How to mount usb flash drives in linux

[carloc]

I found that the latest Slackware 10.2 does not mount USB-key automatically so I've decided to post this tip that could be used in other distro that don't automount these devices in your desktop.

Note: USB storage devices are shown as SCSI drives in Linux, so if you have more than a SCSI device you can find different device names (/dev/sdXX where XX depends on your hardware). In this example I've chosen the first device in the SCSI chain (/dev/sda1)

1. Open a console window (under KDE is called konsole)
2. Login as root: type su and enter the password
3. Change directory: cd /mnt
4. Create a new directory: mkdir usbkey (if not exists)
5. Try to mount your USB-key: mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbkey
6. If it doesn't works you may try another device (e.g. /dev/sda2)
7. If it works you can list the files in the key: ls /mnt/usbkey
8. Unmount the device: umount /mnt/usbkey
9. Open for edit the file /etc/fstab with a text-editor
10. Add this line: /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbkey vfat noauto,users,rw,umask=0 0 0
11. Save and close the file
12. Leave the root user: press CTRL+D or enter the command exit
13. Now you can mount the key from your account: mount /mnt/usbkey
14. For unmounting the key: umount /mnt/usbkey

[rik]

excellent info carloc. Thanks!

[Big Booger]

Ubuntu mounts these just fine, at least mine does. In fact I haven't had to mount anything in ages... on occasion I'll mount a young girl for a test drive around the track... but in terms of my OSes no manual mounting necessary. Slackware should fix this to automatically be done in future versions.