Using Linuxconf and a few clicks of the mouse, you can reconfigure a Linux floppy drive to accept MSDOS-formatted disks that can also be used by Windows programs. First, make sure that your Linux disk drive is not mounted. Next, switch to root user, and then start Linuxconf. Starting Linuxconf
I work with an earlier version of Red Hat, namely 6.1. To start Linuxconf, I needed to open a terminal window. On later versions, you can access Linuxconf by clicking on the GNOME Main Menu Application button and moving to Linuxconf under the System menu. Users who don't have Linuxconf can download the latest version here. Executing Linuxconf displays the window shown in Figure A. In this window, scroll down to File Systems in the left panel of the window and click on Access Local Drive to display the Local Volume tab shown on the right. Next, click on the drive you want to reconfigure, /dev/fd0, as shown in Figure A.
| Figure A |
 |
| Figure B |
 |
| Figure C |
 |
After you've reconfigured your Linux floppy drive as a DOS floppy drive, you no longer have to reformat your preformatted disks to ext2 to work with Linux. You can mount MSDOS-formatted disks right out of the box and also transfer files on those disks to a Windows machine. For example, you can transfer files you create in GIMP to Windows XP and work with them in the Windows Paint program. You can transfer a text file created in Emacs to Windows XP and edit it with Word. Likewise, you can transfer a Word document to Linux and work with it in Emacs; note that before you do, save the Word document as Plain Text so that it can be viewed in Emacs without displaying any hidden text, which may include confidential material or text that you meant to delete.
Have your say instantly in the Tech Update forum.
Find out what's where in the new Tech Update with our Guided Tour.
Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.
