I'm New Here, if Fedora 3 is a more capable OS than XP why........

[Justbill 0]

cant' I use it?

I am new to computers, I have an old HP 233, with a 60 gig hard drive, 192 mb of ram, and yes, I know I could use a new machine, but this has been inexpensive to learn on! I had 98SE on this machine originally, but it kept crashing. So I got frustrated, and got Fedora 3. It looked nice at first, no trouble installing, and a real nice web experience. However when it comes to the everyday little things , like trying to print, well, I have not been able to get my printer to work at all, not even a test page. This more "capable" system is only more capable, if you can actually use it!

Now I would just like to get it off my machine! But, I can't. I have a copy of Vector, that a friend gave me, but it won't install because Fedora is there. I realize I am new to computers and to Linux, but there has to be something I can do with this. Can anyone tell me in simple terms either how to get my printer working, or how to get Fedora out of my machine and life? I have already had (and am considering) the suggestions that involve tall buildings, or the rear tandems of large trucks ( the trucks idea is looking good). the version of Vector that I can't seem to get installed is SOHO 5.0. If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

William (Justbill) Sanders

williamsanders@charter.net

[clutch 1]

Is that a PII 233, or a Pentium Classic (such as a P200 or P166)? Also, while 98SE crashing isn't much of a surprise in general it could be an indicator of failing hardware which might be complicating your experience with Fedora. You could try something like Mepis, Knoppix, or any other distro and simply delete all of the partitions and start over if you would like.

 

As for the printing, have you checked to make sure that your printer is supported using the printing application (probably CUPS) in FC3?

[Justbill 0]

that would be a Pentium II, and as painfully embarassing as this, I really don't understand what CUPS is

 

Justbill

[danleff 0]

What printer do you have and is it a USB printer or parallel port printer?

[Justbill 0]

It is a Lexmark Z515, and yes it connects to the usb.

Whats the plan? :-)

[Justbill 0]

Soooooooooo,

Here is my next problem, I've got something saved to my HD, I need to write it to a floppy disk, evidently Fedora does not recognize the floppy drive as an equal in the computer world, because it does not give me the option of write to floppy. This OS (Fedora 3) is someones idea of a joke and I fell for it!

 

Justbill

[iamroot 0]

I'm using Fedora Core 3 now and i don't experience any of the usability problems that you have stated. You have to mount the floppy drive to copy files over.

 

Try this

 

mkdir /mnt/floppy

mount /dev/fd0

[Justbill 0]

Well, that didn't work either. I'm quite sure that the real problem here is my inexperience with computers. I think I'm just going to go out and get myself Norton's Partition Magic, and see how much havoc I can reak in my system with that! Hopefully I can get Fedora 3 out and another OS in, one that is a little more sympathetic to amatures like me :-)

Justbill

[clutch 1]

I am not very familiar with FC3 in its default state, but do you have a shortcut on your desktop to your floppy drive? If so, you might want to right click on it, go to properties, and look for an option to mount in read/write mode (Knoppix defaults to read only with its shortcuts, thought it might be the same).

 

Remember, for most people half of learning Linux is un-learning a previous OS, be it Windows, Apple, whatever. Linux will be easy once you get familiar with it.

[Justbill 0]

I need a little icon of a bald guy trying to pull his hair (that would be me at this point) ! I went to properties on the floppy drive and everything is set at read only. I tried checking the write option and it would not let me. It said I was not the owner and could not make changes! And I'm thinking "thats for sure, I quit being the owner when I installed this OS"

 

Thats the latest

Justbill

 

 

[clutch 1]

You might only be able to alter it as root. I don't have an installation of it running to advise you any further, but hopefully someone can point us in the right direction. If I get a chance, I might fire up another virtual machine to set it up and find out otherwise.

[Philipp 6]

To mount a floppy disk under Fedora Core 3:

Computer (on desktop) => Disk Drive

 

You find the content of the floppy disk at /media/floppy

[BSchindler 0]

Justbill, I have been Unix/Linux for over 20 years. It did take some time to get used to the different platform. So, I suggest you give yourself some. Fedora is a great OS!

 

I have a question though, is the floppy disk you are trying to write formatted with an MSDOS FAT filesystem? You can format floppies with Linux in MSDOS format, but I suggest you leave that for later. So start with a formatted disk, even better put a disk in which has at least one file on it.

 

Now, log onto your system and using the mouse click on:

 

RH => SystemTools => Terminal

 

You will open a command window much like the MSDOS command prompt.

At the command prompt type:

 

ls /mnt/floppy

 

This is equivalent to: DIR A:

 

You should see the file(s) on your disk. If not, you may need to mount the floppy. You are going to change to the superuser now, so be very careful what you type. At the prompt type:

 

su

 

You will be prompted for a password, this is the one you used when you installed FC3. CAREFUL YOU ARE NOW GOD ON YOUR COMPUTER AND YOU CAN DO SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE.

