Floppy drive file system

[ricstr]

Hello i have just installed FreeBSD-5.1 on my system but it did not detect the floppy drive during the install so i placed an entry into /etc/fstab for it, similar to entry of /etc/fstab on my slackware linux system.

I have been using the FStype as 'msdosfs' but this is no use to me as it makes all file names uppercase and in the 8.3 format.

I have also tried 'auto' and 'std' and leaving the entry blank, but no joy.

Also the file system has to be compatible with Windows 2000 as this is what is used in my college.

What file system should i use ?

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Unfortunately, FreeBSD doesn't have an "auto" option, as you have realized.

Instead of msdosfs, just try msdos. That's what I have for all of my FAT partitions, and I don't have to worry about the 8.3 filename limitations.

[ricstr]

I have tried 'msdos' but it gives and error 'Operation not permitted', sounds as if i need to be root.

[ricstr]

I have just discovered the problem, the floppy discs i was using were formatted under an old version of dos.

So 'msdos' and 'msdosfs' both work fine.

;)

[phil_patnude]

Windows 2000 uses NTFS (AFAIK), but it is also possible to have a win2k or XP box running Fat32 instead. If you'll be connecting to the machines as network shares though, you probably [luckily :)] won't need NTFS support, but you will need to compile Samba.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by phil_patnude
Windows 2000 uses NTFS (AFAIK), but it is also possible to have a win2k or XP box running Fat32 instead. If you'll be connecting to the machines as network shares though, you probably [luckily :)] won't need NTFS support, but you will need to compile Samba.

NTFS is a filesystem standard, SAMBA is a networking protocol suite.

If you need to exchange files on floppies with any Windows machine, the FAT (not FAT32) filesystem is the way to go. Every version of Windows from 1.x to XP can read a FAT floppy.

The only time you'd need SAMBA on your system is if you plan on having your *NIX box participate in a Windows Network. The only time you'd need NTFS support on your *NIX box is if you need to read NTFS volumes either on hard disk, or some other media.

[phil_patnude]

Alex, did I say anything in error?

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by phil_patnude
Alex, did I say anything in error?

Probably not... I might have misread your post.

I guess for the sake of posterity, it seemed to me like you were lumping all of them together like they all did the same things.

I just figured if it seemed unclear to me, it might be unclear to others.

Sorry if I stepped on your toes, Phil! :D

[phil_patnude]

you're probably right, man
in the future i'll try not to throw all this information together

I started talking about samba, etc because I misread the first post, thinking he was going to be connecting to windows nets in addition to using dos-formatted floppies

I guess we're both a little mistaken, but it's cool man. I wasn't upset or anything, I just wanted to know if I had said something that was wrong (I'd rather not run around telling people falsehoods about linux and non-functional solutions to their problems :) )