USB Drive and hotplug

vol1 · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:44 am Post subject: USB Drive and hotplug

Hi,

I'm running Gentoo 2.6.8 on my laptop. I'd like to use my external USB HDD with Gentoo, I read somewhere in the forum that one should install hotplug. So I did, but whenever I plug in the USB HDD my USB mouse quits working :cry:

. I'm not even sure, if the USB disk is recognized by Gentoo.

So here are my 2 questions:
1) How can I avoid my mouse from quitting the service whenever I plug in my USB drive?
2) Where must I define the mount point, ... for the USB drive?

Thanks in advance,
vol.1

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:55 am Post subject:

vol1,

If your USB drive is USB 2.0 you must plug the mouse and drive into different root hubs. While the USB hardare can do either (USB 2.0 or 1.1) standard, it cannot do both at the same time.
Your mouse will be USB 1.1.
emerge usbview to geta graphical view of your USB subsystem.

You may make the mount point wherever you like in your filesystem tree. Putting it in /mnt is traditional but not required.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

vol1 · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 1:27 pm Post subject:

Hi,

my USB drive is USB 2.0, but my laptop only supports USB 1.1, so I guess this isn't the problem. Maybe my question with the mount point was bad formulated, in fact I wanted to ask where to find the device in my filesystem (I guess it should be somewhere in /dev/usb/...?, but this directory is empty).

Can you help me with this new information?

Thanks,
vol.1

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 1:52 pm Post subject:

vol1,

USB storage devices appear as if they were SCSI. You need to have the correct scsi modules built and loaded as well as usb-storage.
Your USB drive will then appear as /dev/sdX where X is the next available scsi drive. /dev/sda is the first one.

When the device is detected, you will see encoraging signs at the end of dmesg.

You mount its partitions in the normal way -

Tsonn · Guru Joined: 03 Jun 2004 Posts: 550

If no SCSI device shows up, try my recommendations in this thread.
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vol1 · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 4:23 pm Post subject: Didn't work

Hi,

thanks for your suggestions. I now recompiled my kernel and added the following options:
-> Device Drivers -> SCSI device support ->
<*> legacy /proc/scsi/ support
<M> SCSI disk support
<M> SCSI generic support
<*> SCSI logging facility

But when I plug in my USB drive my mouse stops working and no device shows up under /dev/sd?? and also "cat /proc/bus/scsi/scsi" doesn't work (/proc/bus/scsi doesn't exist).

Have I recompiled my kernel with"too less" SCSI support, or could there be another problem?

Thanks in advance,
vol.1

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 4:36 pm Post subject:

vol1,

Are those new modules loaded ?
Look at the output of lsmod
You also need the module usb-storage

Can you post the content of /proc/bus/usb/devices with the mouse and drive plugged in please. If neither device is there, post the /proc/bus/usb/devices once with the mouse detected and once with the drive detected.

Your lspci output may also be useful for diagnostics.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

vol1 · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 5:08 pm Post subject:

Hi,

I unplugged my mouse, plugged in my USB drive. Now there exists an entry /dev/sda1, I can even mount it and view its contents

. So I guess the right modules get loaded.

If the USB drive is plugged in and I try to plug in my mouse both devices work fine

. It looks like the order of plugging the devices is the problem, because if I try it the other way (mouse first, than USB drive) my USB drive still gets recognized, but my mouse quits service.

So, thanks to the help of both of you my only problem left to solve, is how to avoid my mouse from stopping to work when the USB drive is already plugged in. Using 'usbview' that you suggested the entry 'Optical mouse' changes to 'usbhid' when I plug in the USB drive with already connected mouse.

When the mouse doesn't work /proc/bus/usb/devices contains this:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 5:36 pm Post subject:

vol1,

Your USB mouse should appear in /dev/input/ as mouseN.
The output from all the mice (USB and PS/2) cna be obtained from /dev/input/mice.
Its possible that your mouse jumps from mouse0 to mouse1 when your USB drive is plugged in.

What does your /etc/X11/xorg.conf (or XF86Config) use as a device to find the mouse?

You can

vol1 · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 5:52 pm Post subject:

Hi,

both, /dev/input/mouse0 (my Touchpad) and /dev/mouse1 (my USB mouse) do exist, but the USB mouse (/dev/mouse1) doesn't produce any output

. And /dev/input/mice only produces output when I use my touchpad.

