damn small linux - Installing usb & what do these disks mean?

Question

I am configuring my installation of Damn Small Linux and I have few questions.

I need to access my pendrive. What drivers do I need?

What is the purpose of the /opt, /dev and /mnt folders?

Answer 1

In short :

/opt - Configuration files for add-on apps /dev - the folder where the devices are created at boot /mnt - holds the mount points for storage devices (same as /media on some distros)

theres a full description here

to mount a pendrive you need to issue a mount command, e.g:

mount /dev/yourusbdevice /mnt/yourmountpoint

probably something like

mkdir /mnt/pendrive
mount /dev/sdaX /mnt/pendrive
sdaX = your pendrive device

for more detailed explanation use

man mount

Jim

Answer 2

OldJim has this mostly right, but some clarifications:

/opt is an alternative to /usr/local - it is often used for installing large third party (not part of the distro, not managed by the package manager) software, not just configuration files. It is pretty much like c:\Program Files\ except that it will be divided up by application rather than company that made the applications and most people do not install software this way on a Linux system - a distro's package manager is much more powerful and easier to use.

/dev is for file objects that abstract over a physical device. Most of the files in /dev are not actual devices that exist - they can also represent hypothetical devices or pseudo devices, for example /dev/pty is a pseudo terminal used by some software to access a virtual terminal or console display as if it were a hardware terminal device. On my netbook there is a /dev/cdrom, /dev/cdrw, /dev/dvdrom, and /dev/dvdrw and I don't have any optical media reader on that computer - those dev files are dummy placeholders that would only do anything interesting if the hardware existed.