Making hotplugging my camera work

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Debian User

Can someone explain the processes that occur when I hot plug my camera
in and kde pops up a dialog asking whether I want to download to
digiKam, or open in a new window.

The reason I am asking is twofold

1) Its not working with digiKam - digiKam has been told to look
in /media/sdg1 (the device that udev has created is /dev/sdg1) but this
is not there - however when you ask it to open a new window
instead, /media/disk is created. This latter move does allow you to
browse the pictures.

This is particularly wierd, because the device permissions for /dev/sdg1
are 660 with owner and group of "root" - yet I am still able to read
the data as user "alan".

2) I tried creating a udev rule that changed the device name
to /dev/camera. In this instance, it appears that the first time the
device is created, kde does pop up the dialog box, but until I reboot
the machine never does so again. I suspect this is to do with the hal
daemon.
--
Alan Chandler
http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk

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Making hotplugging my camera work

Submitted by Paul E Condon on Sat, 2006-12-30 15:00.

On Sat, Dec 30, 2006 at 10:04:01AM +0000, Alan Chandler wrote:
> Can someone explain the processes that occur when I hot plug my camera
> in and kde pops up a dialog asking whether I want to download to
> digiKam, or open in a new window.
>
> The reason I am asking is twofold
>
> 1) Its not working with digiKam - digiKam has been told to look
> in /media/sdg1 (the device that udev has created is /dev/sdg1) but this
> is not there - however when you ask it to open a new window
> instead, /media/disk is created. This latter move does allow you to
> browse the pictures.
>
> This is particularly wierd, because the device permissions for /dev/sdg1
> are 660 with owner and group of "root" - yet I am still able to read
> the data as user "alan".
>
> 2) I tried creating a udev rule that changed the device name
> to /dev/camera. In this instance, it appears that the first time the
> device is created, kde does pop up the dialog box, but until I reboot
> the machine never does so again. I suspect this is to do with the hal
> daemon.

I'm not an expert, but this may help:
Cameras handle off-loading pictures in two different ways. The more
fancy cameras have special proprietary protocols for data transfer, and
give the user/owner special control options, but they require specialized
software. Less expensive cameras simply fake a $soft FAT file system and
let you use the file copy functions of your computer to grab the pictures.
Part of digikam is a collection of cloned drivers for the expensive cameras.

It seems to me you (like me) have a less expensive camera which does not
need or use the drivers in digikam. I use 'cp' to copy the images from my
camera into a directory where digikam can find them.

HTH
--
Paul E Condon

Making hotplugging my camera work

Submitted by Alan Chandler on Sat, 2006-12-30 17:00.

On Saturday 30 December 2006 19:32, Paul E Condon wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 30, 2006 at 10:04:01AM +0000, Alan Chandler wrote:
> > Can someone explain the processes that occur when I hot plug my
> > camera in and kde pops up a dialog asking whether I want to
> > download to digiKam, or open in a new window.
...
> I'm not an expert, but this may help:
> Cameras handle off-loading pictures in two different ways. The more
> fancy cameras have special proprietary protocols for data transfer,
> and give the user/owner special control options, but they require
> specialized software. Less expensive cameras simply fake a $soft FAT
> file system and let you use the file copy functions of your computer
> to grab the pictures. Part of digikam is a collection of cloned
> drivers for the expensive cameras.

You misunderstand my question.

I understand all that. However, when I plug my camera in, KDE pops up a
dialog box saying new hardware found what you you like to do. One
choice is to use digikam.

In the past when this has happened (with cameras which emulate usb mass
storage and therefore do not need special drivers) digikam has put up a
dialog box with thumbnails of all pictures in the camera, and an offer
to select and download these into an album.

With my new camera (which has this same support) it fails whilst trying
what show pictures it has in the camera. The udev-hal-dbus chain is
not working correctly because the mount point /media/sdg1 does not seem
to have been created.

Furthermore - when I try and use udev to make the camera device
have /dev/camera as its device, kde's dialog box pops up the first time
after a reboot when I plug the device in, but not again when I unplug
it and plug it in again. If I do not have a udev rule to alter things
it does pop up a dialog box every time.

In order to debug and track down what is not working, I am asking how
the udev-hal-dbus chain interacts with kde and digikam, and where to
look for configuration parameters so I can figure out what is not
working due to configuration problems and what might be a bug in kde
(or hal ...).

--
Alan Chandler
http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk

Making hotplugging my camera work

Submitted by Wayne Topa on Sun, 2006-12-31 00:00.

