which USB floppy drive for Ubuntu and Mac OS X 6

[wnissen]

I need to be able to move small amounts of data among various
legacy and modern machines, including machines deliberately
not networked.
SneakerNet would be attractive if all had floppy drives.
Or maybe I could use CD, if I could figure out how to write
a multisession CD.
Using drutil on Mac OS X seemingly yields CDs that are fine on the
Mac, but unreadable on Ubuntu 6.06 and Windows '98.
Or maybe the correct mount command would make them readable on
Unubtu.
One Windows '98 machine is a Toshiba and I'm not sure how to
upgrade it to SE, so it can write CDs.

So,
If I buy a $12 USB floppy drive, will I be able to find a
driver for Ubuntu?
One advertised drive explicitly says it won't run on Linux
(whatever that means).

Thanks.

 

[Noway2]

With respect to CD's, there are a couple of factors I can think of that would impact your inter-machine compatibility:
1 - the CD Speed, newer CDs may not be compatible with older writers. (least likely in my opinion)
2 - The CD writers may not be aligned properly. This could make inter-machine compatibility a problem. (second most likely)
3 - Use of a non standard format. Normally, I would recommend Joliet / iso 9660, but you would need to see if it is available on Mac OS. (most likely issue).

On the older machines, if you can read a CD, you could always use an Ubuntu live CD and mount the hard drive and write the files to another CD or USB drive, etc. This might be a work around needing to upgrade the machines. It also may be easier and safer to remove the hard drive and put it in as as secondary drive in a more modern machine.

WRT the floppy that won't run Linux, some hardware is Windows only. What happens is that instead of putting controller functions in the device firmware, it relies on software running in the Windows driver to emulate or provide the needed hardware control. This was especially common towards the end of the 56.6K modem days. It is a way of making the hardware cheaper.

 

[Bong]

If you plan on spending $12 anyway, and your target platforms have USB ports, why not just use a thumb drive?

_________________
Bob Rashkin

 

[wnissen]

Thanks for some good ideas.
For both USB floppies and thumb drives, it seems the usual
details about compatibility are inadequate to be sure of
selecting a "great" alternative.
Maybe has a lot to do with lack of motivation of the
manufacturers to do extensive testing and so there may be a
lot of truth to the reply
"SanDisk doesn't officially support newer
Cruzers on Win98...doesn't mean it can't be done, just they
don't support it and won't help you use the archaic systems"
at an interesting, detailed forum:

http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/Other-...p-amp-Cruzer-USB-Flash-Drive/m-p/196719#M1012

I'm hoping to avoid having 3 new and different solutions to
cover all the machines.
I'd welcome any specific suggestions, or "war stories".

 

[BadBigBen]

I would agree with Norway2, about using a LiveCD and then mount the drives to transfer the data to a USB HDD...

e.g. Parted Magic or Knoppix...

these can mount and read Windows drives, and definitely the venerable Ubuntu... and the MAC can read then the USB HDD (think FAT32, I am not sure if it can handle NTFS, but I think it does)...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[wnissen]

Thanks.
I haven't used a LiveCD.
Many of these machines are busy 24/7.
Are you saying I could use a LiveCD while they continue
their work?

 

[Annihilannic]

No, you have to boot off a live CD separately.

Annihilannic
[small]tgmlify - code syntax highlighting for your tek-tips posts[/small]

 

[IPGuru]

a USB memory stick should work on all these platforms without problems

the work I can think of is is win 98 does not support Fat 32 then you would need to reformat the stick to fat 16 (so don't bother with a big one)


Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo.

 

[Annihilannic]

Win98 does support FAT32, that's when it was introduced IIRC.

Annihilannic
[small]tgmlify - code syntax highlighting for your tek-tips posts[/small]

 

[ANFPS26]

Someone posted this USB memory stick driver once on Tek-tips and I loaded it on a Win 98 machine. It worked great for me:

http://toastytech.com/files/cruzerwin95.html

Jim

 

[IPGuru]

Win98 does support FAT32, that's when it was introduced IIRC.

Thanks
I haven't used windows on my own systems for years so couldn't remember

Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo.

 

[wnissen]

Thanks to all for some good ideas.
I now have a few MB on a thumb drive from Mac, XP, 98, and
Ubuntu on machines from 3 different manufacturers and
so far so good.
It's a Cruzer 8 GB, which some say is slow, but is more
than adequate for my immediate needs.
I just installed it this morning, but based on some
interoperability, I can second ANFPS26's recommendation
of this driver :

http://toastytech.com/files/cruzerwin95.html

where the author also mentions an MS-DOS driver for USB.

I ran into many tests of my ignorance, but I was able to
use MS-DOS to label it.
Mac OS X seems to need :
hdiutil detach /Volumes/<your LABEL here>.
I think I might need dot_clean at some point.
I still haven't figured out how to unmount/detach the
leftover volumes from my experimentation on either
OS X or Ubuntu, but I'm working on it.