[CentOS] floppy drives

Wed Apr 10 13:29:02 UTC 2013
James B. Byrne <byrnejb at harte-lyne.ca>

On Tue, April 9, 2013 13:46, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
> Fred Smith wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 12:21:10PM -0400, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>>> Frank Cox wrote:
>>> > On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 10:19:33 -0400
>>> > m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> Hmmm... didn't see it mounted, but I'll try more tonight. Last
>>> night
>>> >> included a) playing with system, and b) finishing up our federal
>>> >> taxes....
> <snip>
>>> I also can't seem to find the USB 3.5" drive I borrowed - lsusb
>>> sees it
>>> (at least since the last reboot), but trying to find it to mount it
>>> is
>>> something I'm still digging at, and I doubt mtools can find it.
>>
>> As far as I remember (I'm not as young as I used to be, and it's
>> been a
>> while), the 3.5" USB floppy drive here would recognize a (formatted)
>> floppy when inserted and mount it automatically, on Centos 5.x.
>> (assuming it contained a recognizable filesystem...)
>
> Even if there's nothing about floppies in /etc/fstab? Or is that
> something I need to configure for autofs?
>>

Just to obtain some empirical data I have connected a usb 3.5 FDD unit
to my CentOS-6.4 workstation and inserted a previously unused 3.5
HDFD.  The Nautilus system automatically opened a window on my desktop
and I was able to copy and removed files from the diskette without any
difficulty.

A peek into /media shows this:


# tree /media
/media
└── disk

1 directory, 0 files


While /etc/fstab shows me nothing that obviously relates to the fdd:


# cat /etc/fstab

#
# /etc/fstab
# Created by anaconda on Mon Sep 24 12:57:28 2012
#
# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under '/dev/disk'
# See man pages fstab(5), findfs(8), mount(8) and/or blkid(8) for more
info
#
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_root /                       ext4   
defaults        1 1
UUID=a9a7cc59-bd0c-4362-9ab6-f721e25df2f8 /boot                   ext4
   defaults        1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_home /home                   ext4   
defaults        1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_tmp /tmp                    ext4    defaults
       1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_log /var/log                ext4    defaults
       1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_spool /var/spool              ext4   
defaults        1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_vhost04-lv_swap swap                    swap   
defaults        0 0
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults      
 0 0
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620
 0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults      
 0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults      
 0 0
/dev/vg_vhost04/lv_centos_repos	/var/data/centos	ext4	defaults	00
/dev/vg_vhost04/lv_home_byrnejb	/home/byrnejb	ext4	defaults	0	0

Mount on the other hand shows this:

/dev/sdb on /media/disk type vfat
(rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=500,gid=500,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,flush)

And udisks show this:

howing information for /org/freedesktop/UDisks/devices/sdb
  native-path:                
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.0/host10/target10:0:0/10:0:0:0/block/sdb
  device:                      8:16
  device-file:                 /dev/sdb
    presentation:              /dev/sdb
    by-id:                    
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Y-E_DATA_USB_Floppy_Drive
    by-path:                  
/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1a.0-usb-0:1:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0
  detected at:                 Wed 10 Apr 2013 09:08:55  EDT
  system internal:             0
  removable:                   1
  has media:                   1 (detected at Wed 10 Apr 2013 09:09:07
 EDT)
    detects change:            1
    detection by polling:      1
    detection inhibitable:     1
    detection inhibited:       0
  is read only:                0
  is mounted:                  1
  mount paths:             /media/disk
  mounted by uid:              500
  presentation hide:           0
  presentation nopolicy:       0
  presentation name:
  presentation icon:
  size:                        1474560
  block size:                  512
  job underway:                no
  usage:                       filesystem
  type:                        vfat
  version:                     FAT12
  uuid:
  label:
  drive:
    vendor:                    Y-E DATA
    model:                     USB Floppy Drive
    revision:                  0601
    serial:
    WWN:
    detachable:                1
    can spindown:              0
    rotational media:          Yes, unknown rate
    write-cache:               unknown
    ejectable:                 0
    adapter:                   Unknown
    ports:
    similar devices:
    media:                     floppy
      compat:                  floppy
    interface:                 usb
    if speed:                  12000000 bits/s
    ATA SMART:                 not available

-- 
***          E-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel          ***
James B. Byrne                mailto:ByrneJB at Harte-Lyne.ca
Harte & Lyne Limited          http://www.harte-lyne.ca
9 Brockley Drive              vox: +1 905 561 1241
Hamilton, Ontario             fax: +1 905 561 0757
Canada  L8E 3C3