neddie Posted March 27, 2008 Report Share Posted March 27, 2008 (edited) I'm playing with Debian Etch, and the only way I can figure out how to use my USB stick is to run the mount command manually as root in a console. But then only root can copy files, making it a bit of a pain. In Mandriva 2007 Spring, the same USB stick is recognised when I plug it in, and a window pops up asking whether to mount it or not. Similarly to unmount it in Mandriva I just click on the KwikDisk task tray icon and select the device to disconnect. I can't find anything similar in Etch. Am I missing something? Do I need to manually enter an fstab entry for this USB stick (and extra entries for other USB sticks I might use?), or is there some cool add-on or trick which manages the mounting/unmounting as well as Mandriva does? Edited April 3, 2008 by neddie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg2 Posted March 27, 2008 Report Share Posted March 27, 2008 I've had both Etch and Lenny on my laptop (Gnome), and all of my USB drives were automatically mounted with an icon on the desktop. What kernel are you using? What does dmesg say when you attach them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted March 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2008 Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-6-686 #1 SMP Output from dmesg: usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3 usb 4-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices usb-storage: device found at 3 usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning Vendor: I0MEGA Model: UMni128MB*IOM2E4 Rev: Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00 SCSI device sdb: 247808 512-byte hdwr sectors (127 MB) sdb: Write Protect is off sdb: Mode Sense: 08 00 00 00 sdb: assuming drive cache: write through SCSI device sdb: 247808 512-byte hdwr sectors (127 MB) sdb: Write Protect is off sdb: Mode Sense: 08 00 00 00 sdb: assuming drive cache: write through sdb: sdb1 sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb usb-storage: device scan complete There are no icons on the desktop, but when I go to my home directory I see the drive listed on the left as "IOMEGA UMni128MB". So I double click on that and it says "Unable to mount the selected volume" - "libhal-storage.c 1401 : info: called libhal_free_dbus_error but dbuserror was not set. process 3745: applications must not close shared connections - see dbus_connection_close() docs. this is a bug in the application. error: could not execute pmount". But when I mount /dev/sdb1/mnt/stick/ from a root console, it mounts fine and I can read and write to it (as root). :unsure: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted March 28, 2008 Report Share Posted March 28, 2008 Are you a member of the "storage" group? (I think this is the way it's called in Debian). And anyway, you can always do a "cat /etc/group" to find out. It may also help adding yourself to the "dbus" and "hal" groups- if they exist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted March 28, 2008 Report Share Posted March 28, 2008 IIRC, I had to adjust the group settings in Debian Etch back then in order to use USB-Sticks correctly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg2 Posted March 29, 2008 Report Share Posted March 29, 2008 libhal-storage.c 1401 : info: called libhal_free_dbus_error but dbuserror was not set. I've never had that problem, but I use a k7 kernel. You may want to have a look at this bug report: bugs.debian.org It suggest updating your system with the latest kernel, udev, hal, libhal1, libhal-storage1, dbus, libdbus-* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted March 29, 2008 Report Share Posted March 29, 2008 make sure that dbus and hal are actually running too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted March 31, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 Are you a member of the "storage" group? (I think this is the way it's called in Debian). It may also help adding yourself to the "dbus" and "hal" groups- if they exist.Haven't got one called "storage" in /etc/groups, or usb or dbus. There is one called haldaemon, and I'm not a member of it. Do I need to be? You may want to have a look at this bug report: bugs.debian.orgIt suggest updating your system with the latest kernel, udev, hal, libhal1, libhal-storage1, dbus, libdbus-* I've updated everything, and checked those packages match the latest version. Still no change. make sure that dbus and hal are actually running too.Hmmm. If I go to "Services" under Desktop -> Administration, then dbus and hal aren't listed. How would I add them and start them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg2 Posted March 31, 2008 Report Share Posted March 31, 2008 Are you using the most recent kernel (many users don't know about Debian backports). Please read these instructions: backports.org Then update your kernel, etc., and let us know if that helps? If it doesn't, please give the output of uname -r Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted April 1, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 I added the backports as instructed, but apart from giving a warning about some missing signature and an update to libxine1 it did nothing. No new kernel, no new hal / dbus / anything else. The output of uname -r is similar to the output of uname -a given earlier, ie "2.6.18-6-686". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted April 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2008 Solved :D The answer was that I didn't belong to the plugdev group. With that group added, nautilus pops up showing the contents of the stick automatically, without even a prompt, and I get an icon on the desktop as you said - perfect! Not sure why I didn't get that group, maybe there were some cunning options which I missed. Also as a bonus, i fixed the annoyance that my laptop touchpad was horribly slow under Debian - I had to scrabble and scrabble just to move the pointer across the screen. But I looked at my xorg.conf from Mandriva and copied over the following lines: Option "MinSpeed" "0.8" Option "MaxSpeed" "1.0" Option "AccelFactor" "0.015" into Debian's xorg.conf, and everything is much nicer, much more sensitive! Not sure which of those three did the trick but they looked speed-related so I put them all in :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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