I have installed Konqueror and while I am not able to open it as a file manager from the Start Page, I did manage to access this indirectly through the open a file menu. I saw enough that I was able to notice, a feature I expected to see was non-functional, or at least, it was not accessible to me -- unless someone could tell me what to do?

The lack of start-page access to the file manager is being pursued in a separate thread; this thread is directed to mtools functionality within Konqueror file manager, as described in the following link.

I recall reading elsewhere that the Konqueror File Manager uses mtools to manage floppy disks. I have tried entering it according to the example in the linked post:
floppy:/a
but this produced an error:

Description:
Could not access floppy:/a. Make sure the floppy in drive : is a DOS-formatted floppy disk and that the permissions of the device file (e.g. /dev/fd0) are set correctly (e.g. rwxrwxrwx)

The latter was done as a root function in Dolphin.

Mtools is installed on my system, but its functionality -- so far -- has only been accessible only via terminal. I was hoping to see this functionality in Konqueror's GUI-based file manager, as shown in the graphic included in the above link. While the image illustrates mtools displaying an USB-drive in Konqueror file manager, so far as I know the primary use of this utility is for floppy disks. So I would expect that to work equally well -- if my configuration of Konqueror is correct.

So far, I have not seen any evidence of this, i.e., that mtools is functional, in my installation of Konqueror.

Is there something (perhaps in kcmshell4?) that turns this on, so the functionality is available when, for example, a floppy is inserted? I almost said, 'is mounted' -- but mtools (according to its docs) makes floppy mounting unnecessary.

As to mtoolsFM, mtools' GUI -- I would be glad to use that instead of Konqueror -- if anyone has figured out how to install it, in a current OS version, please post. Every way I've tried, the installation aborts with a dependency error that I don't know how to fix, after multiple attempts to work around it.

Wrong URI.

Try

Code: Select all

floppy:a/

(you can also spare the trailing slash - or pass a path on the disk, eg. "floppy:a/SNAFU/")

"floppy" is the scheme, ":" the scheme delimiter, "a" the domain and "/" the path.
The *double* slash after "http:" and other schemes is part of that scheme format, not a global thing.

luebking wrote:Wrong URI.
Try

Code: Select all

floppy:a/

Ah, thanks!
Another question, working in Dolphin I opened the Location Bar (the same, I now know, as what I used to call the Address Bar) and copied-and-pasted your example there (to avoid typos) and hit <Enter>.

Then I got a pink-background error message that reads like this:

Could not access floppy:a.
Make sure the floppy in drive a: is a DOS-formatted floppy disk
and that the permissions of the device file (e.g. /dev/fd0) are set correctly (e.g. rwxrwxrwx).

But, while leaving the same floppy in the internal drive, still from in Dolphin, I opened:

/media/floppy0/

and the floppy's directory displayed correctly.

How could this be, if the error message was correct, that one or more of the conditions it listed -- were preventing the floppy directory from being displayed?

Does displaying a directory in Dolphin override something, that prevents it from working, when using the Floppy KIO slave?
Or, if both use the same KIO slave (floppy), do you see another explanation for this behavior?

"Unfortunately" I've no floppy drive to test

"/media/floppy0/" - are you sure that's not mouted by udisks?
(I doubt mdir can concurrently operate on the device if it's in use by something else)

Next, I'd check requested permissions on /dev/fd0

Code: Select all

stat /dev/fd0


=>

Code: Select all

sudo umout /media/floppy0
stat /dev/fd0


then try to open "floppy:a" in dolphin again - if I do w/o mtools installed, I get an error about missing mdir, so it's safe to assume the kio client invokes mtools.

You may have to setup a rule for udisks to ignore floppies if you must use mtools to operate them.

luebking wrote:"Unfortunately" I've no floppy drive to test

I think that's what the fellow said, just before he pulled floppy detection from udisks, to get a faster boot.

