Gphoto2

Use gphoto2 to get those files from your digital camera.

Install it

Install it by means of your distribution as described here e.g. for SUSE Linux open a console and enter

yast -i gphoto

Run it

Start like this:

mkdir camera
cd camera
gphoto2 --get-all-files

This will obviously get all files, pictures and videos, from your camera to your current directory. Very advanced users can go on like this:

gphoto2 --help
man gphoto2

TroubleShooting

Camera is locked

Symptom

When trying to access the digital camera you get an error message saying it is locked, like this one:

linux-qgla:~/cam # gphoto2 --get-all-files
                                                                               
*** Error ***              
An error occurred in the io-library ('Could not lock the device'): Camera is already in use.
*** Error (-60: 'Could not lock the device') ***       

For debugging messages, please use the --debug option.
Debugging messages may help finding a solution to your problem.
If you intend to send any error or debug messages to the gphoto
developer mailing list <gphoto-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>, please run
gphoto2 as follows:

    env LANG=C gphoto2 --debug --debug-logfile=my-logfile.txt --get-all-files

Please make sure there is sufficient quoting around the arguments.

Solution

Find out what processes have the camera locked:

linux-qgla:~/cam # lsof | grep usb
usb-stora  527       root  cwd       DIR       8,17      4096          2 /
usb-stora  527       root  rtd       DIR       8,17      4096          2 /
usb-stora  527       root  txt   unknown                                 /proc/527/exe
hald      2400  haldaemon  mem       REG       8,17    357258    5673238 /usr/share/usb.ids
gvfsd-gph 5360       root  mem       REG       8,17     35420    5641079 /usr/lib/libusb-0.1.so.4.4.4
gvfsd-gph 5360       root  mem       REG       8,17     22008    5771692 /usr/lib/libgphoto2_port/0.8.0/usb.so
gvfsd-gph 5360       root    8r      CHR      189,5       0t0      16806 /dev/bus/usb/001/006

Kill the processes

linux-qgla:~/cam # kill 5360

And try again:

linux-qgla:~/cam # gphoto2 --get-all-files
Downloading '100_0001.MOV' from folder '/store_00010001/DCIM/100KM341'...      
Saving file as 100_0001.MOV                                                    
...

What comes then?

After you have downloaded your images from the camera, you may want to convert them to share them on http://www.facebook.com or so.

See also

• http://www.gphoto.org/ - Official homepage