mcat(1)

📦
version 4.0.49 · 7 versions
, in alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ mcat — dump raw disk image ✨

ok so bestie, we're doing mcat(1) from the General Commands Manual today and it's giving very niche-but-iconic energy 🎀

🚨 NOTE OF WARNING 🚨

real talk before anything else: this manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo documentation, and it may not be entirely accurate or complete. The deets are at the end of this page, ok? don't come for me, come for the generator 😭

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

The mcat command is used to copy an entire disk image from or to the floppy device. Here's the syntax, slay:

mcat [-w] drive:

mcat performs the same task as the Unix cat command. The way it had to be included in the mtools package because cat literally cannot access remote floppy devices offered by the mtools floppy daemon 💅 and now?? it is possible to create boot floppies remotely. main character energy fr fr 🌈

The default operation is reading. The output is written to stdout. 🫶

If the -w option is specified, mcat reads a disk-image from stdin and writes it to the given device.

Use this carefully! Because of the low-level nature of this command, it will happily destroy any data written before on the disk without warning! 💀 no cap. it's not being dramatic, it is literally just going to do that. be so serious with -w.

🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

  • Mtools' texinfo doc 📖

🦋 VIEWING THE TEXI DOC 🦋

So. This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo documentation. However, this process is only approximative, and some items — like crossreferences, footnotes and indices — are lost in this translation process. Indeed, these items have no appropriate representation in the manpage format 😭 Moreover, not all information has been translated into the manpage version. So I strongly advise you to use the original texinfo doc instead. See the end of this manpage for instructions how to view the texinfo doc 👑

  • To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the following commands:
./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi
  • To generate a html copy, run:
./configure; make html

A premade html can be found at http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/manual/mtools.html ✨

  • To generate an info copy (browsable using emacs' info mode), run:
./configure; make info

The texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html 👑 Indeed, in the info version certain examples are difficult to read due to the quoting conventions used in info 🙈

k bye bestie, this was mcat from mtools, documented as version mtools-4.0.49, dated 14Jun25 💜 go read the texinfo doc if you want the full picture, and please be careful with -w, i'm begging 🫶✨

📦 where this page comes from