"/media/floppy0/" - are you sure that's not mouted by udisks?
(I doubt mdir can concurrently operate on the device if it's in use by something else)

I think mtools works, either better or exclusively, on unmounted disks -- only because the final umount seemed to make it work.
The following is in terminal (not Dolphin):

Code: Select all

> sudo chown ron:ron /dev/fd0
> sudo chmod 666 /dev/fd0
> mdir a:
Can't open /dev/fd0: Device or resource busy
Cannot initialize 'A:'
> umount /dev/fd0
umount: only root can unmount /dev/fd0 from /media/floppy0
> sudo umount /dev/fd0

Then, success after the final umount, in the line above:

Code: Select all

> mdir a:
 Volume in drive A is FAT32     
 Volume Serial Number is FFFC-49AC
Directory for A:/

UDISKS~1 DEB    212160 2015-08-17  21:49  udisks_1.0.1-1build1_i386.deb
        1 file              212 160 bytes
                          1 245 184 bytes free


This, by the way, is the last version of udisks to support floppy disks, which just happens to be waiting here, in case all else fails.

Now, working in the Location Bar (nee Address Bar) of Dolphin, for the first time it works as you said it should:

floppy:a/

udisks_1.0.1-1build1_i386.deb

Thanks for getting me this far!

If anything stops working, I'll follow the suggestions toward the end of your post.

Actually, to be useful to others, the correct Subject line of this post should be, "mtools - functional from within Dolphin file manager?"

If you could look at the linked (prior post in this thread) .pdf documentation file for the floppy KIO slave, it states that you can definitely use it -- I assume through Dolphin? -- to access the full functionality of mtools.

Have you any idea where to find the syntax to do this?
I know how to do it in terminal (that's well documented) but how do you think I could do the same, from a 'Location Bar' in a file manager?

You should be able to edit this thread, including the subject name.

Please notice that the linked pdf still refers KDE3 (when we all still *had* floppies :-P )
However, kio is an interface programmers can operate on - not an end user tool.

The kioclient *might* doning "stuff" (relabling, formatting - it was so much important to format these stupid things on a regular base...) etc. eg. through the rmb context menu in the view.

However, there's an application called "kfloppy"

http://packages.linuxmint.com/search.ph ... ection=any
https://docs.kde.org/trunk4/en/kdeutils ... index.html

which sounds very promising for this kind of jobs.

luebking wrote:You should be able to edit this thread, including the subject name.
Done, for the first post!

Please notice that the linked pdf still refers KDE3 (when we all still *had* floppies :-P )
However, kio is an interface programmers can operate on - not an end user tool.

Thanks and no, I didn't notice the version. Sometimes things are 'dropped' ... as well as added.

The kioclient *might* doning "stuff" (relabling, formatting - it was so much important to format these stupid things on a regular base...) etc. eg. through the rmb context menu in the view.

However, there's an application called "kfloppy".

Yes, I did try that one already. It loads and runs normally, and 'looks' normal, but when one goes to actually use it -- some of the more essential functions (forget just which ones, after the passage a couple of months) -- don't work. Hasn't been maintained. I suspect it relies on the current version of udisks, as well.

I also tried to load mtoolsFM -- the GUI front end for mtools. That relies on mtools -- which is being maintained. However mtoolsFM, is not maintained -- and one dependency it needs has passed into obsolescence, and its current version isn't recognized by the installer. Maybe it could be fixed by modifying the source, and recompiling. I'd think those who own legacy instruments and tools that depend on floppies would take an interest, but apparently it's not enough.

The floppies were part of a 'sneakernet' setup for moving small files between the desktop and the netbook -- with a USB drive on that end, of course. But, I recently found an online service that will be a suitable replacement, since both 'ends' of the 'sneakernet' are usually online, anyway. This service has clients for most OS's, but for very occasional needs (floppy use fell into this category) it's very fast and easy to go to the SendAnywhere home page and make the 'Send' or 'Receive' tab pop-out from the browser's side-border.

I just like to have everything on the computer 'working' -- well, it still does, when I boot into the 'other' OS, but I'd prefer to have everything working in Mint and KDE, as well. Thanks so much for your assistance, and I've learned a great deal -- but I think we've taken it as far as we can. So, now the solution is SendAnywhere!

rcameron wrote:

luebking wrote:Yes, I did try that one already. It loads and runs normally, and 'looks' normal, but when one goes to actually use it -- some of the more essential functions (forget just which ones, after the passage a couple of months) -- don't work.
What "more essential functions" do you mean?
The only thing kfloppy can do is format floppy disks.

And it works fine here.

Hasn't been maintained. I suspect it relies on the current version of udisks, as well.

No. It doesn't use udisks at all.

But if the floppy disk is mounted, it cannot format it.
And it uses other tools for doing the actual work (fdformat, which is part of util-linux here on openSUSE). If they are not installed, you should get a comprehensible error message though.
So, what error message do you get?