--- Anders Johansson wrote:

...

Well, I am learning... and formating floppies is one thing I am working on ... (oops, excuse that preposition at the end of a sentence) :)

Here is what I got from the shell command (a

On Wednesday 12 May 2004 02.18, Stephen W wrote: little

...

humor and an unuseable command)

winstephen@linux:~> format /dev/floppy Error: The DOS concept of formatting disk media is screwed. If you want to create a filesystem use "mkfs". To format a floppy, use "fdformat /dev/fd0" and then "mkfs.minix /dev/fd0". winstephen@linux:~> fdformat /dev/fd0 | mkfs.minix /dev/fd0

Oh, don't use | there. the pipe will take the output from the command before the sign and use it as input to the command after. While it might not do any harm in this particular case, it's probably not what you want to do.

If you want to have two commands on the same line, use && to separate them.

...

bash: mkfs.minix: command not found winstephen@linux:~> fdformat /dev/fd0 Double-sided, 80 tracks, 18 sec/track. Total capacity 1440 kB. Formatting ...

When I tried to do the mkfs.minix .dev.fd0 as a stand alone I got the same error message:

command not found... and the shell told me to do it.

I know it says that, but it's not a very good suggestion, unless you're only going to use the floppy in linux systems. If you want the disk to be readable in a windows machine, you want to use

/sbin/mkfs.msdos /dev/fd0

But if you have the floppy disk icon on your desktop, you can also just right-click on it and select Actions->format

I right click on it and I do not have an option for ACTIONS... (wish I did) It will only be used for linux (I want to put in a new drive, instill SUSE on it and boot it from floppy... ) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover

--- Anders Johansson wrote:

On Wednesday 12 May 2004 02.46, Stephen W wrote:

...

I right click on it and I do not have an option for ACTIONS... (wish I did)

No? What do you have then? Nothing about formatting at all?

...

It will only be used for linux (I want to put in a

new

...

drive, instill SUSE on it and boot it from floppy... )

I have things like: Open Copy Add to Bookmarks Open with ... Copy to Puiblic Folder Unmount etc. etc. I am using SuSE 8.2 (is that the missing piece)? ===== Stephen W Sarasota, FL "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine ..." Proverbs __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2' http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861

On Wednesday 12 May 2004 03:10, Stephen W wrote:

--- Anders Johansson wrote:

...

On Wednesday 12 May 2004 02.46, Stephen W wrote:

...

I right click on it and I do not have an option

for

...

ACTIONS... (wish I did)

No? What do you have then? Nothing about formatting at all?

...

It will only be used for linux (I want to put in a

new

...

drive, instill SUSE on it and boot it from

floppy... )

I am not in SuSE Aat the moment but on most distro's a mke2sf /dev/fd0 1440 will do the trick -- Regards Ted Wager Using Libranet Linux

On Wed, 2004-05-12 at 07:11, Stephen W wrote:

Ted, Here is the result when I tried it:

winstephen@linux:~> mke2sf /dev/fd0 1440 bash: mke2sf: command not found

Hmm, I must have something missing...

StephenW

You need to run the command as root. -- Ken Schneider unix user since 1989 linux user since 1994 SuSE user since 1998 (5.2)

On Wednesday 12 May 2004 12:24, Fergus Wilde wrote:

On Wednesday 12 May 2004 12:11, Stephen W wrote: <snip>

...

...

I am not in SuSE Aat the moment but on most distro's a mke2sf /dev/fd0 1440 will do the trick

<snip>

...

Ted, Here is the result when I tried it:

winstephen@linux:~> mke2sf /dev/fd0 1440 bash: mke2sf: command not found

Hmm, I must have something missing...

