Re: [expert] floppies
On Monday 24 Mar 2003 11:49 pm, Jack Coates wrote: On Mon, 2003-03-24 at 01:38, Anne Wilson wrote: On Sunday 23 Mar 2003 11:01 pm, Jack Coates wrote: On Sun, 2003-03-23 at 12:09, Dave Laird wrote: CD-R: Write once and it's gone. CD-RW: Write a few times, but each write needs to be done in a different machine (either that or your secure machine has the CD-writer, in which case it's only software-write-protected). CF: Software write protect. Memory-Stick: non-universal, non-bootable, but does have hardware write-protect. SD: Software write-protect. Zip: Software write-protect. LS-120: non-universal, IIRC software write-protect too. Correction: LS-120: non-universal, hardware protect, bootable Haven't tried it as a total replacement for fdd, though Anne that's good -- I have seen a lot of LEAF users using LS-120, now I understand why. Some reliability issues, but that's to be expected with most cheap removable media. I had a few reliability concerns, but have found that it's well worth buying the cleaner disk - insert it and it runs for a few seconds. Reliability has been no problem since then. I can still read disks in Mandrake that I wrote under NT4, w2k and win98 as much as 5 years ago. Media are not cheap, but if they last that long they become so. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
On Sunday 23 Mar 2003 11:01 pm, Jack Coates wrote: On Sun, 2003-03-23 at 12:09, Dave Laird wrote: CD-R: Write once and it's gone. CD-RW: Write a few times, but each write needs to be done in a different machine (either that or your secure machine has the CD-writer, in which case it's only software-write-protected). CF: Software write protect. Memory-Stick: non-universal, non-bootable, but does have hardware write-protect. SD: Software write-protect. Zip: Software write-protect. LS-120: non-universal, IIRC software write-protect too. Correction: LS-120: non-universal, hardware protect, bootable Haven't tried it as a total replacement for fdd, though Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
On Monday 24 de March 2003 03:11, eric huff wrote: Not sure about linux compatibility, but i recently used one of those little, flash based usb drives (about the size of a key fob). I've seen them listed up to 512MB... Seemed like a great way to transfer data amongst youselves, but too expensive to give away. The cheapest i saw with a 2 second google search was $22, probably 32meg. There are also USB adaptors for IDE drives. They are like a case inside of which you put and connect your IDE drive (a CD burner, any HD...) and it plugs to the PC thru USB ports. It's a little big, especially if you need to carry it around, but it's unbeatable in many aspects... hot swapping 120GB IDE drives is very useful sometimes.. Damian Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
On Monday 24 Mar 2003 10:09 am, Damian Gatabria wrote: On Monday 24 de March 2003 03:11, eric huff wrote: Not sure about linux compatibility, but i recently used one of those little, flash based usb drives (about the size of a key fob). I've seen them listed up to 512MB... Seemed like a great way to transfer data amongst youselves, but too expensive to give away. The cheapest i saw with a 2 second google search was $22, probably 32meg. There are also USB adaptors for IDE drives. They are like a case inside of which you put and connect your IDE drive (a CD burner, any HD...) and it plugs to the PC thru USB ports. It's a little big, especially if you need to carry it around, but it's unbeatable in many aspects... hot swapping 120GB IDE drives is very useful sometimes.. That sounds interesting. I presume it's not particularly fast? But probably reliability would outweight that. I used to have 'cradles' which would allow interchangeable drives (though not hot-swap), but found that I frequently had unexplained problems when trying to boot to a newly swapped one, so I do not recommend them at all. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
Anne Wilson wrote: That sounds interesting. I presume it's not particularly fast? USB1 would be slow, but Firewire (which we have going here) or USB2 run faster than the drive :) FWIW, our backup regime on our (mixed Linux, OS X, W2K) LAN is rsync or 2nd copy to an IDE drive in a removeable cradle which, in turn, is rsynced to a Firewire IDE drive, both on the Mandrake server. The reasoning behind the two-stage process (apart from some protection against disk failure) is that we can take the Firewire drive away with us when we go away but still have one level of backup going in our absence. Pete Jordan Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
There are also USB adaptors for IDE drives. They are like a case inside of which you put and connect your IDE drive (a CD burner, any HD...) and it plugs to the PC thru USB ports. It's a little big, especially if you need to carry it around, but it's unbeatable in many aspects... hot swapping 120GB IDE drives is very useful sometimes.. That sounds interesting. I presume it's not particularly fast? But probably reliability would outweight that. I used to have 'cradles' which would allow interchangeable drives (though not hot-swap), but found that I frequently had unexplained problems when trying to boot to a newly swapped one, so I do not recommend them at all. Anne It is somewhat slow, especially when it works in USB 1.4 compatibility mode (can work as both 1.4 and 2.0) but, now that you mention it, i forgot about the 'bootable' requirement we are also looking for.. Is it possible to boot an OS from USB? doesn't sound like it... Damian Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
