Inserting devices in a USB port

[cbbrowne-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org]

> Thanks for the info Colin,  I'm running Fedora CORE 1 (red hat) and I
> think it can handle it but I'll check it out to be safe.

This should be a question of what version of Linux you are running, as
opposed to GLIBC or any of the applications started by init and its
children.

Support for USB shouldn't be a "distribution" matter except insofar as
particular systems may include one version or another of Linux, the
kernel.

If they included Linux version 2.6.0 in Fedora, then support for USB may
be pretty flakey.  If they use a 2.4.x version of Linux, then there is a
chance of high variation on this, as there were a lot of revisions to
USB support through the 2.4 series.  It's probably a good thing if
Fedora includes a version of Linux either 2.6.1 or higher.

The entire design of USB is intended to support hot pluggability; the
prime place where it may break down is if your favorite device does not
have a suitable driver that is up to the task of rejigging things when
it gets re-attached.  

I have been finding some flakiness in the handling of my USB Palm
interface; it often doesn't want to "restart" when I plug in.  It may
take numerous cycles of the "HotSync" button before the kernel wakes up
and notices that it has been hooked up.  In version 2.6.0, it was wont
to hang the 'connection,' and if I killed the process that was trying to
access the port, then I could consistently get Linux to hang hard.
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