Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Tue, 15 Nov 2005, Ron Clarke wrote:

> Hi Folks,
>
>    I haven't been paying too much attention to the discourse on getting 
> images from a digital camera via usb.   But, thanks to a much unexpected 
> re-fund from our wonderful (cough, choke) tax department, I find myself in 
> posession of a shiny new digital camera.
>
>    If Sindi, or anyone else, is willing to do a little hand-holding, I would 
> very much like to learn how to get the pictures off the camera and onto my 
> computer.

So far I only have our camera working in DOS and SW91 live CD.

Give me a few days to try out the new BL kernel with usb-storage.
Or try it yourself.

I got sidetracked when I started researching super socket 7 boards, and 
discovered that anything with an ALi chipset, which is our two Asus P5A-B 
boards, needs to have DIMM speed matched to bus speed, at either 66MHz (15 
ns) or 100MHz (PC100, 10 or 8 ns), so that for a 300MHz cpu with 66MHz 
DIMMs you need some multiple of 66MHz.  We are now moving DIMMs around and 
resetting bus speeds on all of our SS7 boards.  If you use 66MHz in a 
100MHz bus it may be unstable, and PC100 in a 66MHz bus is wasted.
Also we seem to have AGP 1X in one DFI and 2X in another board (newer) so 
that the tested video speeds for the cards are 7.1 or 14.2K.  And the 
Matrox card won't work with one monitor, and the Trio3d displays at 1600 
but the Riva does not on another monitor....  (ATI only goes to 1280 on 
any monitor).  Too many computers.  So no USB for a few more days.

You can do what I was going to do:

Boot with that kernel and have the modules in /lib/modules/2.2.26/misc
(or 2.2.26/usb if you prefer)

insmod usbcore

insmod usb-ohci  or  usb-uhci or uhci

(The latter two are for computers with the pertinent usb chip, including 
Intel boards and some others, and some add-on cards).  Try until something 
works.  Compaq uses ohci, Gateway (PII, Intel) uhci, DFI I think uhci but 
not sure).  You will get a message when it works.

Via - uhci, Opti - ohci?  (Or maybe vice versa, see my previous posting).
But the motherboard itself may have a VIA chip (better SS7 boards do).

insmod usb-storage -- this is where I had problems when trying to use the 
SW81 kernel and modules with the BL2 busybox insmod.  It was suggested I 
get the full insmod from SW81.  I was getting a lot of reset-type 
messages. Also, Steven's non-experimental kernel might not even work with 
usb-storage and the full insmod, it might need to be compiled to work with 
usb-storage, which it was not.  (But sometimes modules will work with a 
kernel that was not compiled for them, as in the case of some network and 
sound cards such as tulip with BL kernels, and esssolo1 with my sound 
kernel for sb).  I was going to try to get SW81 usb-scsi kernel working 
first, then try Steven's new kernel.  Another problem is that his kernel 
is not scsi, and I think the usb-storage device also is pseudo-scsi.


I suspect usb-storage would need a scsi-capable kernel with support for 
scsi_mod and sd_mod (was there another scsi module?) as well as being 
compiled experimentally for usb-storage.  (If someone wants to compile one 
please also include my Adaptec card so I can use it for everything).

If usb-storage inserts properly, you should get a message assigning the 
USB device to something like sda1 (if you have no other scsi block 
devices).  Mount that device at /mnt/camera or whatever mount point you 
like and cd to it. ls should list directories including /dcim, and the 
pictures would be in a subdirectory of that. dcim - digital camera images?

>    I haven't a clue at the moment.

I could not figure out if ALL digital cameras worked as usb storage 
devices, from online reading.  If yours does not, you can also get a USB 
card reader that should do so.


> Regards,
>         Ron

If you have a laptop computer, you might be able to get a pcmcia adaptor 
for your memory card.  They are made for compact flash.  I posted how to 
use my card with our 486 laptop and BL3.  I think it was ide_cs.o module.
We also got a DOS parport card reader for it.