Linux compatible yes, but not bootable. On Sun, 2003-03-23 at 22:11, eric huff wrote: Not sure about linux compatibility, but i recently used one of those little, flash based usb drives (about the size of a key fob). I've seen them listed up to 512MB... Seemed like a great way to transfer data amongst youselves, but too expensive to give away. The cheapest i saw with a 2 second google search was $22, probably 32meg. Indeed. The industry seems to have decided that the floppy is a dead media -- that's fine, as they do suck, but I wish the industry would __ Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com -- Jack Coates Monkeynoodle: A Scientific Venture... Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
On Sun, 2003-03-23 at 22:05, James Sparenberg wrote: ... One media I've used for small installs that works well is compact flash. A 64mb cf disk with an adapter shows up as an ide device and you can boot from it. I had it hooked into an old pentium 233 for a while (till enough hw died that isn't easy to replace.) It works well, read/write speeds aren't too bad either. Especially for something like a firewall/server like I had. James These work great and are the heart of most appliances, but they're not hardware write-protectable. Just imagine your friendly neighborhood system cracker clearing the boot media and rebooting for you... -- Jack Coates Monkeynoodle: A Scientific Venture... Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
On Mon, 2003-03-24 at 02:09, Damian Gatabria wrote: On Monday 24 de March 2003 03:11, eric huff wrote: Not sure about linux compatibility, but i recently used one of those little, flash based usb drives (about the size of a key fob). I've seen them listed up to 512MB... Seemed like a great way to transfer data amongst youselves, but too expensive to give away. The cheapest i saw with a 2 second google search was $22, probably 32meg. There are also USB adaptors for IDE drives. They are like a case inside of which you put and connect your IDE drive (a CD burner, any HD...) and it plugs to the PC thru USB ports. It's a little big, especially if you need to carry it around, but it's unbeatable in many aspects... hot swapping 120GB IDE drives is very useful sometimes.. Damian not bootable or write-protectable. -- Jack Coates Monkeynoodle: A Scientific Venture... Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
On Mon, 2003-03-24 at 01:38, Anne Wilson wrote: On Sunday 23 Mar 2003 11:01 pm, Jack Coates wrote: On Sun, 2003-03-23 at 12:09, Dave Laird wrote: CD-R: Write once and it's gone. CD-RW: Write a few times, but each write needs to be done in a different machine (either that or your secure machine has the CD-writer, in which case it's only software-write-protected). CF: Software write protect. Memory-Stick: non-universal, non-bootable, but does have hardware write-protect. SD: Software write-protect. Zip: Software write-protect. LS-120: non-universal, IIRC software write-protect too. Correction: LS-120: non-universal, hardware protect, bootable Haven't tried it as a total replacement for fdd, though Anne that's good -- I have seen a lot of LEAF users using LS-120, now I understand why. Some reliability issues, but that's to be expected with most cheap removable media. -- Jack Coates Monkeynoodle: A Scientific Venture... Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
On Sun, 2003-03-23 at 12:09, Dave Laird wrote: ... Your statements about hysteresis are *still* quite timely today. I don't remember where, but there was a disk warehouse in Los Angeles selling those floppy disk test kits even as recently as six months ago. Floppy disk drives are *so* notorious for developing various imperfections in how they track. That much hasn't seemed to change all that much over the last decade. sigh Perhaps someday they will develop a reliable floppy of some sort, but don't hold your breath. Hysteresis will always be a factor to contend with. ... Indeed. The industry seems to have decided that the floppy is a dead media -- that's fine, as they do suck, but I wish the industry would provide a universal replacement that is bootable, has a hardware write-protect switch on the media, and is reasonably priced. What else would you store usually read-only but occasionally modified configs on? CD-R: Write once and it's gone. CD-RW: Write a few times, but each write needs to be done in a different machine (either that or your secure machine has the CD-writer, in which case it's only software-write-protected). CF: Software write protect. Memory-Stick: non-universal, non-bootable, but does have hardware write-protect. SD: Software write-protect. Zip: Software write-protect. LS-120: non-universal, IIRC software write-protect too. -- Jack Coates Monkeynoodle: A Scientific Venture... Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 'Afternoon, Jack... On Sunday 23 March 2003 03:01 pm, Jack Coates wrote: What else would you store usually read-only but occasionally modified configs on? Why, a slightly-aged Iomega Zip Drive, of course! 8-) It took some juggling, but I even managed to get the blasted zip drive to come up beneath 9.0 as ext2, not fat32 or vfat every single reboot, which took some fudging, I might add. I can boot from it. (with recent BIOS) I can make it read-only I can carry it to any other Linux box that has one, providing they have learned how to install it, of course. It even shares pretty decently using Samba. My only wish is that the media didn't cost so much, but on the good side, the disks seem (at least to me) to last a long, long time, which is more than I can say about floppy disks. 8-) Dave - -- Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project Web Page: http://www.kharma.net updated 03/05/2003 Usenet News server: news.kharma.net Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html An automatic random thought For the Minute: When it is incorrect, it is, at least *authoritatively* incorrect. - -- Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+fkPyaE1ENZP1A28RAvDkAJ0VfnS1Vl2jP06+yswNoQwL6no2xQCfY6nz ZaayNWJ+BXv6fDvmFcNfsSQ= =rgm2 -END PGP SIGNATURE- Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
