Can't see USB on VirtualBox [Former: USB Re: TomTom on Ubuntu]

[Chris Jeffries]

On Wed, 2009-07-01 at 19:39 +0100, ubuntu-users-request at lists.ubuntu.com
wrote:
>         What happens at that point is the USB device is UNMOUNTED from
>         the Linux 
>         'side' of things and is made avail to the Virt only.  Close
>         the Virt (or 
>         deselect the USB Device) and it should again auto mount in
>         Ubuntu.
>         
It helps me to think of Virtualbox simply as a program that is running
in Ubuntu, which, from the perspective of Ubuntu is what it is. 

When you ask Virtualbox to make a USB device available to its guest OS,
the (Ubuntu) driver for the USB port will be opened by the Virtualbox
program (so at this point, it cannot be opened by other programs). 

(Thus it is not correct to say it is unmounted from Ubuntu. The data for
the device is still flowing through the Ubuntu USB device driver.)

Of course the only thing virtualbox can do with the device is to make it
look as if it is a device of the virtual machine that virtualbox
created. The guest OS (Windows or whatever) will do the rest.

Stopping the virtualbox program or telling it to disconnect the device
will both release it and it is again available to any other Ubuntu
program.

Chris.