a number of minor issues from a n00b

[xSauronx]

anywa to get automount to not look for a floppy drive?

I've always had the same issue on my laptop. Yes, you can turn off the automounter. Just run:

/etc/init.d/autofs stop

If you want to stop it permanently (and trust me you do) then also run:

update-rc.d -f autofs remove

i did this, it still stalls for 1-2 minutes when i graphically broswe /mnt

My dvd drive is the Primary Slave so it's called /dev/hdb. I just do this:

ln -s /dev/hdb /dev/dvd

when booting, it says my dvd/rw is hdc

but i have *no* /mnt/hdc or /dev/hdc at all....wth? how do i use my dvd drive if its not seeing it there?

-new question- how do i find which "folders" are linked to which partitions? i have partition hda6 that is showing as 30gb and almost full, im pretty sure i have hda6 set as /home but my /home has under 50meg in it; where do i find out what else is using this parition so i can get my data?

-also- qparted shows hda8 as ~35gigs, and almost full. but if i look at hda8 from the desktop link i see....nothing. nada. is something wrong? or is it similar to my above situation; that i just dont know what im looking for?

thanks so much guys

[mzilikazi]

when booting, it says my dvd/rw is hdc

but i have *no* /mnt/hdc or /dev/hdc at all....wth? how do i use my dvd drive if its not seeing it there?

I *think* I see what's been so confusing for you. Hopefully I don't make it worse.

Linux uses symlinks or 'symbollic links' It's just another name for the same device or directory.

Why do you need more than one name for a device or directory?
To make things simple *most* applications will look to use /dev/dvd to play dvd's but!!......how do you know which device is actually the dvd drive?

Afterall your dvd drive can be in any of four positions on the pci bus right?

/dev/hda - primary master
/dev/hdb - primary slave
/dev/hdc - secondary master
/dev/hdd -secondary slave

To make things uniform we teach Linux to call our drive /dev/dvd with a symbolic link no matter where it is on the pci bus.

ln -sf /dev/hdc /dev/dvd

ln (link) -s (symbolicly) -f (force- to remove any existing links) /dev/hdc (your actual device) /dev/dvd (new name of device)

That's it.
How to see if it worked?

ls -al /dev/dvd
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root     root            8 Jun 11 16:05 /dev/dvd -> /dev/hdc

-new question- how do i find which "folders" are linked to which partitions?

Well you can do this:

mount

to see what's mounted and how it's mounted.
You can do this:

fdisk -l

to see what partitions are available on your drives.

i have partition hda6 that is showing as 30gb and almost full, im pretty sure i have hda6 set as /home but my /home has under 50meg in it; where do i find out what else is using this parition so i can get my data?

-also- qparted shows hda8 as ~35gigs, and almost full. but if i look at hda8 from the desktop link i see....nothing. nada. is something wrong? or is it similar to my above situation; that i just dont know what im looking for?

thanks so much guys

It sounds like your desktop icons are possibly not mounting the partitions they represent. Forget the desktiop icons and mount the partitions by hand:

mount /dev/hda8 /mnt/hda8

OR better yet why not mount /dev/hda8 somewhere that's at least a bit meaningful?

su
mkdir /music
mount /dev/hda8 /music

Make whatever directory you want and mount your drive wherever you want. The point is that you can mount a drive anywhere as long as the mount point actually exists!

HTH

[xSauronx]

thath helped a bit

but theres still nothing seeing hdc (which is my dvd drive, as its the master on the second ide channel)

again, its not in /dev or/mnt as anything, and again, i dont know why since it worked a couple days ago, and nothing you guys have told me would have changed it :/

but when im booting and linux is loading, it mentions hda as my WD1200 drive and HDc as my lite-on dvd drive

grrr

[mzilikazi]

Either I don't write too clearly or you didn't do what I wrote. Do the following and post the output:

ls -al /dev/dvd

IF is DOESN'T say this:

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root root 8 Jun 11 16:05 /dev/dvd -> /dev/hdc


Then do this:

ln -s /dev/hdb /dev/dvd

Then do this again:

ls -al /dev/dvd

[xSauronx]

ls -al /dev/dvd

outputs

Irwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Jun 15 18:19 /dev/dvd -> /dev/hdc

still getting this from xine:

There is no input plugin available to handle 'dvd:/'
Maybe MRL syntax is wrong or file/stream source doesnt exist