Subj : Fido on a removable drive
To   : Russell Tiedt
From : Bob Jones
Date : Wed Aug 23 2006 11:17 am

 RT> about fidonet on a USB memory stick, and the problem of changing drive 
 RT> letters.

 RT> That is if I plug a USB memory stick into my computer 
 RT> it becomes drive F:, but 
 RT> plugging the same memory stick into the computer at 
 RT> work, it becomes drive H:.

 RT> Any suggestions on how to make Squish, msged, 
 RT> binkleyterm, binkd, etc operate 
 RT> in such a fashion that it matters not what the drive 
 RT> name is, the paths are 
 RT> sane and make sense to the programs.

Most of the squish, binkleyterm, and I think even binkd control files can be 
set up with relative paths specified.  There may be one or two spots where it 
may need a drive letter defined in a windows or OS/2 type environment.

 RT> I operate mostly on Linux, and Fido is stricly Linux 
 RT> here, but the computer at 
 RT> work is WINXP, and has an internet connection.

 RT> Things I have considered are;

 RT> Setting the drive in a batch file i.e.

 RT> Set drive "equals" F
 RT> and then writing paths as follows

 RT> $drive\squish\msgbase

 RT> or ..\squish\msgbase

Games like this work in batch files, but not necessarily in the control files.

 RT> otherwise writing seperate config files for each program, i.e.

 RT> squish.cfg.f
 RT> squish.cfg.h

Use relative paths for most of the stuff in the control files, share the common 
control information in one file, and then in use an include statement in the 
drive specific control file which should have very few lines.....  That is if 
you can not get by with using all paths in the control files without drive 
letters and have the batch file set the default drive to the memory stick 
before processing....

 RT> and then run a batch file that will copy one or the other to squish.cfg 
 RT> depending on what drive letter is allocated to the USB drive?

 RT> Am I making sense?

In some ways.  

Over the years of expanding disk drive capacity and need to move drive letters 
around, I tend to now have my batch files setup to use an enivornment parameter 
for both the drive letter and the base path.  Control files still have too much 
hard coded in this regard, but are kept in a form where I can perform a one 
shot edit of the control files to change the drive and/or base path 
specification with a simple, global edit.....

Good luck....

Bob Jones, 1:343/41


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