Enable your floppy drive
This worked for me, you may have to experiment a little. (For people that arrived at this post from Google or another search engine, the menu and link editing is Kubuntu 12.04 specific, the basic enabling may work across other distros)
DO NOT DO THE /ETC/MODULES EDIT IF THERE IS NO PLUGGED IN FLOPPY DRIVE IN YOUR SYSTEM, IT HAS BEEN REPORTED TO LOCK UP LINUX WITHOUT ONE.
Open Kate as sudo in a terminal (type kdesudo kate, a 'root' session of Kate will open), open the file /etc/modules, on a new line just below the last line, simply type
floppy
Click save, open /etc/fstab in kate (still running as root), put a # in front of this line:
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
It should look like this afterwards:
#/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
(disables the line, apparently useless anyway), click save, close Kate and the terminal. In User Management in System Settings, add the 'floppy group' to your user by clicking edit. Reboot, this will load the kernel floppy module (aka driver).
In your new boot session, create a 'Mount Floppy' entry in the Kmenu...right click, edit applications, click new item, in the name field, type Mount Floppy, in the command field, type or paste
udisks --mount /dev/fd0
Click the blank icon area, drop the icon selection list down, select System, system icons will appear, scroll to the floppy icon and highlight it, click OK, click save at the top of the editor window, the new 'Mount Floppy' entry will appear at the top of the menu in the menu editor window, drag the new 'Mount Floppy' icon to 'System' (you may have to expand 'System' first), to its alphabetical position. Click save or close and then click save in the pop up sub-window. This new menu item can be added to the desktop by right clicking it from the Kmenu.
Right click the desktop view folder, select 'create a link to device', in the Device field, type or paste
/dev/fd0
Select the floppy icon as previously mentioned, click OK (when the floppy is mounted, mouse-over this link to device to see mounted symbol and to make it disappear after unmounting).
Open Dolphin as sudo from a terminal after mounting the floppy (type sudo dolphin, a 'root' Dolphin window will open) and access the floppy disk at /media/disk/ for reading and writing. The floppy can be unmounted from desktop 'link to device' by right clicking and selecting unmount. The floppy drive light might stay on after unmounting, it is safe to eject the disk, just be sure the disk is actually unmounted (the folder 'disk' will disappear from the 'media' folder when it is successfully unmounted).
In Dolphin, right click the 'Places' side panel and select 'Add Entry', in the 'Label' field, type Floppy, in the location field, type /media/disk/, choose the system floppy icon as previously mentioned, click OK. When clicking on this icon in Dolphin, the contents of the floppy will only be shown if it is mounted.
DO NOT DO THE /ETC/MODULES EDIT IF THERE IS NO PLUGGED IN FLOPPY DRIVE IN YOUR SYSTEM, IT HAS BEEN REPORTED TO LOCK UP LINUX WITHOUT ONE.
Open Kate as sudo in a terminal (type kdesudo kate, a 'root' session of Kate will open), open the file /etc/modules, on a new line just below the last line, simply type
floppy
Click save, open /etc/fstab in kate (still running as root), put a # in front of this line:
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
It should look like this afterwards:
#/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
(disables the line, apparently useless anyway), click save, close Kate and the terminal. In User Management in System Settings, add the 'floppy group' to your user by clicking edit. Reboot, this will load the kernel floppy module (aka driver).
In your new boot session, create a 'Mount Floppy' entry in the Kmenu...right click, edit applications, click new item, in the name field, type Mount Floppy, in the command field, type or paste
udisks --mount /dev/fd0
Click the blank icon area, drop the icon selection list down, select System, system icons will appear, scroll to the floppy icon and highlight it, click OK, click save at the top of the editor window, the new 'Mount Floppy' entry will appear at the top of the menu in the menu editor window, drag the new 'Mount Floppy' icon to 'System' (you may have to expand 'System' first), to its alphabetical position. Click save or close and then click save in the pop up sub-window. This new menu item can be added to the desktop by right clicking it from the Kmenu.
Right click the desktop view folder, select 'create a link to device', in the Device field, type or paste
/dev/fd0
Select the floppy icon as previously mentioned, click OK (when the floppy is mounted, mouse-over this link to device to see mounted symbol and to make it disappear after unmounting).
Open Dolphin as sudo from a terminal after mounting the floppy (type sudo dolphin, a 'root' Dolphin window will open) and access the floppy disk at /media/disk/ for reading and writing. The floppy can be unmounted from desktop 'link to device' by right clicking and selecting unmount. The floppy drive light might stay on after unmounting, it is safe to eject the disk, just be sure the disk is actually unmounted (the folder 'disk' will disappear from the 'media' folder when it is successfully unmounted).
In Dolphin, right click the 'Places' side panel and select 'Add Entry', in the 'Label' field, type Floppy, in the location field, type /media/disk/, choose the system floppy icon as previously mentioned, click OK. When clicking on this icon in Dolphin, the contents of the floppy will only be shown if it is mounted.
Comment