USB dongle for SMART with Ubuntu

SMART from ASR Data is being tested on my Ubuntu 8.4

Initially didn't want to recognise the USB dongle that comes with SMART. Running aksusbd didn't help. It is recommended to attach the USB dongle before booting Linux. It didn't work. After issuing mount -t usbfs none /proc/bus/usb followed by aksusbd worked fine. /etc/fstab has then been modified and usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs auto 0 0 added. (0 = zero, not letter o) aksusbd daemon is not correctly installed to start up at boot in Ubuntu. The easiest way to deal with this is to write a bash script:

#!/bin/bash

mount -t usbfs none /proc/bus/usb

/usr/sbin/aksusbd; /usr/local/bin/smart

Then add to Gnome Panel custom application and point it to the script. I am sure there are better ways of doing this, but it works well for me and doesn't take much time :-) To run SMART or any other application that required root, install gksu and type gksu /usr/local/bin/smart

SMART stands for:

S torage
M edia
A nalysis
R ecovery
T oolkit