Feature Article

Getting a Canon EOS 30d to work with F-Spot on SLED 10

The problem

If you plug your shiny new camera into SLED F-Spot should import the pictures. However, it doesn't always recognise everything that it could. For example my EOS 30d is detected as a camera, but it's not possible to see any of the images.

The solution

libgphoto2 is the software responsible for interfacing with the camera, and the version shipped in SLED is quite outdated. Additionally, the application gphoto2 is not available as part of SLED which makes debugging harder.

Thankfully, the openSuSE build service comes to the rescue!

http://software.opensuse.org/search

Enter gphoto into the search box, select SLES/SLED 10 from the dropdown list and click Search.

You will see that there are quite a few packages. The ones that you need are:

• libgphoto2 version 2.4 (libgphoto2-2.4.0.3-5.1.i586.rpm at the time of writing)
• gphoto2 version 2.4 (gphoto-2.4.0-4.1.i586.rpm at the time of writing)

Download the two files for your architecture and keep them to one side.

Now, go into Software Management in YaST and install the cdk package.

Once that's done, you can now install the updated gphoto rpms from above:

rpm -Uvh ligphoto2-2.4.0.3-5.1.i586.rpm
rpm -ivh  gphoto-2.4.0-4.1.i586.rpm

After these have installed ok, plug your camera in and F-Spot should now see the images for import.

Additional information can be gained from the gphoto2 command. If it opened when you plugged the camera in, close F-Spot. Now run

gphoto2 --summary

This should show details of your camera:

mark@t43p:~> gphoto2 --summary
Camera summary:
Model: Canon EOS 30D
  device version: 3-1.0.4
  serial number:  230101882
Vendor extension ID: 0x0000000b
Vendor extension description: (null)

Capture Formats: JPEG
Display Formats: Script, DPOF, MS AVI, MS Wave, JPEG, CRW, Unknown(bf02), Undefined Type

Device Capabilities:
        File Download, File Deletion, File Upload
        No Image Capture, No Open Capture, No vendor specific capture

You can also browse the camera with an ftp like utility:

mark@t43p:~> gphoto2 --shell
gphoto2: {/home/mark} /> ls
store_00000001/
gphoto2: {/home/mark} /> cd store_00000001/
Remote directory now '/store_00000001'.
gphoto2: {/home/mark} /store_00000001> ls
DCIM/
gphoto2: {/home/mark} /store_00000001> cd DCIM/
Remote directory now '/store_00000001/DCIM'.
etc...

Optional f-Spot upgrade

Lastly, you can upgrade your version of F-Spot from the openSuSE build service too. You'll need F-Spot and an update icon library too.

Retrieve the following rpms:

• hicolor-icon-theme version 0.10 (hicolor-icon-theme-0.10-4.1.noarch.rpm at the time of writing)
• f-spot version version 0.4.1 (f-spot-0.4.1-1.1.i586.rpm at the time of writing)

and install them:

rpm -Uvh hicolor-icon-theme-0.10-4.1.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh f-spot-0.4.1-1.1.i586.rpm

Now run F-Spot.

If it fails to load, it's likely to be a database issue. I simply removed my db as follows:

cd ~/.gnome2/f-spot/
mv f-spot f-spot.bak

and f-spot started fine.