[Techtalk] Mounting USB devices

[Terri Oda]

On Jan 2, 2005, at 12:08 PM, Marleen Garcia wrote:
> The only problem that's left now is, and the reason I'm posting is,
> by rebooting the machine, the /dev files I created disappear, the
> file /etc/fstab is overwritten, and I can start anew!
>
> How do I keep my /etc/fstab, and my /dev files?

Weird!  I'm not a mandrake user generally, so I don't know what would 
overwrite /etc/fstab (nothing does that on my debian box, to my 
knowledge!), but my guess is that it's one of the automatic hardware 
detection things built in to mandrake.

Take a look at what's run during startup and see what looks likely.  On 
debian, the list of things being run is in /etc/rcX.d (where X is the 
appropriate runlevel, as configured in /etc/inittab... but your mileage 
will almost certainly vary and it's possible I've mistaken my config 
files anyhow.)

Are you sure it's /dev files that you want for USB devices?  I know 
when I mount my camera or mouse, they appear under /proc/bus/usb rather 
than under /dev.  They may be showing up, just not where you expect 
them!

And finally, if you haven't already done so, you might want to make 
yourself a startup script that runs harddrake2 and creates the 
appropriate dev files.  It'll save you some annoyance if all you have 
to do is type "mountusb.sh" and it does all that for you. :)  Doesn't 
really solve the main problem, but temporary quick fixes can make life 
so much more pleasant while you're figuring out the "real" solution.

  Terri