Damn Small Linux - Not!

ian_the_great · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 9 Location: england

I recently (today) installed DSL-N onto an old dell latitude cpi and am proud to say that everything is working fine. i tried a couple of other disros, ubuntu, kubuntu and xubuntu, but i found that it only booted 1/3 times. now im happy with this distro and its features. it has everything ill need for the new year at school.

I am, however, having some trouble using the file browser and removable storage. i cant seem to find it in the file browser and im not sure how to access it in terminal. i tried a usb floppy drive, a 256 pen drive and the slot-in floppy drive and slot-in cdrom drives to look in them, but i cant, and im unsure how to.

im gonna need to transfer notes from my classes onto a desktop pc to organise them and stuff. the laptop doesent have internet access (well, until i get an adsl modem that uses ethernet as opposed to usb)

any help would be appreciated. if im in the wrong forum for this, please re-direct me.

bostonvaulter · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 31

Welcome to DSL-N!

first, I want to tell you that I only have experience with USB Flash drives. Also, since you didn't mention your degree of knowledge of linux i'll write these instructions as generally as possible. Then it will be able to help others better.

as far as I can tell, DSL-N does not recognize USB devices very well. I have had better luck with plain DSL.

However, I have been able to easily mount my usb drive by plugging it in before i turn on the computer. If you do that then you should be able to find it in the bottom left corner. Just click until you see sda1. And then click "unmounted" to mount it.

That may not necessarily work for you. So you can also go to the command line by right-clicking to go to fluxbox menu, then go to xshell. once there use these commands.

cd /mnt
mkdir sda1
mount /dev/sda1 sda1

your usb stick should now be mounted! Simply use "cd /mnt/sda1/", and then you should be able to see all your files.

As a side note, you could also set up a samba share or use ftp to transfer files between the computers. Sorry, but I wouldn't be a whole lot of help for you there.

ian_the_great · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 9 Location: england

thanks very much. im still fairly new to linux (kinda a summer project to fill the time)

i thought you used "ls /mnt..." as opposed to "cd /mnt...." ?

bostonvaulter · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 31

[quote="ian_the_great"]thanks very much. im still fairly new to linux (kinda a summer project to fill the time)

i thought you used "ls /mnt..." as opposed to "cd /mnt...." ?[/quote]

no problem.

if you use "ls /mnt", then you you will list everything in the folder /mnt (ls = list)

if you use "cd /mnt" then you will change your working directory to /mnt (cd = change directory)

so for example, "ls /mnt" will give you the same output as "cd /mnt" followed by "ls"

hope that explains it.

ian_the_great · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 9 Location: england

hmm, i opent the mount tool, their is nothing mountable, apart from hda1

bostonvaulter · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 31

[quote="ian_the_great"]hmm, i opent the mount tool, their is nothing mountable, apart from hda1[/quote]

that basically means that you'll have to do it manually how I outlined above. Did you try rebooting with the usb plugged in? Perhaps you also try sticking the usb in while it is booting.

ian_the_great · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 9 Location: england

"cannot create directory 'sda 1':permission denied"

bostonvaulter · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 31

[quote="ian_the_great"]"cannot create directory 'sda 1':permission denied"[/quote]

ah, so i guess that dsl-n has not been able to find it on its own.

I should've gone over the instructions myself before I gave them to you. oh well. basically you need to be the superuser to do this.

so simply do "sudo su" before all the other commands. or you can open up xshell with root access, it's basically the same thing. here's a quick recap.

sudo su
cd /mnt
mkdir sda1
mount /dev/sda1 sda1

ian_the_great · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 9 Location: england

"not a valid block device"

bostonvaulter · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 31

[quote="ian_the_great"]"not a valid block device"[/quote]

hmmm, that means that your usb is not the device "sda1"

I am not entirely sure how to proceed from here, but you could try "more /etc/fstab" but i don't think that will help.

Try the command "more /proc/partitions" and paste the output here.

ian_the_great · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 9 Location: england

3 0 29302560 hda
3 1 28555506 hd1
3 2 1 hda2

bostonvaulter · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 31

well, it looks like i've come to the limit of how much I can help you get your usb working. I'd say your best bet (as long as both comps are on the same network) would be to set up samba, or use

sorry.

ian_the_great · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 9 Location: england

dont worry

roberts · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 320 Location: OC CA USA

Which type of install?
What type of USB?
What version RC are you using?

ian_the_great · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 9 Location: england

o.0....? confused