It is generally possible to use modern USB-based memory sticks (“flash drives”) under GNU/Linux; however, not all USB memory sticks will work on our systems: Most USB sticks produced since 2003 will work with no problems, but older devices are less likely to be supported. In general, the older the device, the less chance that it will work; the only way to know for sure, though, is to try using it.
We do not provide any kind of card reader on any of our machines; hence, we do not support camera cards, MiniSD cards, or other such storage devices. In practice, though, many such cards will work just like a modern USB flash drive if you provide the appropriate adapter. We cannot support this hardware officially, but it has a good chance of working without any issues if your card and USB adapter are relatively modern.
Other USB devices, such as USB-enabled cameras, iPod® devices, etc. have not been tested, but might also work. Again, the only sure way to know is to try to use them and see what happens. Almost certainly, you will not physically ignite a fire or cause other serious peril.
How do I use my USB device in the lab?
Before inserting your USB stick, be sure that you are logged in directly at the console (as opposed to just SSHing in from another system). If you are not logged in at the console, the device will not be mounted with you as the owner!
It is safest to insert the device into one of the USB ports on the front of the computer: The ones on the back present a danger of dislodging a power cord, network cable, or other vital plug; and the ones on the keyboard probably do not provide sufficient power to correctly operate a USB stick.
Once you have inserted your USB memory device, it might take up to ten seconds for the device to be recognized and to become ready for use. Please be patient, and do not remove the device while the system is mounting it.
If you are using the GNOME interface, it should automatically mount the USB device and place an associated icon onto the desktop for you. This is the recommended way of mounting a USB device; other interfaces, such as KDE, are more difficult to use.
The USB device should mount under the /media/ directory on the machine. If you are using a terminal session, this is where you should start looking to find your device. If you are using a graphical interface, you might have to prefix the path with “file://” or something similar: For example, in a web browser:
file:///media/
(Note that there are three ‘/’ [slash] characters after the file: portion!)
OK, I’m done; how do I remove it safely?
To remove the device, wait several seconds (perhaps up to ten seconds or so) after the last access to the device. This is to ensure that any pending file operations have been completed. If you have just copied a very large file, you might want to wait longer. If your USB stick has an LED or other activity indicator, this is a good time to gaze intently at it, until you are satisfied that it has finished any queued transfers, etc.
Next, unmount the device. In the GNOME session manager, you can right-click on the icon that it created and select “unmount” from there. Finally, wait a few seconds and then gently remove the device from the USB port.
Why is this thing so slow?!
It might seem that the USB device is fairly slow, especially when writing to the device. This is for two reasons: Firstly, USB devices are just inherently slow (compared to hard drives or other high-speed media), and larger-capacity drives are generally even slower than the smaller sticks. They are all still much faster than floppy disks or tapes, though.
Secondly, we mount the device in “synchronous” mode, which makes writes seem slower than the more common (but potentially less safe) “asynchronous” mode. We do this to ensure that the file system data (files and directory information) are safely written to the device immediately, rather than being cached for a potentially long time (as would be done with a hard drive, for example). This way, when you remove the device, everything is much more likely to be in a consistent state. Removing an asynchronously mounted device while cached operations were pending would result in corrupted files and potentially grievous data loss.
What file systems are supported on USB devices?
At this time, only Windows/DOS FAT (vfat, fat32) formats are supported. If there is ever sufficient interest, we could investigate adding Linux ext2/ext3 support. (Contact us if you want/need this.) We definitely do not support NTFS (NT/XP/Vista), HFS+ (Mac OS), or other such formats; do not format your device using one of those file systems if you plan to use it on our systems. (All operating systems these days support the FAT system, so it has become a de facto standard if you need to move drives around like this.)