[SWLUG] Mandrake 9.1, cannot mount

[bryn]

STEPHEN CONSTANTINOU wrote:
> Dear All
> 
> I have recently upgraded from mandrake 8.2 
> to 9.1.
> 
> I have set up Mandrake to automatically log
> me into KDE as a user.  There is only one user
> (stephanos) and Root.  
> 
> The user desktop contains two Icons for 
> mounting the floppy and CDROM, placed there
> at installation, not by  me.  When I try to
> mount the floppy I get the message:
>    "Could not enter dir /mnt/floppy"
> When I try to mount a CDRom I just get an 
> empty Konqueror window. 
> I can use Konqueror to view/copy/move files
> to and from the windows hard drive/partition.
> Though no icon is present on the desktop.
> 
> While still as a user I tried to mount the 
> drives in a terminal window:
>   mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
> This brings a message: "only root can do that"
> 
>   mount -t ext2 /dev/floppy /mnt/floppy 
> This brings a message: "only root can do that"
> 
>   mount -t msdos /dev/floppy /mnt/floppy 
> This brings a message: "only root can do that"
> 
> Lucky old Root.
> 
> Undetered I logged in as Root I had a look at 
> the permissions for the windows partition:
> Class    Show    Write    Enter
>          Entries Entries 
> USer      X       X         X
> Group     X       X         X
> Others    X       X         X
> User:  root
> Group: root
> 
> And also for the floppy
> Class    Show    Write    Enter
>          Entries Entries 
> USer      X       X         X
> Group     X       X         X
> Others    X       X         X
> User:  root
> Group: root
> 
> The cdrom is similar but not the same
> Class    Show    Write    Enter
>          Entries Entries 
> USer      X       X         X
> Group     X                 X
> Others    X                 X
> User:  root
> Group: root
> 
> I thought and hoped it was just a question 
> of changing permission but I am at the end
> of my knowledge here.
> 
> I have checked the (printed) manual and 
> it does not say anything about mounting 
> file systems.  I cannot find anything in
> the KDE help files, nor in the Mandrake
> How Tos.
> 
> I am hoping to attend Saturday (tommorrow) 
> at Cardiff to show Win4Lin, USB printing
> and scanning with Mandrake 9.1. 
> 
> Any help appreciated
> 
> Stephen (Swansea, Wales, UK)

Are there entries in your fstab for the cdrom & floppy? The relevant 
two lines from a Redhat 7.2 system I've got here look like:

/dev/fd0                /mnt/floppy             auto 
noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0

/dev/cdrom              /mnt/cdrom              iso9660 
noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0

Redhat sets the owner of the cd/floppy devices to whoever's logged 
into the console of the machine - not sure if Mandrake does the same 
tho. To allow all users to mount/unmount the device you can change 
owner to user in the above fstab lines - full options in man fstab.

Bryn