Just as you experience with any peripheral hardware you hook up to your computer, your digital camera might work beautifully as soon as you plug it in, or you might end up wanting to toss it out a window. Most popular cameras coming out now connect via a USB port, for which there is great support in Linux. Some cameras are now using Firewire, for which there is also support, but they can sometimes be more complex to work with. Consult an online hardware guide such as the one at http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/USB-Digital-Camera-HOWTO.html. Read up on your particular camera by searching for it online. Most problems with peripheral hardware in Linux can be traced to hooking up hardware that has no Linux support. When you have your camera connected and ready to go, you will need to get those pictures off the camera. In Windows, most people use the proprietary software that came with their camera. That software isn't going to work in Linux. There might be a wise digital camera maker in the future that gives us Linux software with a digital camera, but right now camera makers write software for Windows and Mac. With easily attainable programs available in Linux to use with most any digital camera you own, you won't need the software that came with your camera. The freedom to not have to use special software or worry about losing the disk that came with your camera is nice. There are many good applications in Linux for snagging the pictures off your digital camera, and most of those use a program called gPhoto2. gPhoto2gPhoto2 is the engine that most other programs use behind the scenes to work with digital cameras. The program is installed by default in both Fedora and Mandrake. One of the best features of gPhoto2 is its scalable support. The program supports more than 400 cameras. You can look at the list of cameras by opening the program gtKam or any other front end to gPhoto2 that you are using. Check the listing of supported cameras on the gPhoto2 Web site at http://www.gphoto.org/proj/libgphoto2/support.php. The odds are good that your camera is in the list. Cameras that are not listed currently don't have the demand from users, so no one wrote a driver for them. Sometimes a camera is not supported because it is too old or because it is so new that no one has gotten around to adding it yet. I learned the hard way with an old Kodak that if your funky old camera isn't supported, it probably won't be. If you have a brand new camera that is not in the list, keep checking the gPhoto2 Web site and updating the program to its newest version because it is likely that your camera will eventually get on the list.
Getting Pictures from Your CameragtKam
The makers of gPhoto2 also make gtKam. This program (see Figure 9.2) is the default front end for use with gPhoto2 to pull the images off your digital camera. You have gtKam installed with gPhoto2 in your distro if you are using Fedora. You can install the program in Mandrake using RPMDrake. It's a really simple program, with options to choose your digital camera from a list of supported cameras and then import your images to a directory on your hard disk. Figure 9.2. GtKam is a front-end program that uses gPhoto2.gtKam's interface is arranged in a simple two-pane window layout. There is a brief menu at the top with a File menu and menus for Select, Camera, and Help. The Camera menu is for configuring the connected camera. The left column is an expandable tree list of folders on the connected camera. The number of images is in parentheses next to the name of the folder. The right-side window is for viewing thumbnail previews of the images on your camera.
Other programs that are available for managing your photos and creating albums have their uses, but gtKam is the best solution if you just want to quickly grab images off a camera, without any extras to get in the way of your main task.
KonquorerYep, I'm talking about the file manager, Konquorer. Talking about a Conquistador who could grab your photos off your digital camera would be fun. I can see him in his metal helmet fighting to import images from even the most resistant digital camera. Alas, this is just Konquorer, your handy KDE file manager. We have already seen that the file managers in Linux, both Konquorer and Nautilus, endeavor to be your central point for a lot of program functions, from simply managing files to acting as a Web browser. Add one more function to Konquorer's list, gPhoto2 front end. To get images off your digital camera using Konquorer, the steps are few and easy. Connect your camera and turn it on. Linux detects most digital cameras, especially most USB cameras, right away. Open Konquorer. You can probably just type "camera:/" into the address bar. There should be a folder for your camera. In that folder will be either more directories or the image files on your camera, depending on how your camera stores images (see Figure 9.3). You can then copy images from the camera to a directory on your hard drive in the same way that you would normally copy files in Konquorer. Figure 9.3. Konquorer's view of the digital camera memory.Nautilus can also view a digital camera's memory if it is mounted as a removable media item, but gtKam is way easier for GNOME users than Nautilus for this purpose.
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