When I start hald with my USB key plugged into the computer, HAL detects the device perfectly. But when I plug the device in *after* hald is started, HAL only detects a block device (/dev/sda) and not the volume on it (/dev/sda1). Manual mounting of the volume /dev/sda1 works perfectly, but hald complains that there exists no volume /dev/sda1. One more oddity I noted: HAL sets the 'hotpluggable' property of the USB key to 'true' when the device is plugged in *before* hald is started, while the 'hotpluggable' property is set to 'false' when the device is plugged in *after* hald has been started. Everything works perfectly on HAL 0.4. dik@dik ~ $ emerge info Portage 2.0.54 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.3.4, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.14-gentoo-r5 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.14-gentoo-r5 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) Processor Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13 distcc 2.16 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [enabled] dev-lang/python: 2.3.3-r1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.12 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r6 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.10-r4 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -mmmx -m3dnow -ffast-math" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -mmmx -m3dnow -ffast-math" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distcc distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.easynet.nl/mirror/gentoo/ ftp://mirror.nutsmaas.nl/gentoo/ http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/gentoo/ http://mirrors.sec.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/gentoo/" LC_ALL="nl_NL@euro" LINGUAS="nl" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 3dnow 3dnowex X a52 aac aalib alsa apm arts audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 cdparanoia cdr crypt cups curl dts dv dvd eds emboss encode exif expat fam ffmpeg flac fluidsynth foomaticdb fortran gdbm gif gimpprint glut gnome gphoto2 gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal idn imagemagick imlib jack jpeg kde kdeenablefinal ladcca lcms libg++ libwww lirc mad ming mmx mmx2 mmxext mng motif mp3 mpeg ncurses no_wxgtk1 nodrm ogg oggvorbis openal opengl pam pcre pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline rtc sdl slang sox spell sqlite ssl svg tcltk tcpd tetex tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev usb vorbis win32codecs xine xml xml2 xmms xscreensaver xv xvid xvmc zlib linguas_nl userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LDFLAGS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
Finally found the cause of the problem: HAL 0.5.5.1 seems to require an updated udev version, which it did not pull-in when it was emerged.
