[PLUG] Getting a USB device on Mac

Matt McKenzie lnxknight at gmail.com
Thu Nov 15 19:05:58 UTC 2007


On Nov 15, 2007 9:59 AM, Tony Rick <tonyr42 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On my (really old) iMac running Ubuntu Feisty
> (7.04), a flash drive shows up as /dev/sda1.  After connecting the device
> to
> a USB
> port, run the command 'dmesg' on the command line in a terminal.  If the
> device
> was recognized, the last several lines will report a lot of information
> about it,
> including what device was assigned.
>
> Not to get too technical, in Ubuntu (Debian? in general?) the USB driver
> is
> implemented 'on top of' the scsi (sd) driver, and so USB devices tend to
> show up as
> scsi devices (/dev/sda, for example).  USB Keyboard and Mouse are special
> exceptions. Since the devices are assigned dynamically (under udev
> control?
> somebody correct me if I'm wrong here), you cannot predict what the device
> assignment will be ahead of time, unless you don't use more than one USB
> device, or don't ever change the USB devices once attached.
>
>
I think we need to determine if the OP is running Linux on his Mac, or Mac
OS X on his Mac.
>From the question it sounds like Mac OS X.
If it is Linux it should show up on the /dev tree like any other Linux,
depending on the kernel it could be a few different things, such as
/dev/sd[x] or /dev/usb[x].
If Mac OS X, you have to remember to speak BSDish.  When I plug in a USB
flash drive on my work Powerbook, it shows up on /dev/disk1s1.
I don't know about a gps device though since I don't have one.


-- 
----------
Matt M.
LinuxKnight



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