# Linux-compatible Digital Cameras?

## batkins

I'm looking to buy a digital camera, but I'm not sure which cameras have decent Linux software.  Is there any relatively inexpensive digital camera that has good Linux-compatible software?  The camera would have to work with the 2.6 kernel as well.

TIA,

Bill

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## NeddySeagoon

batkins,

emerge gphoto2 and look at the list. Its by no means exhaustive.

many more cameras will work as usb-storage devices.

Regards,

NeddySeagoon

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## lbrtuk

Plus keep in mind that even if the camera is not supported, as long as it has a flash card slot (MMC/CompactFlash/SD) you can just pull the card out of the camera and bung it into a £15 usb flashcard reader when you want to download the photos. (They pretty much all work as mass storage devices)

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## Ian Goldby

Mostly you don't even need to buy a flash card reader. If you can plug a USB lead from your PC to your camera, you can read the flash card as a mass USB storage device directly. (I think only a few older cameras don't have this capability.) You just need SCSI support, USB support, and hotplug compiled into the kernel. This is the line from my /etc/fstab: 

```
/dev/sda1       /mnt/camera     auto            user,sync,noauto        0 0
```

Just in case you hadn't already twigged, by mounting the camera as a disk in this way, you just copy the files to your hard drive with Konqueror or Nautilus or whatever favourite file manager you use. No special software required.

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## Moled

http://gphoto.sourceforge.net/proj/libgphoto2/support.php

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## bleakcabal

I have hotplug and a usb memory stick.

I can do :

bash-2.05b# mount -t vfat /dev/sda0 /mnt/smart

To mount the device. I have since then added a line in my fstab so I can mount /smart

When I plug a digital camera in the same usb connected and I do :

bash-2.05b# mount -t vfat /dev/sda0 /mnt/camera

mount: special device /dev/sda0 does not exist

If I do

bash-2.05b# mount -t vfat /dev/sda0 /mnt/smart

Medium Not Found

I have tried with sda0 and sda1 and sda2 and it does'nt work ? What I am doing wrong ? I can already read a usb storage device successfully so that's not the problem.

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## kirk427

 *bleakcabal wrote:*   

> I have hotplug and a usb memory stick.
> 
> I can do :
> 
> bash-2.05b# mount -t vfat /dev/sda0 /mnt/smart
> ...

 

when you plug in your usb memory stick first (since last reboot) it will be assigned sda.  now after plugging in your camera it will be assigned to sdb.  you can do a cat /proc/partitions to see where everything is layed out and use the right device to mount.  there is a way to assign which usb device gets assigned to which sd, but I haven't messed with it yet.  hope this helps a little bit.

Kirk

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## dontremember

 *batkins wrote:*   

> Is there any relatively inexpensive digital camera that has good Linux-compatible software?  The camera would have to work with the 2.6 kernel as well.

 

I just picked up a couple of Dakota Digital Cameras for my kids, from a nearby Ritz/Wolf Camera store.  They're supposed to be single-use - take 25 photos then take it back to the store to "develop", but they've been hacked by several people.  I got instructions and device drivers 

here and have successfully downloaded images from them to my laptop using gphoto2.  Didn't need any kernel patches, just a home-grown ebuild, so it should work with both 2.4 & 2.6 kernels.  It certainly works great with 2.6.0-test11-gentoo-r2.  

You need to do a bit of soldering, either to solder a USB cable to the connector, or to make a plugin cable.  I made a cable from a Palm m100 Hot Sync cable ($6.50 at RadioShack) and an old USB cable.  Didn't need to alter the camera at all, other than to pull off the sticker that covered the connector.

I realise this is probably heresy, but the Windows driver also works pretty well with Win98, though there might be stability issues with WinXP. Lets you download pictures, and then erase them (or not) afterwards.  I suppose gphoto2 can delete as well, but I haven't tried it yet.

OK, so it's not the greatest, feature-filled camera in the world, but if my 11-year-old lets the dog eat it I can just run down to Ritz and pick up another one for $11.

