Talk:Forth Lesson 13

Perusing a file system

From the page.

ok more u:\boot\olpc.fth

Before seeing the contents of a file I want to see what is in the folder.

ok ls ext:\
Not at a device tree node. Use 'dev <device-pathname>'.
ext:\ ?
ok dev ext:\
ok ls
ok

The operating system shows that \boot\q3c16.rom is on the external SD card ..., --Peasthope 14:57, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

... in a FAT32 file system. Will try ext2 next week, --Peasthope 04:06, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. None of the lessons gave any clear guidance on filesystem commands. Forth Lesson 13 has been edited to show some. Please review and try again.

(although if you are upgrading firmware please use the instructions, which do not need these commands, and certainly won't work with a .rom file in the boot directory ... follow the instructions exactly, and ask any questions on the talk page ... if there's a problem with the instructions we really want to know).

ls is a command for navigating the device tree structure, not a filesystem command, and you can find more about the device tree in Forth Lesson 9. The consequences you observed after using ls and dev are correct. The filesystem used is immaterial, and I don't understand why you mentioned it; the commands will work on many different filesystems. --Quozl 09:07, 31 August 2013 (UTC).

"ls is a command for navigating the device tree structure, not a filesystem command, ..."

OK; just wasn't evident to me at the time.

"The filesystem used is immaterial, and I don't understand why you mentioned it;"

Given the use of ls in Linux and the example where "more" was used to see the contents of a file, I naively tried ls to see file names. When it didn't work, I wondered whether it was filesystem specific. Not all knowledge is congenital. Now I know to distinguish between device nodes and filesystem entities. Thanks, ...Peasthope 14:07, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

No problem with instructions for upgrading firmware. Had succeeded in wrecking my ~/.bashrc and anticipated fixing it by editing in OFW. More about that later. \boot\q3c16.rom was mentioned only because linux showed it existed but I failed to demonstrate existence in OFW. All is fine for now, thanks, ... Peasthope 18:53, 2 October 2013 (UTC)