Of course if you are used to Microsoft Windows you are familiar with the concept of files. This familiarity means you won’t have to start from zero to learn about Linux files. However, you will have to relearn several concepts and techniques to work with files in the Linux environment, whether using Damn Small Linux or other versions. You can do several great things with Linux files that you can’t do easily or at all under Windows. This could be just one more reason to switch from Windows to Linux.

Files have unique names. This rule is not as simple as it may seem. There is no conflict between a hard disk file named pay12june and a file named pay12june on your removable USB flash drive. In fact, be sure to backup all your important files. Don’t worry if your hard drive file is erased or becomes corrupted and illegible, simply access the one on your flash drive. You could also have two files named pay12june on your hard drive in different directories. Directories, collections of directories and files, will be discussed in the next article in this series.

Linux distinguishes between lower-case and upper-case characters in file names. Microsoft Windows does not. For example, Linux treats pay12june and Pay12june as two different files, as different as pay12june and heighho. Windows users will have to adapt to this major difference. Even though I am a Linux fan I don’t see any advantage in the Linux way of naming files. Maybe I have spent too much time in the Windows environment.

File names should be relatively short. The allowed maximum is 255 characters but working with long file names is no fun and in fact is asking for trouble. Linux file names may not contain the character / which has a special meaning. To avoid misunderstanding don’t include special characters such as $ and & in your file names. Doing so could cause confusion and lead to hard-to-find errors. For the same reason don’t call your files by special Linux names such as etc.

Linux sometimes applies file extensions; common examples include .c to indicate a C-language program and .htm or .html to indicate one type of web page. Savvy Linux users often avoid coding the file extension but rely on the file directory to indicate the file type. Don’t give a Linux file a misleading file extension.

Use an editor to create or modify a text file. The old fashioned vi editor has been replaced by more powerful, user-friendly editors. Most versions of Linux come with several editors. Damn Small Linux, a popular version that runs under Windows, includes several editors such as Beaver that come quite close to being intuitive.

Linux provides an enormous variety of commands for processing files. Many of these commands are mnemonic; for example the command cp is used to copy files. Many commands include a wide variety of options. Consider the ls command, somewhat similar to the DIR command in the Windows environment. This seemingly simple command is quite rich and offers dozens and dozens of options many of which have no equivalent in the Windows environment.

Linux commands can be thought of as verbs. Just like most English sentences include more than a verb (go, jump) complete Linux commands contain the command itself and one or more objects. To copy a file you not only need to specify cp but also What and Where. For example, the command cp pay12june backuparea means copy the pay12june file into the backuparea directory.

Linux syntax (grammar rules) is quite strict and does take time to learn. But mastering Linux and associated technologies can lead to employment. The next step is mastering Linux directories.

By: Levi Reiss

Vehicle Hard Disk Player’s Requirement for the Format of the Disk

At present, Vehicle Hard Disk Player has been an absolute mainstream device among the coach players domestically. However, lots of our clients are still not clear about the formats that the are supported by the Player. Therefore, I hope this passage will be of some help to you.

According to the present operation system, the usual division formats are the following 4 types: FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, and Linux. FAT stands for File Allocation Table. To us, it means the management over the division of the hard disk.

FAT16: DOS, Windows 95 all use FAT16, and Window 98/2000/XP support FAT16 as well. It can manage a division of up high to 2GB, but each division can only has a maximum of 65525 clusters. As the volume of the hard disk or the division increased, the room of each cluster occupied will be larger as well and as a result, lots of room of the disk will be wasted.

FAT32: As the hard disk of large memory emerged, FAT32 became popular since Windows 98. FAT32 is the upgraded version of FAT16, which supports divisions of up high to 2TB(2048G). FAT32 uses less clusters than that of FAT16, thus, more memory is saved.

NTFS: NTFS stands for New Technology File System, is the standard file system of Microsoft Windows NT, and can also be applied in Windows 2000/XP/2003. It differs from the early FAT file system on the fact that NTFS supports metadata, adopts advanced data structure, providing a better performance and a higher stability and utilization ratio. Three versions of NTFS are available: NTFS 1.2 in NT 3.51 and NT 4, NTFS 3.0 in Windows 2000, and NTFS 3.1 in Windows XP. These versions are sometimes referred as 4.0, 5.0 and 5.1. Besides the extra features of the upgraded versions, such as the quotation in Windows 2000, in light of its compatibility, none of Windows 95/98/98SE and ME version is capable of identifying NTFS file system. In addition, NTFS supports file encryption function, offering better security to users.

Linux: Linux is the hottest operation system in 1999, which possesses two disk division formats, different from other operation systems. One is Linux Native, and the other is Linux Swap. These two formats are with high degree of safety and stability, and when combined with Linux, the chance of being down will be smaller. However, Linux is the sole operation system that supports this division format.

According to the video formats it supports, the Player can be divided into two types: Mp4 Player and Mp5 Player. The early Hard Disk Player can even support Mp4.

Since the Hard Disk Player adopts hard disk carrier to store video files, it also has a problem concerning the formats of the hard disk. Usually, the disk on Mp4 Player has to be formatted into FAT32, and Mp5 Hard Disk Player can be formatted either into FAT32 or NTFS to adopts NTSC format.

If we adopts NTSC format, but the hard disk only supports FAT32, the Player won’t be able to find the file. The formatting device attached on the windows operation system is not capable of formatting the hard disk that has a larger memory than 32 GB, into FAT32, and if we try to , the player will not work. In this case, we must use professional formatting soft wares, for example, PQ 8.5.

Currently, Mp5 Player is not constrained by the hard disk format, therefore, we will have more choices.

By: Akon Fang