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## Barkotron

 *batkins wrote:*   

> I'm looking to buy a digital camera, but I'm not sure which cameras have decent Linux software.  Is there any relatively inexpensive digital camera that has good Linux-compatible software?  The camera would have to work with the 2.6 kernel as well.

 

Depending on your definition of "relatively inexpensive", my Casio Ex-Z3 plugs in and out perfectly well - no software or anything, but it works perfectly as a mass-storage device.

I realise it's not inexpensive by the standards of the one-shot ones dontremember is talking about, but it's about middling for a consumer digital camera. It also looks really cool cos it has a huge LCD screen on it  :Wink: .

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## dontremember

 *Barkotron wrote:*   

> I realise it's not inexpensive by the standards of the one-shot ones dontremember is talking about, but it's about middling for a consumer digital camera. It also looks really cool cos it has a huge LCD screen on it .

 

Yeah, not having an LCD is a definite drawback to the Dakota.  Rumour has it, though, that Ritz will be marketing an updated "single use" camera with an LCD screen, supposedly sometime in January.

Another possibility is the Walgreens model of the same camera.  It's not quite the same inside, according to the guy who pulled the flash memory daughter card out and soldered a Smart Media socket in its place.  The case even has a proper door to cover where he put the socket...  Unfortunately, Walgreens are only test-marketing their cameras in Wisconsin, though they are $1 cheaper than Ritz.

I should stress that I got the Ritz cameras for my kids - 11 & 13 years old - and I expect to get the quality I'm paying for...  Having said that, the images are pretty good quality and, at 1024x960, plenty big enough to print or make web pages out of.  And, at $11 each, disposable enough that I could care less if the kids put them in ziplock baggies and went swimming with them (in the summer).  If I ever get something more expensive, they wouldn't get near it with a ten foot pole....

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## Barkotron

 *dontremember wrote:*   

>  *Barkotron wrote:*   I realise it's not inexpensive by the standards of the one-shot ones dontremember is talking about, but it's about middling for a consumer digital camera. It also looks really cool cos it has a huge LCD screen on it . 
> 
> Yeah, not having an LCD is a definite drawback to the Dakota.  Rumour has it, though, that Ritz will be marketing an updated "single use" camera with an LCD screen, supposedly sometime in January.
> 
> Another possibility is the Walgreens model of the same camera.  It's not quite the same inside, according to the guy who pulled the flash memory daughter card out and soldered a Smart Media socket in its place.  The case even has a proper door to cover where he put the socket...  Unfortunately, Walgreens are only test-marketing their cameras in Wisconsin, though they are $1 cheaper than Ritz.
> ...

 

They sound pretty decent for throwaways - do you have any pictures taken with them so we could have a look? Not that you can get them over here, as far as I know, but it'd be interesting to see what'll be coming in the not-too-distant future...

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## dontremember

 *Barkotron wrote:*   

> They sound pretty decent for throwaways - do you have any pictures taken with them so we could have a look? Not that you can get them over here, as far as I know, but it'd be interesting to see what'll be coming in the not-too-distant future...

 

I took this photo this morning.  The subject matter is nothing spectacular, just the end of my house.  I wanted to take comparison photos of something strongly lit using the two cameras.  I copied the images off the camera with the Windows driver, then cleared the memory, just to make sure I could.  The image is pristine - absolutely no retouching, no cropping, no zooming, nothing.  It's 1280x960 and around 400Kb, so don't hold your breath waiting for it to download...  :Smile: 

The camera shows a tendency to blur in the corners, but hey, it's an $11 "toy" and it'll keep my kids amused for hours, taking dozens of pics of their thumbs, the dog, each other, the dog, etc.

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## hook

i don't see "Olympus mju" on this list  :Sad:  ...and i wanted to buy one for my dad for christmass

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## markkuk

All new Olympus cameras are USB mass-storage devices, they work fine with Linux. See here: http://www.teaser.fr/~hfiguiere/linux/digicam.html

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## hook

 *markkuk wrote:*   

> All new Olympus cameras are USB mass-storage devices, they work fine with Linux. See here: http://www.teaser.fr/~hfiguiere/linux/digicam.html

 

woohoo!!! it takes so little to make the young hook happy  :Smile: 

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