This page is definitely under construction.

When completed this page will describe the DPMMS Scientific Linux 5 Linux system, the one on the black machines. Until then some of the things that this page mentions are correct, necessary even, for these machines, but some statements are wrong. Do not rely on what it says.

Using memory sticks, CDs and other removable disks on DPMMS Linux machines

The DPMMS Linux machines have drives which can read and write CDs and DVDs and USB slots for memory sticks. A few machines also have floppy disk drives and memory card readers.

The new (2007) Linux system believes (mostly correctly) that it understands removable storage devices. The gnome and KDE graphical interfaces put icons on the desktop when such storage is plugged in or inserted in the drive. These graphical interfaces are alleged to be intuitive; if they are not, a web page to describe how to use them is unlikely to help, so I will not write one.

If you are using some other window manager - eg TWM or FVWM - the command gnome-volume-manager & will start the automatic icons mentioned above.

If you want to drive the storage devices from the command line gnome-mount and gnome-umount are the main commands. gnome-mount knows about (software) labels on the device and is happy to mount say a memory stick labelled "kingston" in directory /media/kingston.

Whichever way you access removable devices, unmount them with the mouse or keyboard before removing/disconnecting them from the machine, otherwise any data you have written to them may not reach the stick/disk. Even worse, data already stored could become corrupted.

USB memory sticks

USB memory sticks - sometimes called thumb-drives or pen-drives - have almost completely replaced floppy disk as the standard way of carrying files around with you.

Command line usage: try 

gnome-mount -p /media/label

If you don't know the label name try either

gnome-mount -d /dev/sdb

or

gnome-mount -d /dev/sdb1

instead.

Finish by running gnome-umount -p /media/label or whatever before removing the stick/disk.

CD / DVD drives

Our Linux machines have a CD drive which can be used to read and write compact disks and DVDs containing data. (They can also be used to play music disks, see the sound web page, though it describes the old machines).

Reading data CDs is much like reading a USB memory stick: use mount, ls, cp, eject. The name is /mnt/cdrom; this normally works for PC, Unix and Macintosh CDs. Some disks contain info for PC and Macintosh. /mnt/cdrom will access the PC info; please ask for assistance if you need to access the Macintosh info.

Our CD drives can write data as well as reading it. Unlike USB sticks, memory cards and floppy disks, writing CDs requires a specialist program such as growisofs. The gnome desktop has a graphical interface for writing CDs and/or DVD, but I don't think the way that it does and I don't understand it well enough to know when/if it has done what I ask it to do.

To burn a DVD image myimage.oios to a disk use growisofs -dry-run -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=/ptha/to/myimage.oios as a dry-run, then again without the -dry-run to actually burn the disk.

We also have the program k3b which can burn CDs and DVDs. It has no man page but the command k3b -help or k3b -help-all will give some hints.

Memory card reader

Digital cameras and similar devices store pictures and other information on various objects about the size of a postage stamp. The Linux machine redpoll (the machine with the scanner outside C1.11 - C1.14) has a floppy disk drive and a reader with four slots:

  • CF / MD
  • SD / MMC
  • SM
  • MS / MS PRO

for various types of memory cards (as often found in digital cameras).

Floppy disks

Floppy disk used to be the standard way of carrying files around, but since memory sticks have taking over, very few of our Linux machines have floppy drives. Currently only redpoll (the machine with the scanner outside C1.11 - C1.14) has one.

To read and write a PC format floppy disk on the DPMMS Linux machines, insert the disk into the floppy drive. You must then mount the floppy with the command 

   mount /mnt/floppy

You can now show the contents of the floppy with: 

   ls /mnt/floppy

copy files from it: 

    cp /mnt/floppy/filename newfilename

or to it: 

   cp filename /mnt/floppy

You can even make the floppy disk the your working directory (although I don't advise it because floppy disks are very slow) with

   cd /mnt/floppy.

See man cp and man cd for full details of these commands.

Important: Before you remove the disk you must unmount it with: 

   umount /mnt/floppy

and wait for the yellow light on the drive to go out. If you do not do this you could destroy all data on the floppy disk.

/mnt/floppy should work for floppies formatted for PC, Macintosh or any other format that the machine knows about. However, be aware that Macintosh files often have several parts, so you may need to copy more files than you expected.