Using Digital Cameras Under Linux

Support knowledgebase (ast_digicam)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: Versions since 7.1
Kernel: Versions since 2.4.0

Situation:

You want to connect your digital camera to the serial or the USB port and to be able to directly access the storage medium.

Procedure:

The program gphoto allows you to use your camera under Linux. You can find a list of the supported cameras at http://www.gphoto.org/cameras-04.html.

Just because your camera does not appear on this list, it does not mean that it cannot work under Linux. Simply try another driver mentioned for the same manufacturer as your camera's. You cannot damage your system by selecting the wrong configuration; therefore, you can test different configurations as much as you like.

In addition, there is another possibility to directly access your camera's storage medium by mounting the device on /mnt via the USB or the serial port.

  1. First of all, you have to find out under which designation your camera can be addressed. For this purpose, connect your camera via the USB port and enter the following command as administrator root:

    dmesg

    The camera will be usually detected as /dev/sda1 if there are no other SCSI devices in your PC.

  2. Now create a new directory in the user's home directory where you want to save your image files, for example:

    mkdir /home/tux/camera

  3. Then mount your camera with the command:

    mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt

  4. In order to execute this operation automatically, please edit the file /etc/fstab with an editor of your choice and insert the following lines. Where applicable, adjust the values to those determined with dmesg:

    /dev/sda1 /mnt vfat rw,auto,user,exec 0 0

A very extensive HOWTO can be found at the following URL:

http://www.multimedia4linux.de/howto/DE-DIGITALKAMERA-HOWTO.html

Some helpful links about this subject:

Keywords: DIGITAL CAMERA, USB, OLYMPUS, CANON, KONICA, DIGICAM, SERIAL, GPHOTO
Categories: Hardware
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SDB-ast_digicam, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 19. Feb 2002
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 15. Jul 2002 by ip (sdb_gen 1.40.0)