Mostly a rant, ignore it if you like.


I'm still having problems with subfs in 9.1 as well.

Efforts to contact SuSE seem to be in vain... So much for *paid* support.


I still get the erratic mounting (sometimes sda1, sometimes sdb1, sometimes not at all).

I also get those damn /media/usb-storage-0401233203015:0:0:0p1-whatever folders. What nincompoop thought this crap up?

My mouse still jumps around for no reason, but I haven't had a lockup when trying to mount removable media for awhile.

Occasionally can't unmount the media. Have to reboot.

The blasted "/media/usb-storage-0401233203015:0:0:0p1-whatever" folder that gets generated mirrors the actual mount point (e.g. /media/sda1) when I use my Lexar USB reader (Part NO: RW017-P Rev. A). And when you unmount the partition (/media/sda1) this "mount point" remains "mounted" allowing you to continue to modify files! Brilliant...

The Lexar reader does work fine in 9.0 as well as Mandy 10.0, my other readers (a Kodak 6-in-1 and an Imation IMN-USB-FG1) do not exhibit this behavior. Although they still have the other problems.


Yes I've followed SuSE's fix for this, I'll try the various suggestions (thanks Vlad-A and all!) that I've found here as well. I'll do the YOU (Yast Online Update) and try again.


Basically 9.1 is unusable for me, and I don't see a whole lot of help coming from SuSE...


John

I had the same problem until I defragemented and ran the scandisk error check on my USB keys... Yes, by default they are formatted as FAT or FAT32. This solved my problem without any trouble and yes I'm using Linux. I use SuSE 9.1 2.6.7-104-default, Mandrake 10, FC2, Slackware and Knoppix, DSL, and Kanotix. No troubles after the corrections.

So far... knock on wood.

nomasteryoda - out.

SuSE have brought out another Subfs patch, as I found out this morning when I ran an on-line update. This may help people who are still suffering grief with USB mounts.

Personally, I put it on my YAST Taboo list. Now that I have a manual solution which works reliably, I'll stick with that.

Heh - seems like YOU can be as tricky as the dreaded Windows Update tool. Too funny!

Funny YOU (pun intended) should mention that, I did the YOU and now I have an unworking system.

I suppose it fixed my subfs problems though...


John

so you hope; lol

Is there any reason to use SuSE 9.1 instead of 9.0? What additional features does 9.1 have that compensate for the poor support for pen drives?
Also, I'm kind of worried about installing SuSE 9.1. I tried the Live CD version, but while the documentation (esp. help files) seemed much stronger than Knoppix, it didn't seem to support all of my hardware as well. Can I expect better compatibility when I install on HD?

Hardware wise, both 9.0 and 9.1 support everything that I've got (Toshiba 1905-s303), so no complaints there.

As for why to upgrade? Pretty, shiny things of course!


John

I don't think you'll benefit in the sense of better compatitbility. Its the same software.

To what extent does this technique offer better support for USB? Would this offer me the full compatibility of hardware that Windows does?

I have several USB storage devices that may or may not need to be mounted: a Cruzer Micro USB pendrive, a Lexar USB pendrive, a Palm Pilot, and a generic card reader (and a Lexar SD drive). I'd like them all to be immediately available for use as soon as I plug them in any USB port.

But the problem I currently have is this. I have /dev/sda1 pointing to /mnt/pendrive in fstab. This works fine if I'm only using a pendrive. But I also would like to use my card reader. So I reboot, with nothing plugged in. Then I plug in my USB card reader, and apparently, it takes up four device slots--sda to sdd (sda is Compact Flash, sdb Memory Stick,... sdd SD/MMS). Once I plug in the card reader, the pen drive gets messed up. If I take out the pen drive and later put it back, I get a message that /dev/sda1 is not a valid block.

So as you can see, complications arise when I try to use a pen drive and a USB card reader. I'm sure it'd be worse when I juggle more devices around. So my question is--is there a way for me to edit these settings to be as I state above, or would I be better served waiting for SuSE to update the USB support? (And in the meanwhile, rebooting everytime I needed to change a USB device.)

Hi all!

I recently installed SuSE 9.1 Pro and I think I have discovered a "robust" way for usb flash drives (at least for mine it works!). I have a "extreMEmory", usb 2.0, 512MB flash drive and although it would be mounted automatically, the system would "misbehave" if it were unmounted, plugged out and plugged back in after a while. Issuing a "umount /dev/sda1" command would do the job, but when plugged back in the same usb port it would not be automatically mounted. If plugged into a different usb port, it would be automatically mounted to "/dev/sdb1" and there would be no more automatic mounts once unmounted.

So, using the command "eject -s /dev/sda1" has the desired effect: The usb flash is unmounted even as a plain user (using the default security level) and if plugged back in either the same or different usb port after 5-8 sec, the system will mount it automatically at /media/usb-storage-xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

The interesting part is that I have not updated anything on my system yet, nor changed anything from the original configuration (e.g. /etc/fstab)! I have been using the procedure described above for over 2 weeks and I had absolutely no problems.

Hardware: Athlon 64, 3000+, 1GB RAM, Asus K8N-E Deluxe motherboard

SuSE installed: 9.1 (32-bit version)

Configuration:
==========
fstab:


/dev/hda3 / reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/hda1 /windows/C ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/hda2 swap swap pri=42 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
/dev/cdrecorder /media/cdrecorder subfs fs=cdfss,ro,procuid,nosuid,nodev,exec,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/dvdrecorder /media/dvdrecorder subfs fs=cdfss,ro,procuid,nosuid,nodev,exec,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy subfs fs=floppyfss,procuid,nodev,nosuid,sync 0 0


In /etc/sysconfig:
PERMISSION_SECURITY = easy local

Kernel:
2.6.4-52-default


If you need any more configuration/system info, let me know...

Regards,
Cipher13

Even though I've added HOTPLUG_USE_SUBFS=no in /etc/sysconfig/hotplug,
I still get the /media/usb-storage-xxx stuff.

I've also added a /media/pendrive to my /etc/fstab so I can mount the usb stick as a user,
this works perfectly, except I cannot unmount it. The umount command fails because
/dev/sda1 is mounted multiple times, once by me as user and once by suse.
Then, the next time I boot the computer I get the "HOTPLUG already active" message.

Apparently HOT PLUG_USE_SUBFS=no doesn't work, any ideas why this may be?

Hi,

Just a quick note.

All of these USB problems disappear once you upgrade to SuSE 9.2. I know this is not an option for everyone, but 9.2 is much better behaved than 9.1. I use 9.0 for the 2.4 Kernel on my main server and 9.2 on my ThinkPad as a client machine. Both work a treat.

Regards

dkpw