UDEV seems to replace DEVFS. Actualy, DEVFS is not really supported anymore.

Kernel 2.6 with udev support.

Just call

apt-get install udev gnome-volume-manager

Add sysfs in fstab

none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0

and mount it

mount /sys

Each device seems to be identified by a model and vendor. Here how to find out these values.

Plug in your USB device and get the device name:

tail -n 20 /var/log/message

You should find sda or sdb or something like this.

In the next steps, replace sda with what you have found before.

Call

udevinfo -q path -n /dev/sda
udevinfo -a -p /sys/block/sda | grep BUS
udevinfo -a -p /sys/block/sda | grep model
udevinfo -a -p /sys/block/sda | grep vendor

You should find something like:

BUS="scsi"
SYSFS{model}="..."
SYSFS{vendor}="Apacer  "

Add and entry in /etc/udev/udev.rules:

BUS="scsi", SYSFS{vendor}="Apacer  ", NAME="apacer%n", SYMLINK="%k"

Create directory for script to be called (replace apacer with your vendor name)

mkdir /etc/dev.d/apacer-1

and copy the following script in /etc/dev.d/apacer-1/mount

#!/bin/sh
if [ "$ACTION" == "add" ]
then
  USER=`ps -elf | grep x-session-manager | cut -d " " -f 3 | head -n 1`
  su -c "mount /media/palmint-1" $USER
fi

Create mountpoint:

mkdir /media/apacer-1

add following line in your /etc/fstab:

/dev/apacer-1   /media/apacer-1    auto    user,noauto,noatime,sync,defaults

Hal-volume-manager can show a lot informations about your hardware, but I couldn't find a package providing it.

DEVFS is the old implementation of the dynamic device allocation. It has been replaced by UDEV.