I am trying to do something with a device driver in Ubuntu using a USB connection. I talked to some guy in a foreign country and he said he needed me to email him the "dmask" - you know, from the "htab" or something... "dmask the htab in the shell, get the device information."Poking around, it seems he may have been talking about either permissions for the driver to mount to the file system, or possibly some kind of interface in devices where you set bits and he wants those bits, or maybe he meant something else altogether. It's late over there and I can't call him and really don't want to fight the language barrier again, any idea what he is talking about?I don't see any strange device listed when I type mount, there is nothing in the fstab file. Did he mean "fstab," or is there an "htab" that is somehow associated with "dmask?" Is there even a "dmask?" Or did he simply say "the mask?" If so, can I "fstab the mask?" Or should I keep trying to "dmask htab?"

My "dev" directory has all kinds of things in it, many more than appear in a list when I type mount. So, assuming I am supposed to "fstab the mask" and not "dmask htab," is there some way I can look at a "mask" for each of those entries? Is there any other way I can get a list of devices, or information about a particular device, in the shell?

These are all variations of umask particular to file types. He trying to understand whether you have permissions related error.(umask being the inversion of the default file mask, rwxrwxrwx being 777, so a umask of 022 yields 755 or rwxr-wr-w ).http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=7702

Is is a storage device? There is "dmask" option that you can specify in /etc/fstab for certain filesystems. It tells the appropriate mount program to use specific mask for directories. For instance (from "man mount", section for FAT): dmask=value Set the umask applied to directories only. The default is the umask of the current process. The value is given in octal.Could he have meant dmesg? It shows kernel messages. Plug your device in and do dmesg to see what the linux kernel thinks about it.You can also do cat /proc/bus/usb/devices | lessto see what devices are connected to your USB bus(es)Hope that helps

QuoteOriginally posted by: StutchThese are all variations of umask particular to file types. He trying to understand whether you have permissions related error.(umask being the inversion of the default file mask, rwxrwxrwx being 777, so a umask of 022 yields 755 or rwxr-wr-w ).http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=7702Yeah, I saw that page, and I did not see a page that had htab and dmask on it. So is there is no "htab?" And if he said "fstab" what do I do with it? Is that where it decides what the mask will be when I plug in the cable and the file pops up?Because I can't believe he wanted me to go to all the trouble to type "ls -l" and email him "crwxrwxrwx." Can I type in "fstab" and pull up some related data?So does the driver connect to "USB Raw Device Access" and then make its own node with its own name and permissions? And would the problem be in the permissions for the first one?

QuoteOriginally posted by: alexvCould he have meant dmesg? It shows kernel messages. Plug your device in and do dmesg to see what the linux kernel thinks about it.Yeah, I think that is the one. Shows a bunch of eeprom values. If you were to say "dmesg" out loud, how would you say it?And since you are so good, got anything for "htab" ("aych-tab")?Might there be a "table" in the ouput of dmesg? Yes, I believe there is...

QuoteOriginally posted by: farmerQuoteOriginally posted by: alexvCould he have meant dmesg? It shows kernel messages. Plug your device in and do dmesg to see what the linux kernel thinks about it.Yeah, I think that is the one. Shows a bunch of eeprom values. If you were to say "dmesg" out loud, how would you say it?And since you are so good, got anything for "htab" ("aych-tab")?Might there be a "table" in the ouput of dmesg? Yes, I believe there is...Is the guy Russian? I would say dmesg would sound pretty close to dmask if he learned English from software manuals htab (if it is indeed htab) normally stands for hash table (google for "htab linux kernel"). Can't say more, I am not a kernel hacker, every time I have new device to connect to my linux desktop I have to go through all the forums, wikis, cvs checkouts and compilations of kernel modules myself only to find out that half of the device's functionality is not supported yet even in the most bleeding edge version of the driver. I can share plenty of experience in that area

QuoteOriginally posted by: alexvhalf of the device's functionality is not supported yet even in the most bleeding edge version of the driver.Those hardware guys drink a lot of coffee trying to make the interface as simple and standardized as possible. If not, the stock goes to zero with low installation, and they are punished. And after all that work, you are too shy to try to talk to the thing yourself? If you are on salary, you have no excuse for not calling them up to explain the specs and pins to you. You could probably get exactly what you want out of it with less hassle than getting your brakes done. And they are not too bright. If they can design and build it, you can interface with it.If something is left out of the driver, it might be to benchmark performance against a competing product. But some geek over there has the complete driver on a CD on his desk. Hardware has a longer-term design, but who knows, drivers are probably run out of the sales desk and change on a day-to-day basis for new devices.Or maybe the thing just melts if you address a certain chip.