USB keys/sticks

Under both Gnome and KDE sessions removable media (Floppy, CDs, USB devices etc) are automatically mounted and will appear on the Desktop. Those not using Gnome or KDE can get a window displaying a graphical view including the removable and hot-pluggable devices by running:

nautilus --no-desktop computer:/

If you are using a different window manager (e.g. fvwm2) then you might prefer the CLI:

# to mount the USB key/stick
gnome-mount -bd /dev/sdd1
# to unmount it
gnome-umount -d /dev/sdd1
# or you can reference the mount point
gnome-umount -d /media/KINGSTON

# alternatively you can mount using a pseudonym/label if you happen to know
# the label name of the USB key (mine is KINGSTON)
gnome-mount -bp KINGSTON
gnome-umount -bp KINGSTON

# to see what gnome-mout and gnome-umount are doing the -v option is helpful
# when running these commands under gnome you probably want the --no-ui option

Finding out the USB key label or the actual device name can be done by plugging in the USB key then taking a look at the end of /var/log/messages and looking for something like:

Jan  2 14:53:03 dism kernel: SCSI device sdd: 3966976 512-byte hdwr sectors (2031 MB)

which tells me that the device is /dev/sdd and I probably want the first partition: /dev/sdd1