Using the Floppy Disk Drive in Linux

The simplest way to access the floppy drive under Linux is to use the Explorer-like interface. However, there is a very important detail! To access the files on the disk, you have to mount the floppy disk, which means that the operating system will scan the disk so that it can recognize the files on it. Although your computer will be perfectly happy to allow you to remove the disk by pushing the eject key on the laptop floppy drive, this may result in unexpected actions unless you unmount the disk.

In the Explorer interface, to mount the floppy, you just double click on the desktop icon. This will bring up a window with the contents of the floppy, and you may drag and drop files there, or take any other actions you would with normal files.

To remove the disk, you must first right-click on the desktop icon, and select Unmount volume or Eject . When this is complete (and it may take a long time since it may have to complete writing files to the floppy!), you may push the eject button on the floppy to remove it.


Note: unlike in Windows and MacOS, when you drag a file from your home area to the floppy, it moves the file instead of making a copy.