Hello - digikam has auto-detected my HP camera but when i try to get pics it says 'Cannot connect. Ensure camera is connected properly and switched on' It is, I checked (have been known to overlook that one in the past!)

As a complete newbie who barely knows how to find a command line, much less type anything into it, is there an easy way for me to sort this out?

I changed to linux because of ridiculous amounts of virii on MS but find it difficult to negotiate with my limited knowledge (ie 12 DOS commands!) 'part from that it's super!

Thanks for reading

This site --> http://www.gphoto.org/ helped me immensely getting my camera to work.

Thank you johnnycab. I would prefer to make my current application work, but thought - if it's beyond help I will try this link. Of course I don't know how to make an application work once I have downloaded it ...but worth a try. Then firefox crashed because I don't have enough RAM (128 - how bad is that on a reasonably new pc?)
Time to get some sleep and try again tomorrow (it's 2.40am UK time)

EllieJ

Johnnycab recomended that link because DigiKam is a "front end" for
GPhoto. GPhoto is what does the work for Digikam.

Anyhow... It looks like a permission problem.
Since your using Digikam, is it safe to assume that you are running KDE ?

If that is the case, from the start menu select:

Run Command

From that dialog select:

Options

Then:

check the box for "Run as a different user"

The user name should be root
the password should be your root password

In the "command" form type:

digikam

Now try your camera. If it works, you have a permission problem.
Fixing that will depend on the distribution that your running,
so tell us what it is. (Mandrake, Suse, Debian, or whatever)

Thanks - it works!
I have Debian. I did Applications/System tools/Root terminal (changed the user name, it was debian, not mine) then typed digikam.

All my pics downloaded fine, so I don't need to know what this means but I put it in anyway. Thanks again for help :-)

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED:
enterprise:/home/elliej# digikam
Session management error: Authentication Rejected, reason : None of the authentication protocols specified are supported and host-based authentication failed
Link points to "/tmp/ksocket-root"
QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used
QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used
Link points to "/tmp/kde-root"
kbuildsycoca running...
Reusing existing ksycoca

THEN THIS LINE ABOUT 100 TIMES FOR VARIOUS APPLICATIONS
kbuildsycoca: WARNING: '/usr/share/applications/themus-theme-applier.desktop' specifies undefined mimetype/servicetype 'application/x-gnome-theme-installed'

THEN:
DCOP Cleaning up dead connections.
enterprise:/home/emma# Session management error: Authentication Rejected, reason : None of the authentication protocols specified are supported and host-based authentication failed
digikam: WARNING: [void AlbumFolderView::loadAlbumState()] Failed to open albumtreestate.bin
QImage:ixel: x=0 out of range
Session management error: Authentication Rejected, reason : None of the authentication protocols specified are supported and host-based authentication failed
Launched ok, pid = 6709
OggS-SEEK: at 832 want 47096 got 45248 (diff-requested 46264)
OggS-SEEK: at 47296 want 1032 got 0 (diff-requested -46264)
X Error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) 3
Major opcode: 20
Minor opcode: 0
Resource id: 0x2800328
X Error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) 3
Major opcode: 20
Minor opcode: 0
Resource id: 0x2800328
X Error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) 3
Major opcode: 18
Minor opcode: 0
Resource id: 0x2800328
OggS-SEEK: at 832 want 47096 got 45248 (diff-requested 46264)
OggS-SEEK: at 47296 want 1032 got 0 (diff-requested -46264)
OggS-SEEK: at 0 want 122872 got 83904 (diff-requested 122872)
OggS-SEEK: at 122816 want 520 got 0 (diff-requested -122296)
digikam: WARNING: [void DirSelectDialog:penNextDir(KFileTreeViewItem*)] Could not find item for urlfile:/data/Photographs/NewCameraPics
unsupported file format.
sh: dcraw: command not found
kio (KMimeType): WARNING: KServiceType:ffers : servicetype ThumbCreator not found
kio_digikamthumbnail: WARNING: Cannot create thumbnail for /data/Photographs/NewCameraPics/autprint.mrk
unsupported file format.
sh: dcraw: command not found
kio (KMimeType): WARNING: KServiceType:ffers : servicetype ThumbCreator not found
kio_digikamthumbnail: WARNING: Cannot create thumbnail for /data/Photographs/NewCameraPics/im000278.avi
unsupported file format.
sh: dcraw: command not found
kio_digikamthumbnail: WARNING: Cannot create thumbnail for /data/Photographs/NewCameraPics/autprint.mrk