Accessing Floppies, CDs, and DVDs

SUSE Linux automatically makes available any floppy disks, CDs, or DVDs you use on your computer. Accessing them is simple: double-click My Computer on the desktop (as with Windows), and you should find all your drives available in one place, as shown in Figure 12-10.

Figure 12-10. Under My Computer on the desktop, you'll find all your removable storage drives.

Note 

In days of old, special tools were used to access MS-DOS floppies under SUSE Linux. Nowadays, you can simply use My Computer or Konqueror without needing to take any special steps.

Because My Computer is effectively another rendition of the Konqueror file manager, the tricks and tips discussed in the previous sections apply. You can copy files by clicking and dragging, and right-clicking files offers virtually all the options you could need.

Tip 

You don't need to use My Computer each time to access your floppy, CD, or DVD drive. These drives are available in the following virtual folders on your hard disk: /media/floppy, /media/cd, and media/dvd. Just type these addresses into Konqueror's address bar. You can copy files to and from each folder as if it were a genuine folder on your hard disk. Note that inserting a CD-ROM into a DVD-ROM drive will cause its contents to appear under /media/DVD, even though it isn't a DVD-ROM disc.

Ejecting Media from Drives

Because of the way SUSE Linux operates, you won't be able to eject a CD or DVD if you're still browsing it. You must either close the Konqueror window or use the Back button to return to the main My Computer screen. If you try to eject a CD or DVD before you stop browsing it, you'll find the eject button on the drive won't respond.

The same applies to the floppy drive. Although you're able to eject the floppy at any time, you should never do so unless the access light has gone out on the drive itself, and you're no longer browsing it via Konqueror. If you do eject a floppy under these conditions, it will probably result in data loss.

Formatting Floppies

Formatting floppy disks isn't done in Konqueror. Instead, you must use a special program called Kfloppy. To start Kfloppy, select K menu ® System ® File System ® Kfloppy. You'll see the program window shown in Figure 12-11.

Figure 12-11. Formatting floppy disks is done using the Kfloppy tool.

Kfloppy is similar to the disk-formatting tool in Windows, and most of the options are self-explanatory. If you intend to share the disk with Windows users, make sure DOS is selected in the File System box (it's possible to format a floppy using SUSE Linux's own ReiserFS file system format, but there's little to be gained by doing so).