StephenW

A typo, I believe mke2fs was meant, see also man mke2fs. You may need to be root. Best Fergus

True ....I made a booboo.....You also have to be root ?? -- Regards Ted Wager Using Libranet Linux

Such a little thing So much effort (trial and error) Who would ever think learning to format a floppy would be such a big thing? When I finally got the spellings right When I finally learned i had to be ROOT to do it This is what I got... But I have questions from all of this: (It is in the last paragraph) linux:/home/winstephen # mke2fs /dev/fd0 1440 mke2fs 1.28 (31-Aug-2002) Filesystem label= OS type: Linux Block size=1024 (log=0) Fragment size=1024 (log=0) 184 inodes, 1440 blocks 72 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user First data block=1 1 block group 8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group 184 inodes per group Writing inode tables: done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done This filesystem will be automatically checked every 29 mounts or 180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override. Why check every 29 mounts ro 180 days... Why? What is it looking for? What is "tune2fs" -c or -i to override (Override what?) Tried to look in man for "tune2fs" (Duh, am I in the dark) and there was a lot about "journaling" (which when I tried to man journal - there was "no entry." On to Google... (And people think college is difficult) Thanks again you all, at least I can format a floppy... I am not sure what else I have set up to get done by some little sprit that resides in the innards or my computer... (that little thing that is going to be counting mounts and/or days)... Sure is fun ===== Stephen W Sarasota, FL "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine ..." Proverbs __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2' http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861

The Wednesday 2004-05-12 at 19:21 -0700, Stephen W wrote:

Such a little thing So much effort (trial and error) Who would ever think learning to format a floppy would be such a big thing?

You have click and shoot utilities on both gnome and kde for the job.

When I finally got the spellings right When I finally learned i had to be ROOT to do it

Not really. Read the thread... ...

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 29 mounts or 180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

Why check every 29 mounts ro 180 days...

Why not? :-P

Why? What is it looking for?

Errors.

What is "tune2fs" -c or -i to override

What is...? --> "whatis command" cer@nimrodel:~> whatis tune2fs tune2fs (8) - adjust tunable filesystem parameters on second extended filesystems

(Override what?)

The number of mounts or days at which to check the filesystem. Ie, if you what to check every two mounts, you would use "tune2fs -c 2 /dev/floppy"

Tried to look in man for "tune2fs" (Duh, am I in the dark) and there was a lot about "journaling" (which when I tried to man journal - there was "no entry." On to Google...

There is a bit in mke2fs(8). If you add a journal you get an "ext3" filesystem, which is probably unusable on a floppy. Actually, floppies are usually formated as minix (more space) or vfat (for sharing data). -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

--- Ted wrote:

...

--- Anders Johansson wrote:

...

On Wednesday 12 May 2004 02.46, Stephen W wrote:

...

I right click on it and I do not have an

...

...

for

...

ACTIONS... (wish I did)

No? What do you have then? Nothing about

On Wednesday 12 May 2004 03:10, Stephen W wrote: option formatting

...

...

at all?

...

It will only be used for linux (I want to put in a

new

...

drive, instill SUSE on it and boot it from

floppy... )

I am not in SuSE Aat the moment but on most distro's a mke2sf /dev/fd0 1440 will do the trick

-- Regards Ted Wager

Thought I would take a look at man here are my results: winstephen@linux:~> man -k mke mke2fs (8) - create an ext2/3 filesystem winstephen@linux:~> mke2fs dev/fd0 1440 bash: mke2fs: command not found Interesting, tell me what mke2fs is, but then when I try to do it I am told "command not found." Duh, then how does man know about it? ===== Stephen W Sarasota, FL "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine ..." Proverbs __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2' http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861

Stephen W wrote:

<SNIP>

Interesting, tell me what mke2fs is, but then when I try to do it I am told "command not found." Duh, then how does man know about it?

The "command not found" message does not mean the command is not there. It just could not find it. You are trying to run this command as a regular user (which is fine), but the command is in the "sbin" directory. The "sbin" directory is not in the PATH of a regular user. Try: /sbin/mke2fs and it should work. -- Louis D. Richards LDR Interactive Technologies

On Wednesday 12 May 2004 12:16, you wrote:

Interesting, tell me what mke2fs is, but then when I try to do it I am told "command not found." Duh, then how does man know about it?

===== Stephen W Sarasota, FL

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine ..." Proverbs

Try this.............................

http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#usersguide or http://www.icon.co.za/~psheer/book/index.html -- Regards Ted Wager Using Libranet Linux