mount -l tells me (I think) that USB devices are mounted -
usbdevfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw)


How can I manually copy (cp) a file to/from the flash/thumb/keyring drive plugged in at the other end of the cable?
TIA

have you tried cd to the directory where the device is and then cp the file to the new directory?

The devices are mounted there. The filesystem that is on your flash drive is not. In order to copy files to/from your flash drive, you need to find out what device it is (use (as root) fdisk -l (that is a lowercase L) to find out) and mount that. If you have no other USB storage devices, or any other SCSI devices, then you should be safe with mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbdrive (please ensure the directory /mnt/usbdrive exists before issuing this command).

once you have created the /mnt/usbdrive directory you could place a line at the end of your fstab file, which is in the /etc directory. (do all this stuff as root!)

/dev/sda1 /mnt/usbdrive vfat noauto,user 0 0

this alows you to place an icon on your dektop. i use KDE. right click on the desktop, add new drive. choose /dev/sda1 from the dropdown list, choose the icons and away you go. put your usb device in the slot, then double click on the icon and its mounted. you should see a folder open in the browser with all your files in. dont forget to right click on the icon and unmount when finished.