Re: NetBSD and Android devices

[mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost (Michael van Elst)]

martin%duskware.de@localhost (Martin Husemann) writes:

>On Wed, Apr 01, 2026 at 11:11:36AM -0400, MLH wrote:
>> I used to be able to plug in my Android phones and then mount them as usb
>> devices and do all that way, but gradually, NetBSD updates keep dropping
>> support for usb mounted devices to the point where now, nothing can be mounted
>> via usb anymore with -current.

>Well, this is not in general that way - I just mounted a USB stick with
>-current a few hours ago (and it just did work).


Android phones lost the ability to act as USB mass storage devices
a long time ago (with Android 4.0). Nowadays they only offer MTP
(media transfer protocol).

There are some apps that restore (some) umass functionality, but I fear
they all require a rooted device.


pkgsrc has devel/libmtp as a MTP client. Last time I looked at it, it
wasn't very functional, but that might have changed.

N.B. there is a MTP client for Gnome (gvfs-mtp) and a utility
based on libmtp (jmtpfs) that might make things easier once
ported.