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Changing CDs

Whenever a CD-ROM is to be made available to the system, it is mounted on the file system with a command like this:


mount type device mount_point

type is any special instruction that applies to the CD-ROM (such as USO9660 file system or read-only), device is the device name, and mount_point is where the CD-ROM contents are to be placed in the Linux file system. For example, to mount an ISO9660 (which is the standard for CD-ROM contents) CD on the first CD device /dev/cd0 to the mount point /usr/cdrom, you would issue this command:


mount -t ISO9660 /dev/cd0 /usr/cdrom

From then on, all queries to the /usr/cdrom directory and its subdirectories are steered to the CD-ROM and its contents. When you want to change the CD to another one, you should not just eject the first and insert the second (in fact, many CD-ROM drives will not allow you to do this if the disk is in use). Instead, you have to unmount the CD with the umount command, specifying either the mount point or the device. One of these two commands would unmount the CD-ROM mounted with the preceding command:


umount /dev/cd0

umount /usr/cdrom

Both commands accomplish the same task.

Summary

This chapter has looked at a few issues, including using the package management tools to add new software to your system and using multiple CD-ROM drives. This chapter rounds out the installation section of this book. From here, we move on to look at how you can use the Linux system you’ve just installed. You may want to bounce around and look up other useful information, instead of continuing on in sequence.

To learn how to install sound cards and use them in conjunction with your system for multimedia applications, see Chapter 21, “Multimedia Linux.”
To learn how to install and configure XFree86, the X server that provides you with a GUI interface to Linux, see Chapter 22, “Installing and Configuring XFree86.”
To learn about CD-ROM devices, major and minor device numbers, and how to add new devices such as multiple CD-ROMs, see Chapter 33, “Devices.”


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