Hi,

I have just installed Mandrake 9.1 on a P4 system(yes I know it's old but I have to support some hardware on a 2.4 kernel hence I'm using 9.1) and I'm having trouble with USB.

When I do a lsusb it shows me the error:

Sure enough when I go to /proc/bus/ I only see pci/ and no usb/

I try to then mount usbdevfs with mount -t usbdevfs none /proc/bus/usb but I get the error message that there's no such mount point as /proc/bus/usb.

My USB mouse is however working, though it's detected as a PS/2 mouse, and the wheel isn't working.

Does anyone know what's wrong?

If you go into the Mandrake Control Panel and then the manage partition or whatever it is called, can you see your usb drive there? I used to use 9.1 and I think I solved the problem by creating a hard mount point for it. Also check that you have got the HAL service daemon running/installed.

Cheers
John

Nope, don't see the drive. In the first place, usbdevfs isn't loaded, and the usb module isn't even loaded upon bootup. If I manually modprobe it, then I can mount usbdevfs, and then I can mount my USB drive. However, strangely, once I do the modprobe, my USB mouse stops working.

These step by step instructions basically describe how I made a hard mount point for my usb drive. I used Gedit instea of vi as I think it is more user friendly.

I hope this helps:

http://nm1m.blogspot.com/2004/12/mou...-on-linux.html

These are the steps from the blog post:

Turn on computer.

Log in.

su to root. (I have not tried doing this without su-ing to root, although it may work.)

Go to /mnt (is: "cd /mnt").

Create a directory called "usb" ("mkdir /usb").

Change the directory mode to be 777. ("chmod 777 usb")

Go to /etc. ("cd /etc")

Open up the file "fstab". ("vi fstab"). I am going to do this using vi. You are welcome to use any program that you wish. Also, be really careful with the fstab file. It is the file that tells your computer how to connect to different file systems, such as your hard drives, and your cd drive. fstab is pretty forgiving of any new stuff that you may add, but don't mess with any text that is already there.

Go to the end of the file. (Press the down button until you are on the bottom line. Then press the "End" button on your keyboard.)

Tell vi that you want to insert text. (Press the letter "i")

Press the "End" button on your keyboard again. You should now be at the end of the last line of the fstab file.

Create a new line by pressing the "enter" button on your keyboard.

Type in the following, verbatim (leave out the quotation marks):

"/dev/sda mnt/usb ext3,vfat defaults,noauto,users 0 0"

(Make sure that you left out the quotation marks.)

Hit the escape button on your keyboard. ("Esc").

Press the colon button on your keyboard. (":")

Type the following: "sav fstab".

(Leave out the quotation marks.)

Tell vi that you want to quit the program. (":q")

Type in the following: "mount /mnt/usb".

(Once again, leave out the quotation marks.)

Your Sony Microvault is now mounted! If you are using Mandrake 9.1, there is now a picture of a hard drive on your desktop. You can access the microvault thru this icon.

Cheers
John

Thanks, but I believe those instructions assume that the usb module is loaded and that usbdevfs is mounted. In my case, they aren't, and I'm having trouble loading/mounting them.

OK, so I tried a modprobe usbcore and now usbcore module is loaded, and the mouse is still responding. I'm also able to mount the usbdevfs and /proc/bus/usb exists. However, I don't see the sda entry in /dev until I modprobe usb-uhci, and once I do that, the mouse stops responding.

lsusb then shows all connected usb devices properly(including the mouse).

I tried using mousedrake to select a USB mouse, but then it says no usb bus found.

The I tried to rmmod all the usb modules, but even then the mouse doesn't respond.

This is just weird.