[ILUG] Is is possible to mount a DAT as a drive under linux/u nix?

[kevin lyda]

On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 09:06:50AM -0000, Matt Rudge wrote:
> > Is is possible to mount a DAT as a drive under nix? 
> > Preferably linux otherwise I shall have to install something. 

you don't mount tapes.  and if it's even possibly, you shouldn't.
tapes don't seek very quickly.  you'd definitely be waiting a long time
and chances are you'd destroy the tape and/or tape drive after a few
days doing the normal seeks back and forth that an fs requires.

> Could refer to it with tar / cpio through /dev/tape, but couldn't actually
> mount it in the same way as you can mount a floppy disk, cd or hd.  My
> understanding of this was that it doesn't have a file system per se and that
> whatever was written to it was pretty much proprietary to the program that
> wrote it (tar / cpio / other tape archiving program etc).

tar and cpio are published standards.  they aren't "proprietary."  not to
mention there are a slew of programs that implement the tar standard,
and quite a few that implement cpio.

> I stand to be corrected on this (and would be delighted if someone has found
> a way to do it).

no, you'll have to use the tape archiver that you used to create the tape.
and tar and cpio *are* fs's in a sense, just append only / read anywhere
ones that assume you can't seek.  which makes for a very limited fs,
but that's just reflecting the medium underneath.

kevin

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