Kernels and mounting USB devices

Mutant_Fruit

Basically, i want to be able to mount my usb memory stick and my MP3 player (no drivers needed for this in windows, it acts as "mass storage") in linux. Whats the best way to go about this?

I've tried a few guides, but couldn't get the damn things to work right. I keep coming up with things telling me to mount "sda1", but i have no sda1 on my install! Thats one problem i come up against. I also tried using the app "usb-mount" but couldn't get that to work, or if it was working, it gave no visible signs. However, if i run "lsusb" my devices do show up as being connected.

Anyway, i fecked up my linux with all the messing around i was doing, and i decided to reinstall it. While on my search to get the USB devices mounted, i came across this . It seems to be recommending the 2.6.x kernel as opposed to the 2.4.x kernel, as the newer kernel has better hotplug support. Would the newer kernel make it easier to do this? Or should i stick with 2.4.X?

Thanks.

EDIT: I'm running Debian (Sarge)

aidan_walsh

Might this article be of any help? It uses the 2.4.2 kernel as its reference one, though I suppose anything higher would work just as well...

pickarooney

In answer to your last question, when I plug in an MP3-layer/USB key it's automatically recognised and mounted to /mnt/removable (kernel 2.6.x on Mandrake 10).

If you plug the device in before booting, does kudzu (or whatever) not detect it and ask you if you want to add it to fstab? Even if you don't say yes, it should tell you the device name (/dev/sdasomethingorother).

Something like this might do the trick;
su -c "/sbin/modprobe usb-storage; mount -t vfat /dev/sda /mnt/usb; /etc/rc.d/init.d/usb start; chmod -R 777 /mnt/usb"

Mutant_Fruit

Doodle, thats the exact article i linked in my first post. That didn't work for me. I don't think i have my linux install configured correctly to allow me to do what i need to do, but i don't know what i have to alter/install.

The guides are telling me to: mount /dev/sda1, etc. But i can't do that. I don't have sda1, or sda2, or any sda's. I think part of the problem is i havn't loaded the usb-storage module, so how do i do that? And what other modules need to be loaded?

The bottom of that guide tells you how to do it in kernel 2.6.x, and that made me think maybe 2.6.x was a better plan of action.

aidan_walsh

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

Doodle, thats the exact article i linked in my first post.

Ah, completely missed that. Damn "Blue" theme...

Syth

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

Doodle, thats the exact article i linked in my first post. That didn't work for me. I don't think i have my linux install configured correctly to allow me to do what i need to do, but i don't know what i have to alter/install.

The guides are telling me to: mount /dev/sda1, etc. But i can't do that. I don't have sda1, or sda2, or any sda's. I think part of the problem is i havn't loaded the usb-storage module, so how do i do that? And what other modules need to be loaded?

The bottom of that guide tells you how to do it in kernel 2.6.x, and that made me think maybe 2.6.x was a better plan of action.

Try with /dev/sdb1, sdb2, sdc1 etc. It might have but it there, USB stuff is a bit of a pain. I'm sure there has to be some better way to do it.

I've got my USB flash stick mounted, here's the contents of my lsmod:

root@nayru:~# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by    Not tainted
usb-storage            66176   1
snd-pcm-oss            37736   0  (unused)
snd-mixer-oss          12504   0  [snd-pcm-oss]
usb-ohci               19240   0  (unused)
ehci-hcd               17580   0  (unused)
usbcore                59308   1  [usb-storage usb-ohci ehci-hcd]
snd-intel8x0           18924   1
snd-ac97-codec         49500   0  [snd-intel8x0]
gameport                1420   0  [snd-intel8x0]
snd-pcm                56072   1  [snd-pcm-oss snd-intel8x0]
snd-timer              13604   0  [snd-pcm]
snd-page-alloc          6328   0  [snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm]
snd-mpu401-uart         3200   0  [snd-intel8x0]
snd-rawmidi            12740   0  [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-seq-device          3888   0  [snd-rawmidi]
snd                    30852   0  [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-timer snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device]
soundcore               3396   4  [snd]
tulip                  40352   1
crc32                   2880   0  [tulip]
ohci1394               24112   0  (unused)
ieee1394               42276   0  [ohci1394]
pcmcia_core            39972   0
ide-scsi                9328   0
agpgart                43940   0  (unused)

See if modprobing the relevant usb modules works.

Fenster

mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/flash

Never fails for me.

nadir

no problems here either.

basically you just need to compile the mass storage option in the kernel. I compile it as a module myself, i usually keep all my usb stuff modular.

once thats done you can just mount /dev/sd** /mnt/whatever

A simplified explanation of the workings is that the kernel module detects a usb device and assigns it a proc id, i.e /proc/bus/usb/NNN/NNN
you can see this in the kernel log also. cat /var/log/messages or such.
this then gets mapped as a device (scsi device) in /dev/sd**
if it doesnt get mapped as a device you can try to trouble shoot it with the usbmodules application.
usbmodules --device /proc/bus/usb/NNN/NNN
but basically it should just work. If it still doesnt post up the relevant areas of you logs, i.e /var/log/kernel.log or if you use metalog /var/log/kernel/current