Working with a Digital Camera

Behind the fancy graphical front end that takes photos from your camera and lets you work with them on your Linux system is a little package called gPhoto2. This package is actually a back end used by various other graphical programs, including, as you will see shortly, Konqueror.

A number of digital cameras are supported through gphoto2, 436 of them as I write this chapter. To discover whether your camera is supported directly, shell out and type the following command:

 gphoto2 --list-cameras 

You should see output similar to the following shortened, example list.

 Number of supported cameras: 436 Supported cameras:         "AEG Snap 300"         "Agfa ePhoto 1280"         "Agfa ePhoto 307"         "Argus DC-2000"         "Argus DC-2200"         "Barbie"         "Benq DC1300" (TESTING)         "Canon Digital IXUS"         "Canon PowerShot Pro70"         "Canon PowerShot S10"         "Canon PowerShot S40"         "Epson PhotoPC 700"         "Epson PhotoPC 850z"         "Panasonic Coolshot NV-DCF5E"         "Panasonic DC1580" 

If your camera is not listed, don't despair. A visit to the gPhoto Web site for an updated version of the software may be all you need:

http://gphoto.sourceforge.net

Quick Tip

Here's another way to get pictures off an unsupported camera. Just get yourself a USB media reader from your local computer store. They are extremely inexpensive, and many will support multiple formats, such as Smart Media, Compact Flash, and more. The USB reader mounts as just another directory or folder on your desktop. Click on it with Konqueror, and then drag and drop your photos to where you want them.