Indeed. The industry seems to have decided that the floppy is a dead media -- that's fine, as they do suck, but I wish the industry would Well they are convenient but offer so limited storage as to not be all that useful anymore. And zip / ls-120 aren't as common and nowhere near standard equipment. Media cost is also very expensive. CDRW seems to be more ubiquitous, but then there are reliability problems and it's harder to send files to the CD (you can't just mount and copy files). These days, hard disks are so inexpensive (in many cases a small HD is cheaper than zip disks) that one would think that HD would be transportable. Dunno about how reliable a HD is that is carried around from place to place, but if you can get one for $79 these days that's 20 gigs or more, maybe that's a direction to pursue. It would be easier if there were hotplug like connectors so you don't have to open the machine up. I've seen them used though. CD-R: Write once and it's gone. CD-RW: Write a few times, but each write needs to be done in a different tape? it does have a tape mechanism and is fairly transportable, that is, if the target machine has a compatible tape drive, which would not be all that common on PCs. It's still very common in other arenas. On some older machines, you could even boot from a tape. Jack Coates Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
Both your post and Dave Fox's miss the point of hardware write-protection, unfortunately. Have a look at http://leaf.sourceforge.net and think about building a firewall that you can trust the boot media of... CD-R is good, but who wants to burn a new CD-R everytime something changes? There are work arounds in recent LEAF versions, but the humble floppy disk is still the best choice. Jack On Sun, 2003-03-23 at 15:32, Dave Laird wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 'Afternoon, Jack... On Sunday 23 March 2003 03:01 pm, Jack Coates wrote: What else would you store usually read-only but occasionally modified configs on? Why, a slightly-aged Iomega Zip Drive, of course! 8-) It took some juggling, but I even managed to get the blasted zip drive to come up beneath 9.0 as ext2, not fat32 or vfat every single reboot, which took some fudging, I might add. I can boot from it. (with recent BIOS) I can make it read-only I can carry it to any other Linux box that has one, providing they have learned how to install it, of course. It even shares pretty decently using Samba. My only wish is that the media didn't cost so much, but on the good side, the disks seem (at least to me) to last a long, long time, which is more than I can say about floppy disks. 8-) Dave - -- Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project Web Page: http://www.kharma.net updated 03/05/2003 Usenet News server: news.kharma.net Musicians Calendar and Database access: http://www.kharma.net/calendar.html An automatic random thought For the Minute: When it is incorrect, it is, at least *authoritatively* incorrect. - -- Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+fkPyaE1ENZP1A28RAvDkAJ0VfnS1Vl2jP06+yswNoQwL6no2xQCfY6nz ZaayNWJ+BXv6fDvmFcNfsSQ= =rgm2 -END PGP SIGNATURE- __ Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com -- Jack Coates Monkeynoodle: A Scientific Venture... Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
Not sure about linux compatibility, but i recently used one of those little, flash based usb drives (about the size of a key fob). I've seen them listed up to 512MB... Seemed like a great way to transfer data amongst youselves, but too expensive to give away. The cheapest i saw with a 2 second google search was $22, probably 32meg. Indeed. The industry seems to have decided that the floppy is a dead media -- that's fine, as they do suck, but I wish the industry would Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] floppies
On Sun, 2003-03-23 at 19:43, David E. Fox wrote: Indeed. The industry seems to have decided that the floppy is a dead media -- that's fine, as they do suck, but I wish the industry would Well they are convenient but offer so limited storage as to not be all that useful anymore. And zip / ls-120 aren't as common and nowhere near standard equipment. Media cost is also very expensive. CDRW seems to be more ubiquitous, but then there are reliability problems and it's harder to send files to the CD (you can't just mount and copy files). These days, hard disks are so inexpensive (in many cases a small HD is cheaper than zip disks) that one would think that HD would be transportable. Dunno about how reliable a HD is that is carried around from place to place, but if you can get one for $79 these days that's 20 gigs or more, maybe that's a direction to pursue. It would be easier if there were hotplug like connectors so you don't have to open the machine up. I've seen them used though. CD-R: Write once and it's gone. CD-RW: Write a few times, but each write needs to be done in a different tape? it does have a tape mechanism and is fairly transportable, that is, if the target machine has a compatible tape drive, which would not be all that common on PCs. It's still very common in other arenas. On some older machines, you could even boot from a tape. Jack Coates One media I've used for small installs that works well is compact flash. A 64mb cf disk with an adapter shows up as an ide device and you can boot from it. I had it hooked into an old pentium 233 for a while (till enough hw died that isn't easy to replace.) It works well, read/write speeds aren't too bad either. Especially for something like a firewall/server like I had. James Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
