Damn Small Linux - Not!

joe · Joined: 27 Jul 2006 Posts: 2

Totally noob question. Using RC3, how do I identify my usb Pendrive? It is not /dev/sda1 or /dev/hda1 (these are my two hardrives). I want to install DSL-N there.

roberts · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 320 Location: OC CA USA

I would suggest to use the DSLpanel SystemStats Dmesg and scroll through looking for your pendrive.

cbagger01 · Joined: 21 Apr 2006 Posts: 27

Is it /dev/uba1
?

durbnpoisn · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 18

I'm curious about this too... I would have thought that the mount tool would be able to find it. But, it doesn't.

I tried to mount it manually and accidentally hosed all my other mounts. Fortunately a hard reboot with no backup was a good way out of that stupid mistake. Very Happy

EDIT: I just deleted everything I typed here because I figured out how to do it. Very simple actually:

1. crack open the terminal.
2. cd /mnt
3. sudo mkdir usbhd
4. Plug in the USB drive
5. sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbhd

Substitute "sda1" with whatever device your USB drive actually is. If you have no SCSI drives, it likely is sda1.

Now the drive is mounted. Proceed with copying stuff.

The only thing I think is bad about this method is that you have to do all commands with sudo. I'm currently trying to find a better way...

durbnpoisn · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 18

Okay... Curious new information...

There is another way to mount the USB drive. You can edit the /etc/fstab file, and include an entry for mounting information for /dev/sda1.

It looks like this:
/dev/sda1 /mnt/usbhd vfat sync,noauto,user,exec 0 0

With this done, it allows you to use the the Mount App from the .fluxbox menu. It appears to mount the USB drive perfectly fine. And, in this fashion, you are able to access the drive as a regular user, so you don't have to use sudo every time you copy or delete a file.
However... It's ungodly slow. It writes information. But a 3mb file takes like 5 minutes to write.

So, I dunno... If anyone has any insight on this, I'd love to hear it. I feel like I'm so close, but I'm obviously missing something.

rja · Joined: 20 Apr 2006 Posts: 21 Location: Chicago, IL USA

If you are just trying to mount a USB 2.0 drive,
then as root, before inserting the drive, try this:

modprobe ehci_hcd

But, don't try it if you booted from the USB drive.

I'll start a different topic for that.

roberts · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 320 Location: OC CA USA

I see the bug in linuxrc.
Will be fixed in the next RC.
Thanks for reporting.

durbnpoisn · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 18

RobertS, are you referring to my posts?

If so, cool. Glad I actually helped find something new. Very Happy

roberts · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 320 Location: OC CA USA

I am referring to the speed or lack thereof.
USB2 was not loading. This results in only USB1.1 which is slow.
This thread has been very helpful. It is the kind of feedback needed during release candidate testing.

durbnpoisn · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 18

Is this something that I can fix myself?

It would be cool if I could do that without waiting for the next upgrade.

If not... I suppose mounting from the command line and using sudo for all rw commands is a tolerable workaround.

durbnpoisn · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 18

[quote="rja"]If you are just trying to mount a USB 2.0 drive,
then as root, before inserting the drive, try this:

modprobe ehci_hcd

But, don't try it if you booted from the USB drive.

I'll start a different topic for that.[/quote]

Okay... I tried this. It did nothing that I could see.

rja · Joined: 20 Apr 2006 Posts: 21 Location: Chicago, IL USA

It will not make a visible difference.

ehci_hcd should allow your USB drive to run at 2.0 speed instead of 1.1.

Test it by writing your 3MB file after you have loaded ehci_hcd.

durbnpoisn · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 18

Okay. I tried that. I mounted the drive using the Mount App. Then copied the file. It is still copying now. Ungodly slow.

As it stands, the best method is for me to manually mount the drive from the terminal. Using that method, a 5mb file copies instantly.

rja · Joined: 20 Apr 2006 Posts: 21 Location: Chicago, IL USA

durbnpoisn, instead of adding this onto Joe's topic, you may want to start a new one.
If you don't want to wait for RC4 to be available, then maybe this will help.

I was responding to your post that:
[quote]However... It's ungodly slow. It writes information. But a 3mb file takes like 5 minutes to write.
[/quote]
At first glance, that sounded like a USB 1.1 problem.
Make sure that ehci_hcd is loaded before you attempt to mount the USB drive.

df
lsmod | grep ehci
sudo modprobe ehci_hcd
lsmod | grep ehci
sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
df

This will mount sda1 with default options. Now copy your 3MB or 5MB file.

But, now that I tried it without ehci_hcd loaded, it shouldn't take five minutes to
copy a 3MB file, so there is probably another problem in addition to the
missing ehci_hcd module.

Maybe it is a problem with the options in your modified fstab.
Do you really want the "sync" option?

If this doesn't help, then you will have to provide us with many more details
about your setup.

durbnpoisn · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 18

I think this is a fine place for this discussion as the very first post was "How do I find the thing?"

Anyway... The last two lines in your example right there are basically exactly how I AM mounting the drive now. Except that I added that mount point to my backup so I don't need to keep creating it. Then I wrote a simple shell script and an alias to run the command. As of right now I just type "mu" and it mounts the drive. "um" unmounts it. This all works without using modprobe ehci_hcd at all.

I'm pretty sure that using this method, it is ignoring the fstab entry. Because the drive runs at 100% this way.

Where I'm having trouble is the MountApp utility. I don't know what the difference is, or how that program goes about the mounting process. But it isn't doing the same thing I am. And that's the way that it gets loaded in "slow mode".

Probably the only advantage using the MountApp would normally have is to let me run the usb drive as a regular user. As it stands, I need to do all my writing as sudo.

But I can live with that...

thanks for all your help on this, btw!