If you want to read a CD-ROM, CD-R, DVD, or DVD-R disk on one of the
Alpha
computers you must load the disk and execute the "mount" command.
You
will not be able to remove the disk until you execute the "umount"
command. In between "mount" and "umount" the contents of the disk
will appear as a directory tree rooted at the directory you
specified.
Not all Alpha computers can read DVD's. Only Cobalt and Gold, the
two
workstations on either side of Larry, have drives cabable of reading
DVD's. Unfortunately, these DVD drives are rather old and do not seem
to read modern DVD-R's very well. You would do better to use a linux
workstation to read DVD-R's.
The detailed steps for mounting a disk on an Alpha are:
Put the disk in a drive. The Alphas in tower cases each
have
two CD drives and you may use either one. In each of these
machines
one of the drives can write CD-R disks (and is labled so) and the other
is not. You must remember which one you put the CD in.
You must create an empty directory to mount the CD on.
Personally, I have created a directory named "cdrom" in my home
directory for this purpose.
You do not need a new directory for each CD as they can be recycled.
You must know the name of the drive your disk is in. If you
put your disk in the CD burner, the name is /dev/disk/cdr.
Otherwise the name is /dev/cdrom. On systems with a DVD drive you
can use the name /dev/disk/dvd.
Type a command of the form "mount -t cdfs <Device
Name> <Directory>", after you have substituted the
<Device Name> and <Directory>. If your
<Directory> is cdrom, like mine, and you always mount your
CD in a non-CD-R drive you can type the command:
mount -t cdfs /dev/disk/cdrom cdrom
When you have finished dismount the disk by typing: