Click here for more Ezine related articles

Collection of Articles from

• USA
• UK
• India
• Germany
• China
• Brazil
• Canada
• France

The Linux File System

-----------------------------------------------------------Permission is granted for the below article to forward,reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website,offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as longas no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and theresource box below is included.-----------------------------------------------------------The Linux File SystemBy Stephen BucaroLinux uses a whole different file system philosophy thanWindows. Windows automatically assigns a drive letter toevery partition and drive it finds. But Linux makes everypartition and drive a subdirectory of the root (/)partition. If you are a Windows user, you may get confusedwhen you try to use Linux.No matter how many partitions, hard drives, or floppydrives your computer has, the Linux File Manager displayseverything in a single directory tree under the rootdirectory indicated by a slash (/). Every partition ordrive is "mounted" onto the directory tree, and appears inFile Manager as a subdirectory.Linux needs at least three partitions to work, the rootpartition, the /boot partition, and the swap partition.The root partition is mounted at startup. The rootdirectory itself doesn't contain any files, justsubdirectories. The /boot partition contains files used toboot the system. The swap partition is used as "virtualmemory".When the operating system needs more memory than there isavailable in the system's RAM, it can use disk space toemulate memory. As the system operates, data is swappedback and forth between RAM and the swap partition. Theswap partition doesn't have a mount point because it's asystem file and is never accessed directly by the user.Note: Linux, the Internet, and the rest of the computingworld use forward slashes to form directory paths. OnlyWindows uses back-slashes to form directory paths. Theback-slash also represents an ASCII escape character,resulting in all kinds of bugs in Windows programs. In Windows you just insert a floppy disk into the drive andit's accessible. With Linux, before you can access devicessuch as a CD ROM or a floppy drive, you have to "mount"the drive. For example, to mount the floppy drive, insertthe disk into the drive and then select Main Menu |Programs | System | Disk Manager. The "User Mount Tool"utility will appear. In the "User Mount Tool" click on the"Mount" button t

o the right of /dev/fd0.Note: Linux abstracts every device attached your computer,including the hard drive and floppy drive as a file. Filesin the /dev/ folder are equivalent to device driver filesin Windows. Linux provides device files for most commondevices, but if you install an uncommon device, you mayneed a special device file.After mounting the drive, you can access the floppy disk.Before removing the disk, you have to "unmount" the drive.If you find yourself frequently mounting and unmountingdrives, you can right-click on "Disk Manager" in the menuand select "Add this launcher to panel".When you installed Linux, information about devices oncomputer was stored in the file /etc/fstab. If the devicethat you want to mount was not configured duringinstallation, use the LinuxConf utility to configure thedevice before you mount it.For example, if you wanted to configure a floppy drive toaccess DOS floppy disks, insert a DOS floppy disk into thedrive, then log in as root and open LinuxConf - Main Menu| Programs | System | LinuxConf. In the LinuxConf windowConfig tab, click on "+" next to "File systems" to openthat branch. Under "File systems" click on "Access localdrive". The "Local volume" windows appears.In the "Local volume" window, click on the Add button. The"Volume specification" window appears. In the "Partition"text box type /dev/fd0. Then click on the drop down buttonfor the "Type" text box and select msdos. In the "Mountpoint" text box type /mnt/floppy. Click on the "Accept"button. Then click on the "Mount" button.Note: To mount a partition or drive you have to use anexisting subdirectory as the mount point. By convention,drives use the /mnt/ subdirectory as the mount point.To copy files to and from the mounted floppy disk, dragand drop them to and from the directory /mnt/dosfloppyjust as you would any other directory.-----------------------------------------------------------Resource Box:Copyright(C)2002 Bucaro TecHelp. To learn how to maintainyour computer and use it more effectively to design a Website and make money on the Web visithttp://bucarotechelp.comTo subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter Send a blankemail to bucarotechelp-subscribe@topica.com-----------------------------------------------------------

About the author:

.


Circulated by Article Emporium

	Enter your search terms Submit search form
	Web www.freearticlesandreports.com