RE: Zip/printer -- Pseudo-problem mysteriously solved!

["Madel, Kurt" <KMadel USInspect com>]

/mnt/zip is acting like any other directory. If you look at /mnt/zip/ with
no disc in your zip drive, all the files you copied to /mnt/zip/ will still
be there, because they are on your hard drive. They were never on your zip
disc.  Try erasing everything under /mnt/zip/ without a zip disc in, then
put in the zip disc you thought you copied files to.  Are there any files
there now?

If there are, then you have the best plug n play I ever heard of!

Kurt

		-----Original Message-----
		From:	Benjamin Sher [mailto:sher07 bellsouth net]
		Sent:	Friday, April 30, 1999 8:53 PM
		To:	redhat-list redhat com
		Subject:	Zip/printer -- Pseudo-problem mysteriously
solved!

		-- Dear friends:

		While waiting for an answer, I decided to do a little more
reading on
		this Zip subject and to experiment very conservatively. I
have learned
		to be very wary and skeptical of any "intuitive" hunches
based on the
		ignorance of a newbie. 

		I remembered the episode of the missing /bs storage
partition (bs
		seeking /bs), when all I had to do, after custom
reinstallation of the
		master Linux drive hda, was to recreate the /bs drive (which
completely
		fills my slave Linux drive hdb) and add it to fstab and,
bingo, all my
		files and data on /bs reappeared out of nowhere. 

		So, I began by creating a subdirectory /zip under /mnt,
namely,
		/mnt/zip, which is the first step anyhow. Then the strangest
thing
		happened. Being in a playful mood, I decided to:

		#cd /mnt/zip.

		No problem. No error message telling me that there is no
such directory
		or that I had not mounted it. Of course, the Zip cartridge
had been
		previously (before this latest reinstallation of my system)
partitioned
		and formatted and a file system had been created for it. Not
believing
		my eyes, I decided to go on and copy a file from /etc/ to
/mnt/zip. No
		problem. I then printed the copied file on screen from the
zip drive.
		And there it was: the entire file on screen. 

		I couldn't believe what was happening. I then tried to print
to paper
		(lpr myfile.txt) from /etc and then printed a file from
/mnt/zip. No
		problem. I thought I was having hallucinations. I decided to
try the
		ultimate: to print from the hard drive while SIMULTANEOUSLY
copying a
		file from /etc to /mnt/zip. Again, no problem. I did this
several times
		in total disbelief. I was using both modules. Both modules
were
		apparently recognized by Linux 5.2 (2.0.36 kernel) and then,
to top it
		all, I was using them both at the same time. And no entry
whatsoever for
		the Zip drive in fstab. In fact, I wouldn't know what kind
of device to
		call it or what values to enter for it (defaults or 00).
Well, no point
		in fixing something that ain't broke.

		And no mounting or unmounting. No problem popping out the
cartridge or
		popping it back in (I just did that again) Now I popped in a
new
		cartridge, which had never been formatted, etc. as a Linux
cartridge.
		When I did an "ls" it showed (#cd /mnt/zip, then #ls) the
same three
		files as the first Zip cartridge did. Fine, I figured that
was in the
		memory or something like that. But then I copied a file to
it from hda:

		#cp /etc/inittab /mnt/zip  [unformatted cartridge].

		#cd /mnt/zip

		There was the file "inittab"!

		#cat /mnt/zip/inittab.

		There it was, the entire file.

		#lpr /mnt/zip/inittab

		It printed it out on paper.

		What is going on?

		I had from the beginning assumed that RH Linux 2.0.36 could
NOT run both
		the printer and the Zip drive without special configuration
and
		certainly not simultaneously as in Windows (or as in the new
Rh 6.0).
		That's what the books and the RH manual said. I had
therefore set out to
		try out different strategies to solve a problem that
apparently never
		existed in the first place, at least not on my rather humble
Pentium
		166, making things only worse (by adding an alias
scsi_hostadaptor,
		adding an sda4 entry in fstab, etc.). 

		I cannot for the life of me figure out how this is possible
unless Linux
		recognizes my Zip drive automatically as a default hard
drive or
		whatever. I haven't the faintest idea except to assure
everyone that
		every detail is true. I've tested it over and over again.
And it always
		works perfectly.

		I am thrilled, of course, to say the least. But could
someone please
		explain to me what is going on?

		Yours,

		Benjamin
		(a.k.a Marco Polo)

		Benjamin Sher
		sher07 bellsouth net
		Sher's Russian Web
		http://www.websher.net


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