 

1. Lets check that FC knows about your floppy, so type:

 

ls /dev/floppy

 

You should see something like "/dev/floppy" and a new command prompt. Or you will get a message: "ls: /dev/floppy: No such file or device". If so, it means that FC did not find a floppy it knew about when you installed. So, we will tell Linux about it. Type the following commands:

 

cd /dev

ln -s /dev/fd0 floppy

ls /dev/floppy

 

You should not see the above error anymore.

 

2. Now, we have to tell Linux how to make the floppy available so we will create a mount point for it (if it does not have one). Thpe the following:

 

ls /mnt/floppy

 

If you do not get an error like described in step 1, GO TO STEP 3, otherwise type the following:

 

mkdir /mnt/floppy

 

3. Now we are going to make the floppy accessible so we type:

 

mount -t msdos /dev/floppy /mnt/floppy

 

4. Now type:

 

ls /mnt/floppy

 

You should see your file(s) on the disk and the disk should be ready to read/write.

 

5. Now, lets make copy your file (the one you say you wanted) to the floppy. I assume that your file is in your home directory, so lets go there, type:

 

cd /home/justbill (I used justbill but it is your username)

 

6. Now, just as in DOS, copy the file you want to the floppy:

 

cp <filename> /mnt/floppy

 

This is just an example, but you get the idea. Just as in DOS you can use the cd (change directory) command to move to different "folders" The "cp" above is just like DOS "copy". The difference is that in Unix/Linux you do not have drive letters, you have "mount points" -- the equivalent DOS command would look like: copy <filename> A:

 

7. Now we need to unmount the floppy so you can safely remove the disk from the drive. Type:

 

umount /mnt/floppy

 

8. Get out of superuser mode. So type:

 

exit

 

Type exit again to close the terminal window. Remove the floppy and immediately take it to another DOS computer and examine the disk.

 

Hope this helps. If you get stuck, post back, I will try to help.

 

Bill

[Justbill 0]

Bill,

I think my computer hates me! I followed all of your directions exactly (i believe), and I still haven't been able to copy the files. and the last time I tried to unmount the floppy, it wouldn't do it, something about didn't agree with "fstab", and it would'nt let me exit from "terminal", in fact I'm not sure it let "su" exit.

I did like the whole God analogy, what command prompt do I use to get lightening bolts to come down and whip this machine into shape :-)

All kidding aside, I really am a novice at this, I've really never messed around in msdos, so this is all new to me, again, I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this OS. Thank you all very much for trying to help, and I will keep trying with this OS, so any more advice will be greatly appreciated!

William "Justbill" Sanders

williamsanders@charter.net

 

Oh, I almost forgot, the floppy's I have are "Memorex", and say IBM

formatted on them. Justbill

[BSchindler 0]

Hi Justbill,

 

As to the lightning bolts we'll save that for another problem, perhaps your printer ...

 

Okay, lets make sure we're on the same page. When you logged in, did you log in as a regular user (The one you created after you first installed FC)? DO NOT MAKE A HABBIT OF LOGGING IN AS ROOT.

 

So, lets see what is going on ...

 

Step 1. On a windows machine, copy a couple of text files onto a floppy disk. Make sure they are text files, we will want to view them on FC later.

 

Step 2. Log onto your machine as a regular user. Then type:

 

su

<enter password>

mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

ls /mnt/floppy

 

Can you see the filenames of the files you put onto the disk (from step 1). If so, skip to Step 3.

 

We need to see what FC thinks is going on, so type:

 

cat /etc/fstab

 

You should see a few lines printed out. We are interested in the one that starts out "/dev/fd0". What exactly is printed there?

Send that with your reply and stop (for now).

 

Step 3. This is a good sign, now let's see if we can read the files, so type:

 

cat /mnt/floppy/<filename>

 

where <filename> is the name of one of the files as shown on Step 1. By the way, Linux, unlike dos/windows, is case sensitive. You MUST pay attention to this. If you get an error "no such file or directory" you are not typing the filename as shown on Step 1. Now, can you see the file contents? If so, proceed to Step 4, otherwise STOP and let me know what is happening.

 

Step 4. Now we know that we can read the directory and contents of the floppy. So we will try to write something to the disk. So type:

 

echo "this is data" > /mnt/floppy/simplecho

cat /mnt/floppy/simplecho

 

You should see one line printed --- you guessed it "this is data" printed. If not, STOP and let me know what happened

 

Step 5. Lets see if we can read the file on a Win/Dos computer so type:

 

unmount /mnt/floppy

 

Eject the disk and take it to another machine. Examine it. You should see a file simplecho, verify you can read it's contents and see the "this is data" as contents.

 

Let me know how this is going.

[Edited by BSchindler on 2005-01-25 01:02:10]

 

[Dapper Dan 0]

Hi Justbill and welcome to Linuxcompatible. It appears as though you are in extremely capable hands, but I wanted to drop by and offer a little encouragement.

 

You're right. This is new and hard, but think of it this way. Windows was also hard when you first were having to learn it too. Stick with it, and pretty soon, things will start coming together and it will make sense.

 

Have patience and be determined to learn a little more today than you learned yesterday and pretty soon you'll have it cold. Trust me when I tell you this: If I can learn Linux, anyone can.

 

Hang in there...

