USB with UDEV and HAL on Slackware 13.0

[tronayne]

I'm running VitrualBox (VirtualBox-3.0.8-53138-Linux_x86.run) on a Slackware 13.0 system (kernel is 2.6.29.6-smp) with a Windows XP guest -- everything works fine except getting access to flash drives in XP.

Slackware 13.0 uses UDEV (and HAL) to mount USB devices; they get mounted and I can see their content on the host. I have configured VBox to see a flash drive by setting the filter from the device itself. I think the problem is that there is no usbfsgroup; users must be members of the plugdev group to mount USB devices which I am. I've looked through the Troubleshooting section of the users manual but it does not look like any of the suggestions there apply and I'm hoping that some kind soul might be able to point me in the right direction.

On another matter, Slackware 13.0 uses KDE 4.2.x and, once VirtualBox is running, every other window turns "negative" (that's the only way I can describe it) -- kind of a flip of colors (white becomes black) and most windows are unreadable. Even after exiting VirtualBox I must log out (which shuts down KDE; I use a console login) and restart KDE to get normal behavior (until the next time I start up VirtualBox anyway).

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Perryg]

USB is not supported in the OSE version. You need the PUEL version of Vbox.

[tronayne]

As far as I can tell, the version I have is the PUEL version (it's from the VirtualBox Binaries, 3rd one down on the list, VirtualBox for Linux Hosts (at least that's what the web page says up at the top of the downloads) and I kind of think that USB wouldn't even show up in the settings? Unless I'm reading something completely wrong, that is.

[Perryg]

Sorry when I replied it said OSE now it says PUEL.

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VBOX_USB=USBFS VirtualBox

Read the ticket http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/3394

[tronayne]

My fault, I think -- I'd never adjusted the "about me" section and I think the version was just defaulted; sorry about any confusion.

[tronayne]

Thanks for the link to the thread. I read it carefully and looked at the content of /etc/udev/rules.d which are

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10-vboxdrv.rules
70-persistent-cd.rules
70-persistent-net.rules

Thinking the Solution trick might work, I renamed 10-vboxdrv.rules to 71-vboxdrv.rules and, whadda ya know, it didn't work at all. And, sorry to say, I don't really know a heck of a lot about UDEV rules -- so, I thought it might be helpful to show the content of the rules files on the off chance that something might leap out:

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cat 70-persistent-cd.rules
# This file was automatically generated by the //lib/udev/write_cd_rules
# program, run by the cd-aliases-generator.rules rules file.
#
# You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single
# line, and set the $GENERATED variable.

# HL-DT-ST_GCE-8483B (pci-0000:00:1f.1-ide-0:0)
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:1f.1-ide-0:0", SYMLINK+="cdrom0", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:1f.1-ide-0:0", SYMLINK+="cdrom", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:1f.1-ide-0:0", SYMLINK+="cdr0", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:1f.1-ide-0:0", SYMLINK+="cdr", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:1f.1-ide-0:0", SYMLINK+="cdwriter0", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:1f.1-ide-0:0", SYMLINK+="cdwriter", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:1f.1-ide-0:0", SYMLINK+="cdrw0", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:1f.1-ide-0:0", SYMLINK+="cdrw", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:1f.1-ide-0:0", SYMLINK+="writer", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
# SanDisk_Cruzer (pci-0000:00:1d.7-usb-0:2:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:1)
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_SERIAL}=="SanDisk_SanDisk_Cruzer_0878120A5450D178-0:1", SYMLINK+="cdrom1", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_SERIAL}=="SanDisk_SanDisk_Cruzer_0878120A5450D178-0:1", SYMLINK+="cdrom", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
# SanDisk_Cruzer (pci-0000:00:1d.7-usb-0:2:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:1)
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:1d.7-usb-0:2:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:1", SYMLINK+="cdrom2", ENV{GENERATED}="1"
ENV{ID_CDROM}=="?*", ENV{ID_PATH}=="pci-0000:00:1d.7-usb-0:2:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:1", SYMLINK+="cdrom", ENV{GENERATED}="1"

and

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cat 70-persistent-net.rules
# This file was automatically generated by the //lib/udev/write_net_rules
# program, run by the persistent-net-generator.rules rules file.
#
# You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single
# line, and change only the value of the NAME= key.

# PCI device 0x14e4:0x1677 (tg3)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:11:11:44:cb:1f", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

This system expects USB users to be members of the plutdev group (there is no usb group) to mount and use things like flash drives (which do automount and are available -- it's just passing the thing to VBox that presents a problem). When a flash drive is plugged in and available, this are what shows up in mount

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mount
...
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
...
/dev/sdb1 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=1000,utf8,shortname=mixed)

Anyway, thanks for the input.