[prog] USB keys

[John Clarke]

On Mon, May 10, 2004 at 12:44:59PM -0700, daniel.richter at wimba.com wrote:

> I'm going to buy a USB key (I think some people call it
> a memory stick). I've never bought one before (I've
> scarcely used them before), so I have a lot of
> questions. How standardized are they? Do they all use
> the same drivers? Which ones are best supported by
> Linux? Do you have any recommendations?

I have a no-name brand one and it works fine.  Most (all?) use the
standard USB mass storage protocol and work with Linux.  They appear as
SCSI devices.

I added this line to /etc/fstab:

    /dev/sda1   /mnt/usbdrive   auto    user,noauto,nosuid      0 0

and this one to /etc/modules.conf:

    alias scsi_hostadapter usb-storage

and now I can mount it with "mount /mnt/usbdrive" and the kernel
automatically loads the required modules (usb-storage, usbcore,
scsi-mod, sdmod, vfat, etc) via /sbin/hotplug.  This is on RH7.3 with a
2.4 series kernel.

Occasionally something gets confused (usually after I've used one or
more of my other USB mass storage devices) and it won't mount, so then
I just rmmod usb-storage and try again.


Cheers,

John
-- 
It also occurs to me that if we're going to have the Cybermen doing the
system administration, then we may as well turn tech support over to the
Daleks.
            -- Steve VanDevender