so will only see the drivers

...

You need to mount the CD using the option -t udf. By default it will get mounted as ISO9660 (i.e. regular cdrom), but that won't work if it's a DirectCD/UDF disc.

Sorry to have to ask, but how do I mount the CD using the -t udf option? I don't think I've ever manually mounted any devices, so I am not familiar with the protocol/command.

First determine what your CD device name is. Do this by running "mount" and look at the output to see what is mounted as cdrom. Let's say it's /dev/cdrom. Then you run umount /dev/cdrom mount -t udf /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom the directory in /media could also be called cdrecorder or dvd, depending on what type of device you have You may need to add a session number. For example mount -t udf -o session=1 /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom If it doesn't work, try different session numbers, starting from 0

** Reply to message from James Knott on Sun, 10 Jul 2005 12:18:18 -0400

Gil Weber wrote:

...

Hey, everyone. I know this might be a really stupid question, but I need to know if I am in the wrong on this matter or if my use of Linux is being unfairly blamed for someone else's problems.

A guy I have to work with asked me to e-mail him some files off a CD I was given. The files are supposed to be PowerPoints that have been imbedded so that they'll play on a Windows machine. But I cannot access the PPT files directly.

The 3 files on the disk have the following names: autorun.inf udfrchk.exe udfrinst.zl

My assumption is that the PPT files are contained within one of these files (?).

Obviously I can't play them from SuSE 9.2.

So, I copied the 3 files to my desktop, attached them to an e-mail (I use Polarbar Mailer), and sent them off.

Now I'm getting crucified because the recipient (who is a big-time Windoze apologist) says the files won't play on his XP box, and that they were corrupted when touched by my Linux operating system.

I use Crossover Office for Word, PPT, and excel, and he thinks the Crossover emulator is corrupting the files. Frankly I can't see where the emulator is touching the files I attached as an e-mail. I think he's grasping at straws, but maybe I'm not understanding something???

I have a hard time believing that sending the files as e-mail attachments and using Linux or Mac or Windoze has anything to do with the problem. Something else is at fault.

But is it within the realm of possibility that simply copying the files to my desktop and then attaching in an e-mail would corrupt these Windoze files? Is it my (Linux's) fault?

Please advise. I need ammunition to shoot back at this guy if Linux is not the cause of the problem.

I'd be very supprised if Linux is corrupting the files. Also, OpenOffice can handle power point files. Have him send the files back to you, so you can compare them with the originals.

The problem is I can't see the original PPTs. The 3 files I described are the only files I can see on the disk. Anders indicated that this is a multisession CD, and that Linux by default can't see both sessions. That could be why I am not able to see the PPTs. Gil