feyang said:
hi all,
thanks for all the reply bzImage, VERY HELPFUL!!
now I can get the executables executed properly THANKS 
anyone know how to add gnuc for my compiler (only have gcc atm)
and how is it to read/write into floppy drive/cdrom?
I cant seem to find my CDROM and FLOPPY Drive....to be honest I dont know why people hate windows *wink* ^_^
once again, is Mandrake 9 better than Redhat 8? from personal desktop (use only for C & shell programming) point of view...
thanks,
Ferdinand
gcc its gnu c, you already have it.. or maybe i dont understand what you mean..
How to read write on floppy/cdrom ?
well.. different from DOS, unix/linux has no drive names (like a: or c: or d:, etc). It has mount points and devices..
I mean..
You need to have a directory to link your floppy or cd device..
Using mount, you can link your floppy or cd device to this directory..
By default this directory already exist (but you can create one for this if you wish), its called /mnt
/mnt means "mount", so this its the mount mount for the removable media, on some linux distributions inside /mnt you have different directories, each for each kind of media, eg:
/mnt/floppy
/mnt/cdrom
on some other distribuitions or Unix flavors, you only have /mnt, but this its trivial since you can mount a removable device on any directory no matter whats its the name.
First:
type
"mount"
what do you see ?
maybe something like this:
cut here --
/dev/hda1 on / type ext2 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
/dev/hda6 on /hall type ext2 (rw,usrquota)
/dev/hdd1 on /hall1 type ext2 (rw,usrquota)
/dev/hdb1 on /ddata type xfs (rw)
/dev/hde2 on /rdata type xfs (rw)
/dev/sda1 on /mdata type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sdb2 on /vdata type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sdb3 on /xdata type rawd (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
cut here --
since this its the output of my home server your output of the mount command will be different, but i can use a line or two of this output to show my point..
ok.. the mount command tells me for example that:
/dev/hda6 on /hall type ext2 (rw,usrquota)
this means:
the device (/dev/) first IDE hard disk (hda) filesystem 6, its mounted on the directory /hall, this filesystem its of type ext2 and its mounted in read write mode, it also have quotas. When you enter the /hall directory you really are entering this hard disk and this filesystem.
so the second IDE hard disk its: /dev/hdb
the third IDE hard disk its: /dev/hdc
the first partition (or filesystem) of the second IDE hard disk its: /dev/hdb1
the second partition of the first SCSI disk (sda) its: /dev/sda1
Do you get it ?
So, in order to mount a removable media, you need to have:
a device name, a mount point, and a filesystem type
Then, what its the device name of the floppy ?
Well it depends on the floppy media, its not the same a floppy of 1.4 MB than a floppy of 720KB, its not the same 5 1/4 than 3 1/2, right ?
you can see all the different floppis devices supported by linux typing:
ls /dev/fd*
but, in order to make things more easy, you can use /dev/fd0 to refer to the first floppy drive, /dev/fd1 to the second floppy drive, and so on:
so if you type:
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt
it will try to mount the fist floppy device on the /mnt/directory
IT MUST HAVE a recognized filesystem type, like DOS or ext2 or similar.
but since most newer kernels include support for DOS fs on the configuration you must have no problems mounting DOS floppys.
and in order to make the things even more easy, there its a file /etc/fstab, this its the filesystem table, this its used to mount by default a device, for instance:
if on /etc/fstab exists the following line:
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,owner,ro 0 0
this means:
the device: /dev/cdrom
will mount on: /mnt/cdrom
its of type: iso9660
options: noauto,owner,ro (no automount, owner permissions, read only)
the next 0 0 parts are on the order and fsck flags, dont bother now about this.
so if i type:
mount /mnt/cdrom
or
mount /dev/cdrom
(just the mount point or directory without device or just the device without mount point, it will read the fstab file and automatically make the right descitions on where and what filesystem mount)..
so:
in order to mount your floppy type:
mount /dev/fd0
in order to mount your cd type:
mount /dev/cdrom
where it is mounted ?
type :
mount
how can i use it ?
change to the mounted directory (cd /mnt/cdrom or /mnt/floppy)
HEY!!! i can eject my cd !!
yes, a mounted cdrom cant be ejected until its umounted, type:
umount /dev/cdrom
or
umount /mnt/cdrom
do dis-mount
HEY!!!, when i type that it tells me something a device busy.. !!
Yes you cant unmount /mnt/cdrom if a process or you are on this directory, you must exit all processes that use this mounted device and change to another directory to do it..
HEY!! but i can extract my floppy whitout dis-mounting!!
DONT DO THAT.. always dis-mount (umount) a device before you extract it from the computer, or the device will become corrupt, this its very common with floppy media.
is Mandrake 9 better than Redhat 8?
Its a different kernel the mandrake 9 than the Redhat 8 ?
NO, its the same thing!!, maybe mandrake has a newer or more recent version or the kernel or viceversa, but you can allways get the LATEST kernel form ftp.kernel.org, build it yourserlf and thats it.
But Mandrake has xyz application!! or Redhat has zyw application:
Get the source code of the application, compile it your self and thats it!!
All this :
its this linux better than this one ? makes no sense.
What the linux distros does ?
Lets take an example:
RedHat.
They select a kernel version based on stability and features (not allways the latest kernel version or the one with most features), they select a graphical environment like KDE or GNOME based on the same thing. they compile it, burn a CD, package then and thats it. here its Redhat xx.xx.
Its the same thing with any other linux distribuitions, they dont make the code!!, the code its free, they just compile it and package it..
if a program version dont exists on one distribuitions, this DONT MEAN THAT YOU CANT GET THE SOURCE AND COMPILE IT YOURSELF.
So everything its the same thing.
But if you wish to wait 2 weeks to wait for the latest KDE or GNOME release, then wait for Redhat 10 or Suse 15 or Mandrake 17
You want it now ?
go to
www.kde.or or
www.gnome.org, get the source, compile it, use it..