Alan Chandler(alan@chandlerfamily.org.uk) is reported to have said:
> On Saturday 30 December 2006 19:32, Paul E Condon wrote:
> > On Sat, Dec 30, 2006 at 10:04:01AM +0000, Alan Chandler wrote:
> > > Can someone explain the processes that occur when I hot plug my
> > > camera in and kde pops up a dialog asking whether I want to
> > > download to digiKam, or open in a new window.
> ...
> > I'm not an expert, but this may help:
> > Cameras handle off-loading pictures in two different ways. The more
> > fancy cameras have special proprietary protocols for data transfer,
> > and give the user/owner special control options, but they require
> > specialized software. Less expensive cameras simply fake a $soft FAT
> > file system and let you use the file copy functions of your computer
> > to grab the pictures. Part of digikam is a collection of cloned
> > drivers for the expensive cameras.
>
> You misunderstand my question.
>
> I understand all that. However, when I plug my camera in, KDE pops up a
> dialog box saying new hardware found what you you like to do. One
> choice is to use digikam.
>
> In the past when this has happened (with cameras which emulate usb mass
> storage and therefore do not need special drivers) digikam has put up a
> dialog box with thumbnails of all pictures in the camera, and an offer
> to select and download these into an album.
>
> With my new camera (which has this same support) it fails whilst trying
> what show pictures it has in the camera. The udev-hal-dbus chain is
> not working correctly because the mount point /media/sdg1 does not seem
> to have been created.
>
> Furthermore - when I try and use udev to make the camera device
> have /dev/camera as its device, kde's dialog box pops up the first time
> after a reboot when I plug the device in, but not again when I unplug
> it and plug it in again. If I do not have a udev rule to alter things
> it does pop up a dialog box every time.
>
> In order to debug and track down what is not working, I am asking how
> the udev-hal-dbus chain interacts with kde and digikam, and where to
> look for configuration parameters so I can figure out what is not
> working due to configuration problems and what might be a bug in kde
> (or hal ...).

Alan

You might try gphoto2 to see if _it_ can connect to your camera.

Although the testing version of digikam doesn't see my Kodak, gphoto2
works just fine.

Wayne

--
Computers can never replace human stupidity.
_______________________________________________________

Making hotplugging my camera work

Submitted by Wayne Topa on Sun, 2006-12-31 13:00.

This may not apply to you, as you didn't say what version of digikam or
Debian, your running, but I have a problem like yours with version
0.9.0~beta3-3 of digikan on a testing box.

Prior to this version it found, and used, my Kodak CX-4230 without any
problem. Now it can't access it.

As I got my wife a new Qlympus FE-130 for Xmas, I tried to see if this
version worked with it, and it didn't, so I booted my Sid box which
uses digikam_2%3a0.8.2-3_i386.deb. It does not yet, handle the
Olympus, but the Kodak is again working as usual on this version of
digikam.

I have noticed that, in almost every new version of digikan, something
that worked before, doesn't in the new version. So much so that I am
trying to find something to replace it and had not used it for months,
prior to getting the Olympus.

:-) HTH, YMMV, HAND & New Year :-)
Wayne

--
DOS Tip #2: Add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS
_______________________________________________________

Making hotplugging my camera work

Submitted by Alan Chandler on Sun, 2006-12-31 14:00.

On Sunday 31 December 2006 02:02, Wayne Topa wrote:

> This may not apply to you, as you didn't say what version of digikam
> or Debian, your running, but I have a problem like yours with version
> 0.9.0~beta3-3 of digikan on a testing box.

I am running debian SID
>
> Prior to this version it found, and used, my Kodak CX-4230 without
> any problem. Now it can't access it.
>
> As I got my wife a new Qlympus FE-130 for Xmas, I tried to see if
> this version worked with it, and it didn't, so I booted my Sid box
> which uses digikam_2%3a0.8.2-3_i386.deb. It does not yet, handle the
> Olympus, but the Kodak is again working as usual on this version of
> digikam.

Yes - same version as me

My Olympus C-745UZ works fine using the mass storage driver.

>
> I have noticed that, in almost every new version of digikan,
> something that worked before, doesn't in the new version. So much so
> that I am trying to find something to replace it and had not used it
> for months, prior to getting the Olympus.

My Casio is one that is of the USB mass storage type (ie it doesn't need
a special driver). If I set things up manually that works fine.

What I am talking about is the automatic recognition when you plug them
in.

I know this thread is drifting towards the photo packages on kde or
gnome, but I suspect the problem could be with the interaction with
udev/hal and the application.

Somewhere (and this is what I am finding hard to find) hal should have
the device properties for the camera. It should know its a camera and
that its has storage of type mass storage.

Yet - if I do

lshal | grep 'camera'

when the camera is plugged I don't get any lines that match. That seems
wrong - indeed, I sort of expect behind the scenes for hal to mount the
device on /media/camera (or something similar - perhaps /media/sdg1,
since /dev/sdg1 is the camera's picture partition).

On the otherhand - kde knows to suggest digikam as a potential
application, so its getting the fact it is a camera from somewhere

There seems some random hal policy file in /etc/hal and some more what
looks like configuration files in /usr/share/hal

But I cant find any information about which is the right place for me to
add the information about

>
> :-) HTH, YMMV, HAND & New Year :-)
>
> Wayne
>
> --
> DOS Tip #2: Add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS
> _______________________________________________________

--
Alan Chandler
http://www.chandlerfamily.org.uk

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