I'm running Ubuntu 11.10, and when I connect my Kindle Fire to my computer via micro usb, it is not recognized automatically. Other usb devices, such as my ipod and digital camera, are recognized just fine.
It does not appear to be a usb power issue, since the Kindle Fire wakes up from sleeping when it is plugged in. I never get the message on the Kindle telling me it is ready to accept files from the computer, though.
Here are the last 15 lines of dmesg after plugging the kindle in:
jeff@prime:~$ dmesg | tail -n 15
[45918.269671] ieee80211 phy0: wl_ops_bss_info_changed: arp filtering: enabled true, count 1 (implement)
[45929.072149] wlan0: no IPv6 routers present
[46743.224217] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device number 5 using ehci_hcd
[46743.364623] scsi8 : usb-storage 1-1:1.0
[46744.366102] scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access Amazon Kindle 0001 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[46744.366356] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
[46744.372494] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
[46744.384510] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
[46744.392348] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
[46744.392731] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
[46744.396853] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
[46744.397214] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
[46744.400795] scsi: killing requests for dead queue
[46744.401589] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[46744.407520] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
And here are my mounted filesystems:
jeff@prime:~$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 298594984 174663712 108763480 62% /
udev 1407684 4 1407680 1% /dev
tmpfs 566924 896 566028 1% /run
none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
none 1417308 300 1417008 1% /run/shm
/home/jeff/.Private 298594984 174663712 108763480 62% /home/jeff
I should note that, since I got Dropbox working on my Kindle, the usb is no longer strictly necessary, but as a matter of principle I'd love to get it working.