[hairybusdriver]

Does any know of any versions of linux that come with the program hotplug on it. I dont know how to mount flash drives with linux and i was told that the hotplug program does it for you automatically?

[leroys1000]

Ubuntu is usually pretty good at detecting hotplug devices.

[saikee]

All modern Linux will do hotplugging with USB storage devices.

Some, like Ubuntu and Slax, will auto-mount the partitions as soon as you plug the devices to the USB ports.

Other would only auto-mount if the devices are plugged in at boot time.

In all of then you can mount and dismount any USB device "manually".

Mounting a device to read files off is possibly the most rewarding experience in Unix and Linux systems. It is almost like magic especially if you know the way how to find out the device names and then proceed to mount it.

M$ systems take away that understanding of mounting and unmounting of a device to read its files thus if things go wrong a user has no idea what to do. In Linux one can do it freely in manual mode.

[hairybusdriver]

Well I was using kinnopix and i was trying to copy a windows file over to my flash drive. It wouldn't, it kept giving me this error message. i cant remember what it was but all i know is that i couldn't copy files onto the flash drive. I guess I'll try Ubuntu.

[saikee]

Modern Linux are quite strict with security as every file has an ownership. A user not owning the file is restricted from accessing it.

This work similar on files off a Windows NTFS partition. To have the right to read those files you need to be a root user or the equivalent Admin in Windows.

Ubuntu is another member of the Debian family same as Knoppix. You will not get away with it.

You are better off find out the correct way to become a root user. In fact most Linux allow you to become a super user by the terminal command "sudo su" but you need to copy the files in terminal mode.

[minoruhackerguy]

Also dude, just to let you know, this is how you mount external media from the command line.

step one) As root, type in "fdisk -l" You should see a message like the fallowing:

Disk /dev/hda: 20.0 GB, 20003880960 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2432 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1         765     6144831   83  Linux
/dev/hda2             766        2301    12337920    5  Extended
/dev/hda3            2302        2432     1052257+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda5             767        1730     7743330    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/hda6            1731        2301     4586526   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642368 bytes
255 heads, 62 sectors/track, 7413 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15810 * 512 = 8094720 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1           6       40131    0  Empty
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2               6        7414    58564957    b  W95 FAT32

External Storage will be listed something like "/dev/sda" or "/dev/sdb". Look at the size of the device. It should be about the same as your Pendrive/ipod/etc... The above results from fdisk show that I have a device that is 60.0 GB(my ipod) named /dev/sda. Now look to find the partition you want to mount. The number after the "/dev/sda" is the partition number. In my case, I want to mount the bigger one(the one with more blocks). To do this, first make sure you have a directory you'd like to mount the device to. (In my case, I made "/mnt/ipod") Also, note the filesystem of the device you wish to mount. (In my case, FAT32)
To mount the media, you type in the fallowing:

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod -t vfat

The mount command is pretty simple. By typing in the above you are saying "Mount device sda2 to the directory /mnt/ipod. The filesystem type is vfat". You type in vfat for FAT, FAT15, and FAT32 filesystems. (Most external media fits into this category)

If you want to see what filesystems you can mount, type in the fallowing:

 cat /proc/filesystems | grep -v "^nodev" | cat

It should print out something like this:

sh-3.00# cat /proc/filesystems | grep -v "^nodev" | cat
        reiserfs
        ext3
        ext2
        squashfs
        minix
        msdos
        vfat
        iso9660
        ntfs

It's good to see what you can mount this way because some things very from system to sytem. For instance, some linux distro's have the NTFS (windows filesystem) driver listed as 'ntfs-3g' and some don't even have the ability to mount ntfs devices.

Here is the whole process of mounting a disk drive (note that you can use the same processes to mount internal hard drives):

sh-3.00# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 20.0 GB, 20003880960 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2432 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1         765     6144831   83  Linux
/dev/hda2             766        2301    12337920    5  Extended
/dev/hda3            2302        2432     1052257+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda5             767        1730     7743330    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/hda6            1731        2301     4586526   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642368 bytes
255 heads, 62 sectors/track, 7413 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15810 * 512 = 8094720 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1           6       40131    0  Empty
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2               6        7414    58564957    b  W95 FAT32
sh-3.00# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/ipod -t vfat

I told you more than you needed to know probably, but it's really an easy process. It only takes 2 steps to mount something. My advice would be to try it out a couple of times so you don't run into this problem in the future.

To find out more info on fdisk and mount, type in "man fdisk" or "man mount". I know that learning how to do things from the command line is cumbersome, but learning it is worth it..

If you have any questions about the process, just ask me. I'd be glad to help. =D