I did an emerge -uD --newuse xorg-x11 on one computer recently, and since then the filenames are garbled on my USB disk on key. They look quaintly like 8 character DOS names: letter~1.doc. The line from /etc/fstab is: /dev/sda /mnt/plugable auto user,sync,umask=0077 0 0 I have no idea what the connection is to xorg, except maybe through Nautilus. I don't even know how to go back and see what dependencies it recompiled. The SAME stick is fine on another computer (with xorg-6.7, probably incidentally). I don't know where to start, but it's a bit annoying since I used to use it to transfer files between them. Also I don't trust it not to wipe things out for real. A few observations... I can touch a file or do mkdir from a command line, but not from Nautilus. I get an "invalid parameters" warning. Also, Nautilus tends to fill up the cpu time (by top) after getting confused. It's left on "top" even after I close its window.
emerge info: emerge info Portage 2.0.51-r3 (default-linux/x86/2004.3, gcc-3.3.5, glibc-2.3.4.20040808-r1, 2.6.7-gentoo-r14 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.7-gentoo-r14 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) III Mobile CPU 1133MHz Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r5 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1 Binutils: sys-devel/binutils-2.15.92.0.2-r1 Headers: sys-kernel/linux-headers-2.4.21-r1 Libtools: sys-devel/libtool-1.4.3-r4,sys-devel/libtool-1.5.2-r7 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=pentium3 -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium3 -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs autoconfig ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirror.hamakor.org.il/pub/mirrors/gentoo http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X Xaw3d alsa apm arts avi berkdb bidi bindist bitmap-fonts bonobo bzlib cdr crypt cscope cups div4linux dvd encode esd exif f77 fam fftw flac flash font-server foomaticdb fortran ftp gdbm gif ginac gnome gphoto2 gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 imagemagick imlib ipv6 java jpeg libg++ libwww mad mikmod ming motif mozilla mpeg nas ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcmcia pdflib perl png pnp python quicktime readline samba sdl slang spell sse sse2 ssl svga tcltk tcpd theora tiff truetype truetype-fonts trusted type1-fonts unicode usb wmf x86 xinerama xml xml2 xmms xv xvid zlib"
Sounds like it might be a kernel problem.
Mount with vfat instead of auto (auto goes for msdos..) Reopen if you get any problems there...
Those Gentoo people are SO smart :-) Thanks!