[plug] [motigo3 at yahoo.com: saving on floppies]

[Harry]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 13:39:34 +0800 Cameron Patrick
<cameron at patrick.wattle.id.au> wrote:

> I'm forwarding this to the PLUG list 
[...]

> ----- Forwarded message from shive samy <motigo3 at yahoo.com> -----
> 
> Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 22:33:18 -0700 (PDT)
> To: webmaster at plug.org.au
> From: shive samy <motigo3 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: saving on floppies
> 
> Dear Sirs,
> 
> After typing a letter in windows 97 mode I tried to
> save in floppy by clickin on the floppy icon in SAVE
> but it does not save.I opened Home and file manager
> and floppy drive.Can you advise me how to connect the
> floppy drive and office org.

Hi Steven

I think I can see that you have the old issue on a Linux box that the
floppy must be "mounted", that is, the computer needs to be told that a
floppy has been put into the floppy drive _before_ files can be stored to
the floppy directly from the word processor program (in this case
OpenOffice.org).

The entry /floppy that you see in OpenOffice.org or from your file manager
is only a place marker for the floppy disk and the floppy must be "mounted"
(or attached onto this place marker) so Linux can start using the floppy to
store or retrieve files.

To mount a floppy, you will need to select an option to "mount /floppy"
somewhere on your file manager. Not knowing which file manager you are
using makes it difficult to assist with this.

If you hunt around the file manager and can't find a way to mount the
floppy, you can do it another way by opening an xterm window and typing
after the prompt:

steven at computername $ mount /floppy <press Enter key>
                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
but this will only work if your computer has the right setting (in a file
called /etc/fstab/) to allow users to mount floppies this way.

Once the floppy is mounted, you can store the file directly from
OpenOffice.org by browsing in your Save window to the entry /floppy.

The final and _most_important_part_ is that you need to unmount the floppy
before you remove it from the floppy drive. This is because Linux, unlike
Windows, takes it's time actually moving the information onto the floppy
(particularly if it is busy doing a few things). If you store the file from
OpenOffice.org onto /floppy it will all _appear_ to be done but Linux keeps
the information in a buffer (storage) along the way to the floppy
disk in case it has some more pressing things to do.

The only way to make sure that Linux has "flushed" or stored all of your
file onto the floppy is to unmount the floppy. Once the unmount is done,
you can take out your floppy disk.

To unmount the floppy, use your file manager again or the command:

steven at computername $ unmount /floppy

This is one of the few subtle things about using a Linux computer that is
different from using a Windows computer but, if you don't do it right, you
can end up with only part of your file on the floppy .. which would be bad
:(

A safer approach is to always store your work in your home directory on the
hard disk from OpenOffice.org and then use the file manager later to copy
the file from your home directory to a floppy (still using mount and
unmount) if you need to take it to another computer. That way, you always
have a copy if the floppy gets lost or damaged in your travels.

All the best
Harry

-- 
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