Upgraded 2.4 to 2.6 kernel: how to get pmount to work?

[Adam Funk <a24061@yahoo.com>]

I just upgraded from 2.4.27-2-k7 to 2.6.8-2-k7 and booted
successfully.  I then did `aptitude install pmount` but it isn't
working.  When I connect and disconnect USB devices, the /dev/sdb and
/dev/sdb1 (for example) appear and disappear, but I have a pmount-hal
command instead of pmount and it doesn't work:

$ ls /dev/sd*
/dev/sda  /dev/sdb  /dev/sdb1

$ pmount-hal /dev/sdb1
Error: could not connect to dbus: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: No reply within specified time

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,
Adam