[plug] Just started with linux, need help

[Christian]

Ari Finander wrote:
> 
> Okay!  Good news!  I've been able to get the cdrom/floppies/cdrive to mount
> without difficulty...but only from the root login.  From a safe user login,
> I can't get any of these to run (except cdrive, which I have set to mount at
> startup) and also can't get onto the internet (linux told me that using the
> internet under the root login was "stupid!").  When I try to have the cdrom
> mount at startup, after a while it goes berzerk again and the system
> freezes.  When I try to mount the floppy drive at startup, it doesn't
> function, because there's no disk in it.  I know I'll be flamed for saying
> this, but I kinda like the point and click activation of the windows OS for
> the floppy drive *hiding*.  With regards to Oliver's feedback: how much does
> VMWare cost?  I'd like to convert totally to linux for security reasons yet
> still have my wife able to use her win95 applications that she simply cannot
> part with.  First, though, I need to be able to use the cd-rom and get
> online from a user account as I won't be giving her root access just
> yet(she'll destroy something).

The point and click system for Windows is nice - but the Linux system is
*mostly* just fine once you get used to it.  The only time it really
sucks is when you have to swap between lots of floppies/CDROMs.

I would suggest not setting your CD to mount at boot-up - unless you
*always* need the same CD mounted every time you start your system. 
Allowing normal users to mount the CD/floppy as needed is a more
flexible approach.  Firstly, make sure you know which IDE port your
CDROM is on.  It's usually the one accessed by the /dev/hdc device
(secondary master IDE) but it will depend on the configuration of the
drives in your machine.  You can find out easily by typing: "dmesg|grep
CD", for example:
ophelia:~$ dmesg|grep CD
hdd: Pioneer CD-ROM ATAPI Model DR-A14S 0104, ATAPI CDROM drive
hdd: ATAPI 32X CD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache
Uniform CDROM driver Revision: 2.55

...tells me that my CDROM is on /dev/hdd - secondary slave IDE.  I'm
going to assume for the rest that your CDROM is /dev/hdc.  Also, to make
things easier and more flexible in the future, you can create a symbolic
link to a more memorable name from this, for example:
ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom
Means you can access /dev/hdc by the name /dev/cdrom.

Now, to allow ordinary users to accss your CDROM you need to specify
this in your /etc/fstab (filesystem table).  As root, open this file in
your favourite editor (you may want to make a backup copy first: "cp
/etc/fstab ~/fstab.backup").  Then add the lines to the end:

/dev/cdrom  /cdrom  iso9660  user,async,noauto,exec,ro,nosuid	0  0
/dev/fd0   /floppy  vfat     user,async,noauto,exec,nosuid 	0  0

The first field specifies the device (our newly created symbolic link
/dev/cdrom and the floppy device /dev/fd0).  The second specifies the
mount points (if you don't have these mount points then you will need to
create empty directories for them - or modify the above to refer to
mount points that do exist).  The next is the filesystem type (ISO9660
for CDROMs and vfat for floppies - all my disks are Win95 so I use
this).  The next are options separated by commas - I'm not going to go
into details about all of them but the "user" option allows ordinary
users (non-root) to mount these.  The last two fields relate to
automatic backups and filesystem checks - don't worry too much about
them.  Once you're happy with your new /etc/fstab you can save it.  I
also suggest you read the "fstab" and "mount" man pages ("man fstab" and
"man mount") which explain what you just did. :-)

Now ordinary users can mount CDROMs and floppies by typing: "mount
/cdrom" OR "mount /floppy" respectively.  There are some GUI tools to
facilitate this also - GNOME includes some you can stick on the panel
and just click on to mount, I don't know what KDE provides.

As for wanting to connect to the Internet as non-root, I don't know the
best way to achieve this in Red Hat - you'll have to ask someone who
uses that distribution.  There are certainly plenty of options from a
small setuid root wrapper program to running a Masq Dialing server on
your machine and allowing your users to access this through a local
client (it's overkill but it provides a nice GUI interface to the whole
process.)

As for the vmware issue, you can get a temporary free license when you
download the program (http://www.vmware.com/) although this does expire
after a month or something.  I forget how much it costs (it's on the web
page) but it's not too much.  The only issue with vmware is that it will
run things noticeably slower.  My recommendation to you is to use vmware
for Win95 apps that she absolutely needs and cannot be replicated on
Linux and use Linux native apps for all the rest - it shouldn't be a
major transition really.  Alternately, she could just boot the computer
into Win95 when she needs to.

Hope this helps...

Regards,

Christian.

-- 
Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a
hole in his head.