So, I made a change that seems to work: I created a file called /etc/udev/rules.d/01-local.rules that overrides the default usb handling just for this device (or devices just like it; I’m not certain that this uniquely identifies a particular device). Put this all one one line:

BUS=="usb", KERNEL=="sd*", SYSFS{serial}=="P975LEG4", NAME="VMs",
OPTIONS+="last_rule",
RUN+="/bin/mount UUID=5cc6f807-0ee2-46a8-a48a-90a2b9b1ab22"

To make this take effect, I make sure the device is unplugged, the run the command sudo udevcontrol reload_rules. I make sure I have a mount point for this device in fstab (and that the mount point exists):

UUID=5cc6f807-0ee2-46a8-a48a-90a2b9b1ab22 /mnt/VMs ext3 auto,users 0 0

Now, when I plug the device in, it doesn’t get a DOS-ish drive letter, no window pops up asking me what I want to do, and it gets mounted where I want it. I still have to umount it when I’m done, but this is progress. How do you find out the serial number of the device? Assuming that it’s recognized as /dev/sdd, you can use:

udevinfo -a -p /block/sdd

You can use the blkid command to get a list of all drives and their UUIDs.

• Donate a laptop to a child
• Get one of your own
• Get a $200 tax deduction
• Get one free year of T-Mobile Hotspot

Also, Tom Hoffman and I are organizing an XO Laptop meetup in RI. Check out the thread here and reply if you’re interested. We may wait a few weeks, since it could take a while for people to get their orders.

When installation is finished, and you are prompted to reboot, use Alt-F2 to switch to a virtual console (Ctrl-Alt-F2 if you are in X11). Then, mount the install media:

# cd /tmp
# mknod hdc b 22 0
# mkdir /mnt/cdrom
# mount /tmp/hdc /mnt/cdrom

Copy the i586 kernel over to root’s home directory on the new system:

# cp /mnt/cdrom/Fedora/RPMS/kernel-*i586* /mnt/sysimage/root

Unmount and eject the install media and chroot into the new system:

# umount /mnt/cdrom/
# eject /tmp/hdc
# chroot /mnt/sysimage/

Install the kernel and exit the chroot:

chroot# cd root/
chroot# rpm --force -Uvh kernel-*i586.rpm
chroot# exit

Use Alt-F1 (or Alt-F7 if you were in X11) to return to the installer, and
reboot as prompted.

I’ll be giving a short talk and demonstration on Ubuntu Hacks today (Wednesday, April 5 at 12:30) at the O’Reilly LinuxWorld booth. Drop by and learn about getting Ubuntu running under colinux, going online with a Bluetooth connection and a cell phone, and a few more things.

Guilty as charged. I’ve been saying for a while that Mac OS X is holding
the door open for Linux, and I am waiting for all the pieces to fall
into place, at least in a way that satisfies me. I took a first step a
couple of weeks ago by installing YDL on my PowerBook, but I
haven’t booted into it too much. However, Slashdot
reports that the next version of YDL is coming soon, so I’ll have to
check that out.

Edd
has this to say: “one of the things which perennially disappoints me is
the number of OS X machines there in the hands of free software
hackers”, but he also goes on to list the must-have apps, and talks a
bit about installing Linux (with the same conclusion I have, that Debian
is da bomb). Right now, I’m splitting my time roughly 60% Mac OS X, 20%
Linux, 20% Windows XP. Maybe by next OSCON, I’ll be back to using Linux
most of the time.

Great stuff in
this post–Russell goes on to use ntfsresize to solve the problem. Damn!
If I had known about that utility a couple weeks ago, I would not have
spent so much time screwing around with Ghost and Drive Image.

After reading the README that comes with Dashboard, I also installed sqlite and made sure I
had the the SQL Lite Data
Provider (it’s included with the mono-0.26 release, and you should
be able to find it in
/usr/local/lib/Mono.Data.SqliteClient.dll) sqlite is needed to create
the full-text index, which probably won’t be all that meaningful until
I’ve lived in this Linux installation a little bit longer, so I copied a
bunch of .txt files into ~/Documents and ran these commands (this
assumes the dashboard source lives in ~/src):

mkdir -p ~/.dashboard/backend-data/text-index/sources
cd ~/src/dashboard/index
make
mono text-indexer.exe -i `find ~/Documents -iname "*.txt"`

Finally, I launched dashboard and ran this modified version
of the clue script as root, which sniffs all my Google queries (using ngrep) and hrefs
inside web documents and sends the data as clue packets to dashboard.