linux and me

This is a bit of a beg for help, so if any can / can be bothered, it'd be nice. Lovely in fact.

Inow have redhat linux installed on a laptop and want to put some files onto it. This I want to do with floppy disks.

Said laptop has no floppy drive, as standard, but does have a usb floppy drive.

How the hell do I use it? If anything installing /setting up, chances are it has not been done because I'm the only one that has touched it and I've done the bare minimum.

Failing that if anyone could point in the right direction for good free help that would also be good.

It is a very good thing that I'm not in the habit of keeping big sticks close to hand...

Not sure about your usb problem, might want to go to the manufacturer to see if they have drivers, and make sure you installed usb support for red hat.

One sollution for getting your data on your laptop would be to upload from a wind0ze box then download the files on to your redhat box. Another one might be to install samba and pull your data through the network.

hrm, fraid im not much help to you on this one, all i know how to do in linux is play dopewars

Well thanks for trying but I found someone with a cd burner and sorted it that way. So far first impression of red hat linux, it has the sexiest version of patience I have ever seen! many hours have been wasted playing it on windows and its sssssssh... naff by comparison. Ohh, arr.

How does linux stand up to windows as an all-round workstation? (& how well does it work on laptops?) I'm thinking about sticking Mandrake on me laptop - how well would it work with me software-driven soundcard/modem?

Depending on which version of of RedHat you are using USB should have been compiled. Have you tried mounting the drive? goto your root directory create a directory called floppy 'mkdir floppy' then try 'mount -t auto /dev/floppy /floppy'

It should work.