I've been trying desperately to install this digital camera onto my linux box. I operate mandrake 9.1 and so far i know my USB is working cause i mounted a memory flash drive there, but the camera is not picked up. The memory stick inside the camera is not detected. I was told by a coworker that i would be under sda1 when plugged into the system, but it does not. I also attempted to connect the camera before booting linux or even turning the system on. Nothing.

Any help would appreciated. Thanks in advanced.

I had the same problem with the P73 that I had...

AFAIK: it is not compatable with linux. I have yet to get any Sony memory-stick pro device to work under linux. What I ended up doing, is getting a removable media reader - these are very cheap and easy to install - and reading the stick via that.

(Be aware: you do not have to install the camera to get your photos, only the stick.)

Sony inform me that third party drivers probably won't work with memory stick pro devices - even if there is not a memory stick pro in the machine.

gphoto recommend using usb_storage and mounting /dev/sda1 with mnt -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/camera - but if you really want to use the camera itself then you could investigate gphoto as an alternative. I do not actually know if the sony dsc's are supported in gphoto...

Anyhoo - look in lsmod - you need usb_storage as well as usb-ohci. The camera should look just like a removable media device. An internal usb card reader needs usb-ehci and usb_storage.

dmesg will let you know if something is detected.
usb devices are usually sda0, sda1 and so forth ... there dosn't seem to be any way of working out where it will be without mounting all the possible device labels in turn.

This is the best answer i've gotten so far in all forums i've been to. I guess i'll try this commands and with all sda's that show up there. I also would like to know how do you 'safely remove hardware', like in windows, when using the card reader?

"safely remove hardware" lol

You can remove the hardware safely at any time - it least where the hardware is concerned. However - before you unplug your camera it is a good idea to unmount the volume. That's all.

Window$ makes it seem more dire than it is. It's just that the kernel has no way of knowing that the fs has been removed. Though it does seem that a command which returns an error to the effect that there is no fs at the mountpoint should be a bit of a hint.

on trying the sda-b-c etc. don't hold your breath. Chances are you'll be better off with a card reader anyway. I got my 7-card reader off DSE (NZ) for just under NZ$20 - which is about US$10 or so. USB card readers can also be pretty cheap.

you can write a script to try the sda1 etc mountpoint to see what mounts... but you may want to look at dmesg to see if your camera is even seen.

Quick note on multi-slot card readers. Most require Multilun support compiled in the kernel. Not all require it but most do. I don't know if Mandrake includes the multilun support by default or not. Redhat/FC* don't. They require kernel recompile. If you wish to make sure to have no issues then buy a single type media card reader.

A few post to look over. It does get kind of complicated.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...36#post1401136
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...331#post498331

Brian1
" Google the Linux way @ http://www.google.com/linux "

Ok, i got an idea.

I do believe that at least the system knows that something is plugged but cannot recognize or mount it. I'll perform the lsmod and dmesg commands before and after pluggin the camera in so we can tell that way if my assumption is correct or not. I'll post the results in this same reply soon.

If not, as soon as i can, i'll just purchase a card reader.

Well, I have FC2 and an internal USB 7-in-1 card reader from DSE. Required only usb-ehci and usb-storage support compiled in the kernel out of the box. No hitches and no worries.

I did see the usb-ehci module listed when typing lsmod or dmesg. The usb-storage i didn't see, i guess i need to either download and install the module or just load it. Is this correct?

Do a ' modprobe usb-storage '.

Brian1
" Google the Linux way @ http://www.google.com/linux "

The P73 does work under linux. When you are in usb mode be sure to set it to PTP, it is recognized as another camera (a P70 I think), but works perfectly. I still haven't figured out the permissions to access it as someone other than root though.

I'll be doing all this just now!!!

Ok, 'modprobe usb-storage' gave no results.

I did what amw2320 suggested and i got this back from dmesg:
Still, i typed 'ls /dev' and nothing showed for sda1.

Make sure you have libgphoto2 and gphoto2, I'm pretty sure that they both come with mandrake.


After plugging in the camera, type: gphoto2 --auto-detect

Model Port
----------------------------------------------------------
Sony DSC-F707V (PTP mode) usb:


gphoto2 -a will show the camera abilites


Abilities for camera : Sony DSC-F707V (PTP mode)
Serial port support : no
USB support : yes
Capture choices :
: Capture not supported by the driver
Configuration support : yes
Delete files on camera support : yes
File preview (thumbnail) support : yes
File upload support : yes

there is alot you can do from the command line with gphoto2 like: gphoto2 -P to download all pictures

I personally use digiKam, it's a great looking KDE frontend for libgphoto2.

Hope that works

Excellent, thanks a lot!!

I'll do this as soon as i get back home from work.

Yesterday i was attempting to mount a bunch of stuff. I got a usb stick working, so i know the usb port is fine. The last text i wrote about the dmesg results didn't appear like that before having the computer run without the camera plugged in. So i guess at least it was recognized in some way.

That's OK, the module is called usb_storage

... yup, that's fine - but to use PTP, you must have some camera interface software that supports PTP. Wot I have been talking about is to use the camera as a mass media device - the default (normal) mode reccommended by Sony. I think the one called gphoto is the best one. The gphoto developers also recommend using normal node if at all possible. But - then - it's not possible, so you can avoid the expence of new hardware or commit yourself to download and install new software.

If I try to connect (mount the memory stick) via the camera in PTP or normal mode, I just get: "no media present" regardless.

Saaay what?! I read this bit to mean that /dev/sda1 does not exist...

If I do ls /dev I get a whole swath of block special devices flooding the screen.
If I do ls /dev/sda1, it shows up all right. If it wasn't there I'd get the error message...

/dev/sda1:no such file or directory

If you do not have the /dev/sda block special devices then where is your usb going? Perhaps you should look again, this time using ls /dev/sda1 ?

Anyhoo - you wouldn't look at the block special device to see if your camera is there, you'd look in the mountpoint... you go like this (as root):
(provided the mountpoint /mnt/camera exists)
... and you'll see the 101 directory.

Of course, if you use gphoto, then you'll be using that interface.

You can't - only root can mount file systems (man mount).
Presumably, if you access a memstick through a card reader you can configure fstab for /dev/sda1 like the floppy, so the stick is detected when you plug it in and an entry will show in some sort of user mount tool.

However: I usually access photos via a script file. Since I'm always doing the same commands... in which case, sudo is good: see man sudo.

The script goes something like this
But you have to set yourself up to use sudo to begin with.