> am I wrong, or is it really true I only need one of these: udev - > hotplug - > hal > That isn't true--they work together. udev, hal, hotplug, dbus, pmount. They are the components that let you plug in your flash drive and have an icon just show up on your dekstop. 'Here's one article.' (http://www.ometer.com/hardware.html) -- mlomker