[LinuxCrusader 0]

Hi Justbill,

 

I also would like to give you a little bit of encouragement and tell you to keep at your quest for learning this new OS (FC3). Linux was also an alien OS to me when I first installed it into one of my old boxes. I remember I started with Red Had 7.X (a predecessor of Fedora) and installed it onto a pentium 166 with a 2Gig HD. However, I didn't have enough ram memory back then for me to be able to run it in Graphical mode so I had to go into command mode which I didn't know what to do at all. Nevertheless, I googled my way in fiding out the commands I could experiment with. Then I moved on into RH 8.0, FC1, FC2, FC3, Mandrake and about a year ago I found this forum in which Dapper Dan suggested live CDs (OSs that you can run from the cdrom and you don't have to install it onto your hard drive). Many of friends would tell me that I was wasting my time or just crazy, but now that they have seen what I've done with Linux or the things that you can do with it, now most of them are now integrating into it.

 

The live CDs that I messed with were knoppix and Morphix.

 

Everyone is right that after some time you start to get the hang of it and you will see that Linux can be a very powerful-all-around OS.

 

Hang in there. The linux community is big and we are all here to help you.

 

Regards,

 

LC

[Justbill 0]

Lets Seeeeeeeeeeeee,

 

The printer won't print!

The CD Burner wont burn!

The Floppy wont floppy (or whatever its supposed to do)!

I can play a nice game of cards with the machine (it usually wins ), and I'm wondering why I am sticking with this OS! Oh thats right , I can't even get it off my machine, to try VectorLinux (which I have a copy of). I have Mepis saved to my HD, but can't get it to burn!

 

This is getting old fast!

 

thank you very much for the encouraging notes, and all the help you all tried to give me!

 

"Justbill"

williamsanders@charter.net

[BSchindler 0]

Justbill

 

I wrote you again with some suggestions how to get your floppy drive running. Did you try?

 

You have to configure the cd burner before you can burn a cd. It would be better if you got the hang of how Linux works before you attempt that. Just going through the exercise of getting the floppy drive running will teach you a whole lot.

 

Please don't get discouraged so soon. Without sounding condecending I was trying to get you aquainted with some concepts (like mount points) before going on. This, so that you would have a better idea what was happening when you configured other devices. If someone came in and just did it all for you you would not be able to do anything for yourself.

 

Anyhow, did you try my last suggestion? If so, please write back with information about how you faired.

 

Hang in there, it ain't all that bad

[Justbill 0]

BSchindler:

 

For starters, thank you for taking the time time write all that out , I truly thank everyone for there time and effort! I did attempt your suggestion, and I could get to a point with it, but it would not let me read files, and it would not write. My apologies, but at that point I was quite frustrated, and cannot remember what it said the reason was. It did recognize that there was a disk in the floppy drive, and came up "/dev/floppy"several times if I remember correctly. Quite honestly, I've never messed around in msdos, so this is very strange to me, and I find myself bouncing back and forth to the thread, just to remember the directions you gave me, and then enter them correctly. I really am at a losss at this point . Plus I need something that my wife and kids can use, and that is why I am considering a simpler to use OS.

 

any how, I will try again. One problem I have is access to another computer, to see if it wrote the files. I tried checking the disk by re-mounting it in this machine, and it acted like it was empty.I will probably not be able to try again until tomorrow night, so I'll write back then.

 

Thanks again

Justbill

[BSchindler 0]

Justbill,

 

I certainly thank you for responding. However, if you are looking for a "simpler" os for your family ... well much as I hate to say it perhaps linux is not for you.

 

As I recall, you mentioned that the machine you are practicing on was "flakey" under windows. Not that that means anything particularly, windows is flakey anyway.

 

That you say you have little experience at the command line level of windows (i.e., DOS) it explains a few things.

 

Now, when you say you see /dev/floppy you always will. I think we created the symbolic link to it way back when? Even so, it will always be there. What you really want to look at is /mnt/floppy.

 

When a disk is in the drive and after you have mounted the floppy you should be able to see it. Remember, as su you issue the mount command like so:

 

mount -t msdos /dev/floppy /mnt/floppy

 

You might want to then type:

 

df

 

this will show all filesystems mounted and should show you the /mnt/floppy with about 1.4 MB of space max and some used. See if that is what you get.

 

Please, Please, pleeeeze use a floppy which is formatted on a windows machine and put at least one file on it. It will make helping you very much easier.

 

Bill

[Justbill 0]

BSchindler

 

I have done what you asked, through the df command, here are the results:

 

File System 1-K blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on

dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00

57153828 3767128 50483456 7% /

 

/dev/hda1 101086 12084 83783 13% /boot

none 95708 0 95708 0% /dev/shm

/dev/fd0 1424 13 1411 1% /mnt/floppy

 

 

I just entered ls /mnt/floppy, and it shows a file name "jcmpri~1.doc"

At this point I typed

cat /mnt/floppy/<jcmpri~1.doc>

and it said

bash: syntax error near unexpected token 'newline'

 

and that is as far as I got. There is a small text file on this floppy, that was made on a machine using Win.98 so I know its there.

 

Thank

Justbill