My current hurdle in getting my Slackware linux installation is that I'm 
too dense to figure out all the details of mounting the filesystem of a 
USB mass storage device (memory card or multi-card reader) to my 
filesytem.  I understand from the man pages of mknod and fstab that in 
order for the mount to be automatic, there must be an entry in 
/etc/fstab with all the appropriate switches and options. I also 
understand that mknod is the recommended way to update /etc/fstab. What 
I am missing is a coherent description of how the whole process should 
proceed.
 I know that my USB bus is working, and that the devices are being 
detected, since the lsusb command returns information on the bus and the 
devices as I plug and unplug them. Also, lsmod is showing that the 
appropriate modules are being called by kmod.
 Am I correct in thinking that the first argument of mknod should be an 
arbitrary name for the device, such as /dev/cdrom or dev/hda, which is 
up to me to choose? (Generally, not specifically for USB.) Or do the 
names of the block special device nodes have to conform to the list in 
/usr/src/Documentation/devices.txt?  In the linux-usb.org info I read 
that USB storage is treated as a scsi drive, and therefore usb memory 
cards are configured as /sda1, /sda2...  This is exactly what I am 
seeing with my ubuntu live CD installs, but they are using something 
different in the etc/fstab. According to my understanding of  
/usr/src/Documentation/devices.txt, the major and minor numbers for 
/sda1, /sda2 should be 8 and 0. But this doesn't work, probably because 
I am not getting the other arguments to mknod correct.
 Does the mount point (directory) referenced by mknod need to exist 
before the mknod command is called, or does mknod create it? When I 
tried using an existing directory as the argument for the mount point, 
mknod returned an error telling me that the directory exists.
 I think I've just absorbed too much disparate information too quickly 
lately, and none of it is settling in together.

Thanks,
Cyprian.



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