RE: Download Linux tar files to DOS and Linux native partitions

[Dom Bekarge <dbekarge netzero net>]

>>Can I download tar / gzip files from <linux.corel.com>
>>to a DOS partition (with Win98 / Netscape), and later use
>>RH6 Linux to copy or to install them to a Linux native partition?
>
>denice.deatrich @ NospaM.epfl.ch, EPFL - LCAV / LCM    PH: +41 (21) 693-5643
>After you have downloaded the file from win98, then:
> -remember in which directory you stuffed the file
> -reboot into linux
> -mount the windows partition, and copy the file(s) to a linux directory.
>
>eg:   mount -t vfat -o ro /dev/hda1 /mnt/win
>      cd /mnt/win/path/to/file
>
>where:  /dev/hda1 is your windows partition
>        /mnt/win  is an empty directory you have created.

Brilliant!

I was surprised Linux mounted all three of my hard drives:  IDE
Primary Master (PM), Primary Slave (PS) and Secondary Master (SM).
In Win98, these are drives C: (FAT32), D: (FAT16)
and E: (FAT16 on primary 100 MB DOS partition and Linux on remaining
partitions of drive.).  Bootloader is on the first Linux partition, 
and I use a custom startup disk to boot the Linux OS.

Initially, only the SM drive was in the machine when I partitioned it
into FAT16 and Linux native partitions.  Later, I added the PM and PS drives.

In MS-DOS or Win98, I would have expected the OS to become confused
over the logical drive letters.  Linux seems to gather information from the 
CMOS, because the following three mount commands worked!

mount -t vfat -o ro /dev/hda1 /mnt/drvc
mount -t vfat -o ro /dev/hdb1 /mnt/drvd
mount -t vfat -o ro /dev/hdc1 /mnt/drve

I expected that I would need to write something silly like:

mount -t vfat -o ro /dev/hda1 /mnt/drve

because of the order in which I installed and partitioned the hard disks
in the machine.

Questions:

1.  Is it necessary to umount the drives before shutdown?

2.  Why vfat ?
     Why not types msdos or umsdos?

3.  The ReadOnly option makes sense, but is the following okay?

mount -t vfat -o rw /dev/hdc1 /mnt/drve

(I would like to use the 100 MB primary DOS partition on the Linux drive
as a kind of "file server."  If Linux boot, I could use WordPerfect for Linux.
If Win98 boot, I could use Microsoft Word.  This would allow me to transfer
data between the two programs.)

4.  To preserve long file names, is it better to partition and format hdc1 
as a Win98 FAT32 primary partition instead of a MS-DOS FAT16 partition?

(If I use Win98 / Netscape to download WordPerfect from <linux.corel.com>,
the tar / gzip files have file names longer than DOS 8+3.)

Dom Bekarge
<dbekarge netzero net>

________________________________________________________
NetZero - We believe in a FREE Internet.  Shouldn't you?
Get your FREE Internet Access and Email at
http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html