Rooted Kindle Fire - Mounting Filesystem from Ubuntu
Turns out it was the micro-usb cable I was using to connect the kindle to my laptop.

Once I found my uber quality ASUS cable, progress began...

Now the OS atleast properly detecting the device, and loading it as a mass USB storage device. 

dmesg: 

[ 5516.756143] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 125
[ 5516.824377] hub 1-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 1
[ 5517.216091] usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 21
[ 5517.355193] usb 2-1: not running at top speed; connect to a high speed hub
[ 5517.383505] usb 2-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 5517.405589] scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 5517.411906] usb-storage: device found at 21
[ 5517.411919] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[ 5522.409318] usb-storage: device scan complete
[ 5522.412282] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Am       File-CD Gadget   0000 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[ 5522.415038] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 5522.433234] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk


However, adb devices now gave:

List of devices attached 
????????????    no permissions


to get ADB to properly list the device, and be able to connect to it, please see this solution on SO:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5510284/adb-devices-command-not-working