Hi Brian,

On Sep 2, 2010, at 7:40 PM, bredg=
eo1@netscape.net wrote:

> Hey Adrian,

> 

> Went and followed the Wiki in German... But I still get the usb error=
.

Before I help you, would please mind two things before we continue?

First, you should take care to reply both to me (or anyone else whom you'r=
e

replying to) _and_ the mailing list. This can be achieved by clicking "Rep=
ly 

All"

in your mail client when on the mailing list. This way, everyone will

be able to see your messages to the mailing list.

And, second, please set your mail client to use text only format on the

mailing list if possible. If you use HTML or any other RichText format,

other users might not be able to read your messages.

Thanks!

And now for your problem. I will explain it in detail so you can figure ou=
t

how to fix it yourself.

On Linux (and most Unix-type operating systems), all devices are represent=
ed

as files. That is, if your computer has a serial connector (RS-232), for=

example,

you could simply write data over that serial connector by copying the data=

to the corresponding device file.

For example:

echo "Hello World!" > /dev/ttyS0

Will write "Hello World!" to the device associated with the device file 

/dev/ttyS0.

Likewise, other devices like your hard disks, mice, USB devices, SCSI devi=
ces

and so on have their own device files. Like all files on a Linux machine,=
 device

files have permissions associated to them which control which user may acc=
ess

the respective device. Without any special configuration, these permission=
s are

set that only root may fully access the devices. Thus, the permissions are=
 set 

to:

crwx------

in this case of a character device (hence the "c" at the beginning). You=
 can see

these patterns when listings files in a terminal with "ls -l".

Since you are advised to work with normal user privileges instead with "ro=
ot"

privileges, you will have to adjust the permissions to be able to fully ac=
cess

your devices as a non-root user. One way to achieve this would be manually=

setting the permissions of the appropriate device file each time after you=
 have

connected a device to your computer.

Since this would be very tedious and annoying, any recent Linux distributi=
ons

provide a system daemon running in background called "udev" (the process

name is actually "udevd"). This daemon is monitoring all device activity=
 and

takes care of adjusting the permissions of device files (among other thing=
s,

udev can actually do more) when connecting a new device. For this, udev

uses pattern matching to classify a device according to it's PCI or USB ID=
s

which are unique to any device model. Once a device has been classified,

the device file permissions for this device are set according to rules whi=
ch

have been previously defined. As a user, you usually don't have to care ab=
out

these rules since your distribution vendor (e.g. Ubuntu) has taken care of=

that for you, so that most common devices like CD-ROM drives, scanners,

printers and so on are correctly classified and the permissions are set

properly.

Since NetMD and HiMD devices aren't that common nowadays anymore, there

are no distribution vendors I know of who have defined udev rules for thes=
e

such that the permissions are set correctly upon connecting a MiniDisc

device to your Linux box. Thus, you will have to define these rules yourse=
lf.

Don't worry, this just involves pasting one line into a special configurat=
ion

file. As I posted earlier, some German Ubuntu user has described this

mechanism on the German Ubuntu wiki [1] and you should be able

to perform the required steps for your case. To conclude the steps

again:

1) Connect your NetMD device to your computer and make sure it's powered=
 on

2) Open a terminal console on your Linux machine and type:

    lsusb

     You will get something like:

    glaubitz@burns:~> lsusb

    Bus 002 Device 003: ID 046d:c03e Logitech, Inc. Premium Optical Wheel=
 Mouse 

(M-BT58)

    Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching=
 Hub

    Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

    Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching=
 Hub

    Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

    glaubitz@burns:~>

     Look for a line which contains your NetMD device, usually it contains=
 the 

words

     "Sony" and "Walkman" in the case of a Sony Walkman. Then write down=
 the

     4-digit hexadecimal numbers which are separated by a colon, e.g.: 046=
d:c03e

     like in the above example for the Logitech mouse. The first hex numbe=
r

     specifies the USB vendor ID (in this case 046d means Logitech) and th=
e

     second hex number specifies the device ID (in this case c03e, meaning=

     "Premium Optical Wheel Mouse (M-BT58)"). Sony devices usually have

     a vendor ID starting with 054c, see also [2].

3) Then, as root user, create a file called "/etc/udev/rules.d/netmd.rules=
"

     and add the following line:

    ATTRS{idVendor}=3D=3D"ABCD", ATTRS{idProduct}=3D=3D"EFGH", MODE=3D"066=
4", 

GROUP=3D"plugdev"

     Replace ABCD and EFGH with the appropriate IDs for vendor and device<=
br>

     which you wrote down in 2) earlier. Then save the file. This will set=

     the owning group of the device file for your NetMD to "plugdev" (all<=
br>

     users logging in locally via gdm are usually in the group plugdev)

     the permissions to "0664" which corresponds to "-rw-rw-r--" in terms<=
br>

     of the scheme mentioned above from the "ls -l" command.

4) Unplug and re-plug your NetMD Walkman. The netmd_dump script should

     work now.

If you are still having problems, please paste your error messages as well=

as the output of "lsusb".

Hope that helps,

Adrian

[1] http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Baustelle/NetMD

[2] https://wiki.physik.fu-berlin.de/linux-m=
inidisc/doku.php?id=3Dmdusbids=3D