There are 2 ways to use the Zip drives on Linux systems:
 (1) With commands from a shell window; and
 (2) With the graphical jazip application.

        ZIP DISK FILE SYSTEM FORMATS 
Another important consideration is how the zip disk is formatted.
Zip disks in Macintosh format (also used on SGI systems) cannot
be used on Linux  systems. If you use a standard PC (Windows)
formatted disk, it will be mounted in MS-DOS format by Linux,
and file names will be truncated to 8 characters plus a 3
character extension. It is possible to mount a PC formatted
disk on Linux in vfat rather than ms-dos format, but this can only
be done by root. It also is possible to reformat a Macintosh or Windows
formatted disk as an ext2 disk, the native Linux format, but this, too,
can only be done by root.

If you want to share files between Windows and Linux systems you should
use the standard PC format. If you want to use a Zip disk ONLY with
Linux, I recommend reformatting it as an ext2 disk, which will give
you somehwat better performance with Linux, but will make the disk unreadable
on Windows systems. More information on reformatting Zip disks is
included below.

           MOUNTING ZIP DISKS
To use a Zip disk, the first step, not surprisingly, is to pop the
Zip disk into the Zip drive in the Pentium tower.  Before doing this,
make sure you know the format (Windows ms-dos, Windows vfat or Linux ext2)
of the disk.

However, before any file system, including the file system on a formatted
Zip disk, can be accessed by the system, it must be mounted. On the ECMC
Linux systems the mount point for the Zip drives is
     /mnt/zip
which often can be abbreviated by the alias   /zip

The jazip application handles mounting and unmounting automatically.
From a shell window, however, you must type
    mount  /mnt/zip         or else         mount  /zip
If you want to make sure that the Zip disk is now mounted, and therefore accessible,
use the df  ("disk free") command:
        df
and you should see a line at the bottom for /mnt/zip, indicating how much
of the disk is used (contains files) and what percentage of the disk is free.

	COPYING FILES TO AND FROM ZIP DISKS
After mounting a Zip disk you can copy files between the Zip disk and system
hard disks, and delete fles from the Zip disks. The jazip application provides
graphical icons and menus for these operations. If you are working instead from
a shell window you can use standard Unix file and directory commands such as cd,
cp, mv and rm, treating the /mnt/zip device like any other directory.

For example, to copy three soundfiles from my home soundfile directory to the Zip
disk, I could use these commands:
    cd /snd/allan
    cp soundfile1 soundfile2 soundfile3 /mnt/zip
Alternatively, I could first "move" to the Zip disk device (so that it becomes
my "current working Unix directory"):
	cd  /mnt/zip
and then copy files from other directories to here:
   cp /snd/allan/file1  /snd/allan/file2  /snd/allan/file3  .
(The dot means "to here.")

        LISTING, DELETING AND RENAMING ZIP DISK FILES
To list the files on the Zip disk, type
    ls -l /mnt/zip
or, if you have already done a "cd" ("change directory") command to /mnt/zip, simply
     ls -l
If you may wish to perform several operations on files on the zip disk, it is best
to "move" to this disk
    cd  /mnt/zip
You then can use the rm command to remove files, the mv command to change the names
of files, and so on. To find out how much free space remains on the disk use the df command:
     df  /mnt/zip

        UNMOUNTING THE ZIP DRIVE
When you have finished using the Zip disk, you cannot simply eject it, unless you are
using the jazip application (which  utomatically unmounts the zip drive when it receives
an eject command). If you are accessing the Zip drive from a shell window:

Firstly, if you have done a cd to /mnt/zip, you must cd to some other directory.
(You must "get out of" the zip disk so it will not be "busy" when you try to eject it.)

Secondly, you must UNMOUNT the disk. If you try to eject the disk before unmounting
its file system nothing will happen. To unmount the disk, type
     umount  /mnt/zip     or simply     umount  /zip
Then you can eject the disk.
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	  MOUNTING A ZIP DISK IN VFAT RATHER THAN MS-DOS FORMAT
 
When Linux detects that a Windows formatted Zip disk, it will by default mount this
disk in ms-dos format, which limit file names to 8 characters.  Usually this is not
what we would prefer. If you are super-user, you can  mount the disk instead in
vfat format:
    mount -t vfat  /dev/zip  /zip
The VFAT file system will display long file names correctly. Unmount the disk in the normal
fashion:    umount  /zip

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         CREATING A LINUX EXT2 FILE SYSTEM ON A ZIP DISK
This can only be done by super-user, and should only be done when the disk will
be used exclusively on Linux system.

First, the vhat or ms-dos format on the disk must be erased with the "fdisk"
program. Linux includes several variants of "fdisk." I recommend "cfdisk,"
a "curses" based program in which you are presented with menu choices, you move
the cursor arround to the desired choice with the left, right, up and down arrow keys
on the keyboard, and then tap a carriage return.

(1) To erase the vfat or ms-dos (or Macintosh) file system format from a disk, typ
      cfdisk  /dev/zip
to open the cfdisk program. Select
     New
     Primary
     tap another carriage return, then select
     Write
     yes
     q  (which will quit the program).
(2) After erasing the Windows file system format, you must reformat the fisk for
the Linux ext2 filesystem. In a shell window, type
   mke2fs  /dev/zip
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Last updated 4/23/00


