In this hands-on project, you create filesystems on floppy disks or USB flash drives, mo...

In this hands-on project, you create filesystems on floppy disks or USB flash drives, mount them to the directory tree, and view their contents.

1. If you are performing this project using a floppy disk, proceed to Step 4. Alternatively, if you are performing this project using a USB flash drive, log in to your GNOME desktop environment as sample user one with the password of secret. Once GNOME has loaded, insert your USB flash drive into your computer and wait for its icon to be displayed on your desktop.

2. Open a terminal within your GNOME desktop environment, type mount at the command prompt and press Enter. Note the device file used by your USB flash drive (i.e., /dev/sdb1).

3. Next, type umount device_file where device_file is the device file for your USB flash drive. Leave your USB flash drive plugged into your computer and log out of the GNOME desktop environment.

4. Switch to a command-line terminal (tty2) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 and log in to the terminal using the user name of root and the password of secret.

5. If you are performing this project using a USB flash drive, proceed to Step 6. If you are performing this project using a floppy disk, insert a floppy disk into your computer. Next, type modprobe floppy and press Enter to load the floppy driver into the Linux kernel.

6. At the command prompt, type mkdir /mymount and press Enter to create a new mount point directory. Next, type ls –F /mymount at the command prompt and press Enter. Are there any files in the /mymount directory? Next, type cp /etc/ hosts /mymount at the command prompt and press Enter. Next, type ls –F /mymount at the command prompt and press Enter to verify that the hosts file was copied successfully.

7. At the command prompt, type mkfs –t ext2 device_file and press Enter, where device_file is /dev/fd0 if you are performing this project using a floppy disk, or the device file that you noted in Step 2 if you are performing this project using a USB flash drive.

8. At the command prompt, type mount –t ext2 device_file /mymount and press Enter, where device_file is /dev/fd0 if you are performing this project using a floppy disk, or the device file that you noted in Step 2 if you are performing this project using a USB flash drive. Next, type mount at the command prompt and press Enter. Was your device successfully mounted to the /mymount directory?

9. At the command prompt, type ls -F /mymount and press Enter. What files do you see? Why? What happened to the hosts file? Next, type cp /etc/inittab /mymount at the command prompt and press Enter. At the command prompt, type ls -F /mymount and press Enter to verify that the file was copied to your device.

10. At the command prompt, type umount /mymount and press Enter. Next, type mount at the command prompt and press Enter. Was the device successfully unmounted from the /mymount directory?

11. At the command prompt, type ls -F /mymount and press Enter. What files do you see? Why? What happened to the inittab file and lost+found directory? Is the hosts file present?

12. At the command prompt, type mount –t ext2 device_file /mymount and press Enter, where device_file is /dev/fd0 if you are performing this project using a floppy disk, or the device file that you noted in Step 2 if you are performing this project using a USB flash drive.

13. At the command prompt, type cd /mymount and press Enter. Next, type ls –F and press Enter. Are the inittab file and lost+found directory available again?

14. At the command prompt, type fuser –u /mymount and press Enter. Who is using the /mymount directory? Next, type cd at the command prompt and press Enter to return to your home directory. Next, type umount /mymount at the command prompt and press Enter. Did you receive an error message? Type mount at the command prompt and press Enter to verify that the device was successfully unmounted from the /mymount directory.

15. Remove the floppy disk or USB flash drive from your computer.

16. Type exit and press Enter to log out of your shell.