[guelo]

That's because Google has been actively discouraging the use of the cable for data transfer in order to encourage cloud use. Your phone won't transfer to Mac or Linux at all except via ugly buggy apps you learn about after digging through online forums.

[Animats]

Oh? An Android phone plugged into a Ubuntu 14.04 LTS system appears as a USB drive. Android brings up a popup asking if you want to enable USB access (a basic security measure against hostile charging ports) and, if allowed, the phone's storage appears as a folder.

[LeonidasXIV]

An Android 2.x phone. Android 4.x+ replaced the MSD protocol they spoke with MTP which nobody seems to get right so you have FUSE filesystems like jmtpfs, mtpfs-simple etc to deal with your particular brand of breakage.

[NoGravitas]

That was a pretty valid criticism about 2 years ago. I haven't really had any problems with MTP on Fedora or Ubuntu since about that time. Whatever gvfs is using for MTP works fine these days.

[cesarb]

I sometimes plug my Android 4.x+ phone into a desktop with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to copy some photos from the phone. It works fine, with no extra software or configuration required. On the graphical interface, it appears like a USB drive.

[douche]

Yeah, that's not happening with my Samsung Galaxy on 4.4.2. Plug-and-play.

[Animats]

Maybe this is a Windows bug. Linux users don't seem to be having problems. Is it not working on Windows?

[LeonidasXIV]

I really doubt an issue with FUSE drivers is a Windows bug since Windows does not have support for FUSE.