[nzlug] floppy permissions ubuntu 5.10

[Michael Adams]

On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:08:28 +1200
jamespaterson wrote:

> I have set up a box (vectra 400) for my girlfriend's
> granddaughter
> and given it to her- she is quite stoked about it.
> But a problem has arisen.
> She cannot save to the floppy drive (needed for homework)
> 
> I edited /etc/fstab and changed the fs to vfat so a mount
> command works sudo mount /media/floppy or floppy0 and the
> floppy icon appears on the desktop

Floppies do not need to be vfat, fat12 is normal on windows and works as
well in linux given the disk size AFAIK. I think but cannot confirm that
you may break a floppies readability in windows if you take it to vfat.

I really am not the Ubuntu guru here. But is there a security setting on
install that prevents users writing to floppy. If /etc/fstab is still
used then user may be needed to be added there.

> Trouble is you can not write to the disk or save to it.
> I have tried changing ownership and permissions without
> success
> 
> there are two enteries in /media for the floppy
> floppy and floppy0.  One must be an alias for
> the other  

ls -l /media will confirm or deny this

> sudo chmod 777 floppy and same for
> floppy0 only seems to effect
> floppy and even after reboot you can mount
> but not write to the floppy.
> (Mounting either floppy or floppy0 makes
> no difference)
> floppy0 is owned by root and has users x and r
> but not write which makes no sense to me and I
> can seemed to change this.  (Security is not
> critical on this machine.)
> 
> (I changed permissions on /dev/fd0 sucessfully)
> 
> Ideally I would like this to be auto mounted as
> read and writeable but it would be acceptable if
> I could alias two terminal commands that mount 
> and umount.  I have googled on this without finding
> anything helpful and the ubuntu website is pretty
> much overloaded. Any help would be appreciated

Can you get a USB flashdrive to work? Floppies are sooo yesterdays tech
and the school should allow flashdrives.

-- 
Michael
 Those that can, do; those that can't, teach.