User Feedback :: File system in DSL



Thanks so much. I got it working. I just had to say:

mount /floppy

and the picture was there!  Now another question. :D
How do I write files to the floppy?
You might need to be root in order to write to it.  I hardly ever use floppies anymore, so I couldn't tell you for sure.

However, since you were apparently user dsl when you mounted it (i didn't see "sudo" in your mount command), there may be another issue.
Could you tell us how you have tried to write files to it so far?
I haven't really tried at all... I don't really have a clue. I guess I was thinking that it would be simple like in Windows, and you can just drag and drop... but I guess it's not. It's not very important that I know, but I was just wondering.
Oh...i see.
Well, drag and drop is typically a feature of your desktop environment.  In Windows that would be Windows Explorer.  Linux has desktop environments available to it -- such as KDE, Gnome, and Xfce -- which allow drag and drop between applications (I'm not sure if Xfce does this).  However, DSL is a tiny distro, which means tiny applications and the lack of a lot of stuff that by some peoples' standards is considered unnecessary.  There is no "desktop environment" in DSL, but rather the choice of two window managers.  I won't go into the differences between desktop environments and window managers here, apart from saying that window managers tend to focus mainly on the manipulation of program windows and desktop environments add a lot more user-friendly features to control the desktop's behavior beyond simply managing windows.

In DSL manipulating files is left up to the shell (Bash) and the two included file managers (Emelfm and Midnight Commander).  If you want  to copy or create a file while remaining in a familiar "mouse click" environment I'd suggest opening Emelfm and using that to manage your files.  Emelfm displays buttons with which to do the common actions such as copying, deleting, and creating files.  If you want to copy from one directory to another, have your source directory displayed in one panel and the target directory displayed in the other.  Select the file you want to copy from the source directory, and click the "copy" button to copy it to the target directory (or press F5).  The F5 shortcut is also available in midnight commander, although I wouldn't immediately recommend mc to someone who has been depending on drag and drop.

If you have plans to explore the true power of Linux in the future, beyond simply using it as a GUI replacement for Windows, I recommend learning as much about the shell as you have time to learn.  Bash is a very powerful tool, and even though it may seem archaic to some, it can give the user the power to do much more than he could ever accomplish in windows.
Your explanation really clarified a lot of things. I guess DSL didn't give me a very good first impression of Linux. I was actually just planning on using it as a GUI replacement for Windows, just as something that would actually work on my old computer and to give Linux a try.

I'm not sure that I'll be getting to excited with using Bash anytime soon, but maybe in the far future.
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