/etc/X11/XF86Config contains the following mouse-related lines:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 6:02 pm Post subject:

vol1,

That looks fine. With those settings you should be able to use either or both mice.

If you don't get any output from your USB mouse, itsa kernel issue?
Pust the USB section of your kernel .config file please.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

vol1 · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 6:16 pm Post subject:

Hi,

here's the USB related stuff of my Kernel config file - hope you can read something useful out of the lines:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 7:06 pm Post subject:

vol1,

I'm surprised your USB works at all.
Heres the things I would change:-

CONFIG_USB_DEBUG=y turn this off. It fills your logs full of messages you probably don't want.

CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD=y turn this off. You have a VIA chip set, so want the UHCI_HCD driver below. When you say =Y to both, normally neither works.

Turing off debug will make it faster but other than that, I'm not sure it will have any positive impact on your mouse.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

vol1 · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 7:30 pm Post subject:

Hi again,

I did as you wrote (so my kernel got smaller) and still works, thanks! But as you already suspected these changes had no effect on my 'mouse problem'.

Nevertheless,
thanks for your help,
vol.1

Tsonn · Guru Joined: 03 Jun 2004 Posts: 550

Do the different orders cause modules to be loaded in a different order?

If so, you could force the modules to always be loaded in the other that works by adding them to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6.
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NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 7:37 pm Post subject:

26199,

Nice idea. At the moment, the modules in question are built into the kernel, so they are always loaded. See the snippet of .config further up the thread.

Maybe going modular and using hotplug would be a work around. Then the modules would be loaded and unloaded by the hotplug scripts.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Tsonn · Guru Joined: 03 Jun 2004 Posts: 550

Worth a try. Then you can mess with rmmod and modprobe until things work :-)

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vol1 · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 7:52 pm Post subject:

Hi,

I'd like to give it a try. Could one of you tell me what drivers I have to build as modules? And does hotplug recognize them automatically or do I have to edit some config files?

I guess
CONFIG_USB_UHCI_HCD=m ?
CONFIG_USB_STORAGE=m ?

Please try to stop laughing if it's totally wrong :wink:

.

Thanks,
vol.1

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 8:12 pm Post subject:

vol1,

I've not had much luck with hotplug. You need to build kernel support for it but exclude PCI Hotplug Support.

You need usbstorage and both the HID... modules as modules. CONFIG_USB_UHCI_HCD=m as a module is harmless. Its the driver for your motherboard hardware and needs to be loaded for any USB stuff to work.

I'll leave the detail to 26199.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Tsonn · Guru Joined: 03 Jun 2004 Posts: 550

Like I know what I'm talking about ;-)

Yeah, that sounds like a good start. If EHCI_HCD or OHCI_HCD are enabled, those ought to be changed to modules as well.

Hotplug has always worked pretty painlessly for me, so, I don't have much experience with ways in which it can go wrong :-)

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NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 8:17 pm Post subject:

26199,

Well, some pointers to the hotplug scripts would be handy.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Tsonn · Guru Joined: 03 Jun 2004 Posts: 550

Hmm. Scripts seem to be in /etc/hotplug, but, I've never messed with them. The default ones are probably all you need :?:

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vol1 · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 8:42 pm Post subject:

Hi,

kernel support for hotplug (with exclusion of PCI Hotplug support) was already set in my .config file.

I build usbstorage and CONFIG_USB_HID as modules, but "make & make modules_install" didn't let me build CONFIG_USB_HIDINPUT as module, so I said 'y'.

@NeddySeagoon: As you wrote CONFIG_USB_UHCI_HCD=m is harmless, does that mean I also can let it set to 'y' (as I did)?

After I rebooted with my 'new' kernel, my mouse worked (but maybe I've added an option to load it at login time - I'm not sure where to look for this), and when I plug the USB drive my mouse is dead again

, but the drive still gets recognized.

Any hints?

vol1 · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 8:58 pm Post subject:

Forget my writing about 'the USB driver might be loaded at boot time', I just rememberd where the autoload option for modules could be found :oops:

(/etc/modules.autoload.d). And I had set these option for my USB driver, but in Kernel 2.4, not in 2.6 that I'm using.

So I guess it didn't work!? Are are there still any options/preferences I've to set?

Thanks,
vol.1