Well, because you forgot the redirection character: ">"
millward wrote:
I'm trying to write the file eb-5.0.7-via-rhine.lzdsk to a floppy diskette in /dev/fd0. When I did the following command: cat /home/ed/eb-5.0.7-via-rhine.lzdsk /dev/fd0
Try: cat /home/ed/eb-5.0.7-via-rhine.lzdsk >/dev/fd0 instead.
The "cat" command copies the contents of ALL of its arguments (including the floppy, in this case) to standard output (the screen, in this case). Don't confuse it with the "cp" (copy) command, which copies the contents of all (except the last) of its arguments to the last argument. The argument after the ">" is not seen by the command, since the shell does the redirection.
No doubt there were some control characters in the files that put the console into an odd state.
the screen filled with zeros and wierd characters and stayed that way after the command supposedly had finished writting the file to the floppy. I had to boot <Ctrl> <Alt> <Delete> since the keyboard was useless. No harm done. Everything seems OK after the boot. Using another floppy, I tried: dd if=/home/ed/eb-5.0.7-via-rhine.lzdsk of=/dev/fd0 obs=18k No problems with dd. The copy seemed to work quicker. My question is, are the two commands, dd and cat, equivalent for writting data to a floppy? And why did cat screw up my keyboard?
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