Using gphoto2 under Debian.

This document quickly describes the use of gphoto2 under Debian GNU/Linux. As a general rule, if it works with Debian, it should equivalently work with any other Linux...

Note that there are two gtk programs that migh be good for your personal needs: gtkam and gtkam-gimp. These are graphical interfaces that use gphoto2. It's up to you as to what to use. I'm not describing any of these in this document.

As a final warning before you proceed, please note that programs evolve with time, so after some time (hopefully never) these notes are not going to be useful at all!

Make sure you have installed the following packages: hotplug, gphoto2.
In order not to work as root (or sudo equivalent) add a normal user to the group "camera".
Check http://www.gphoto.org/doc/manual particularly you should have a fast check at the "quick start" part of the manual.
Connect your camera (usually to the usb port) and check that your camera works. For example, try the following commands:
```
	   $ gphoto2 --list-ports
	   $ gphoto2 --auto-detect
           $ gphoto2 --list-files
	 
```
Note that if your camera model is not autodetected correctly it might still work. For example, my camera model doesn't get autodetected correctly. However, everything works fine!!!

In order to download files, you could use the following two commands:

	 To download all files on the camera:

           $ gphoto2 --get-all-files --filename %Y_%m_%d_%f.%C 

	 To download selected files (the ones you saw with the --list-files):

           $ gphoto2 --get-file 300-232 --filename %Y_%m_%d_pict_%f.%C

Note: %Y, %m, %d, %f and %C mean respectively: year, month, day of the month, file_name and extension respectively (check documentation for more options).

In my camera, after downloading the photos, there's always a whatever.dat file downloaded as well. I have no idea what that file does, so I do:
```
	   $ rm -f *.dat
	 
```
I usually want to have my photos sorted out by days, so I first make directories of the form 2003_09_13:
```
           $ mkdir `ls | sed 's/_pict.*//' | uniq` 
	 
```
And finally we move the pictures to the correct directory:
```
          $ for x in * ; do mv $x `echo $x |  sed 's/_pict.*//' ` ; done
	 
```

This page was written by Sergio Mendoza. If you have any comments or suggestions, please e-mail me at sergio@mendozza.org. You can fetch my GNUpg Public Key over here in case you want to get in touch with me privately. This place is Best Viewed with Any Browser.