Argus Bean

[Muzer]

Plug it in, type lsusb and show us the output.

Also, boot your computer without it in, type:

tail -f /var/log/messages

Plug it in, and tell us what new messages appear.

[Muzer]

Are you sure you did that correctly? No new messages seem to have appeared when you plugged it in - I'd at least expect a message from the USB driver saying it's found something.

[lagagnon]

You plug the camera in and then turn it on - are you doing that?

[lagagnon]

OK, do that, then click on the Computer icon on your desktop. Do you not see the camera device there as /media/something ????

[lagagnon]

Are you guys stumped? Or do you just not care?

We're volunteers so we answer questions out of the goodness of our hearts and when we have the time.
First of all is this a brand new camera and have you yet formatted the memory card? I would do that first - open up your camera manual and find out how to format the card and do it.

Then plug your camera in again, turn it on, wait 10 seconds, open a terminal and type the following commands and show us the output:

Code: Select all

lsusb 
df -h
ls -al /media

[nick]

Hi

Bus 005 Device 006: ID 0979:0371 Jeilin Technology Corp., Ltd

Some history about my camera, which will perhaps make you smile:

I got it a couple of years ago, at about the same time that someone in Germany got a similar camera, and he wanted to get it supported. He wanted to stick it on a model airplane, IIRC, and take pictures. Well, it says it is a mass storage device. But it wouldn't work with the mass storage driver. So I got on the mass-storage mailing list about the camera. Alan Stern was the one who figured out first what was the problem. I was right behind him, and it made me feel stupid that I was slower than he was. But you do have to be mighty good to keep up with Alan, so I really don't feel bad. What was the problem? Well, notice that there are two pairs of bulk endpoints. The camera uses one pair for data, and the other pair for commands. But which pair? Well, the mass storage driver at the time was choosing the wrong pair. And it was the camera which was in spec, not the mass storage stack. Needless to say, that got fixed, pronto. And all because of one of these pesky cameras.

Another general comment about Jeilin is probably not relevant here, but I will make it anyway:

Some of their cameras (the 0979:0227 cameras) use a really nasty compression algorithm. These are also dual-mode still and web cams. There is no hope of supporting them unless the compression is figured out. I hope some clever guy reads this comment.

Probably what is happening with your camera is, it is using something like JPEG in stillcam mode? If so, it might possibly send down JPEG frames in webcam mode, too. Perhaps with the use of SnoopyPro or such, it is possible to find out?

http://osdir.com/ml/linux-media/2009-06/msg00852.html

Nick

[lagagnon]

Brainsucker: from my googling around and Nick's post above that cheap camera does appear to be problematic with Linux. One thing you could try (but I don't hold out too much hope) is install "gtkam" and see if it can detect your camera for you:

sudo apt-get install gtkam

For info on how to use gtkam: http://www.gphoto.org/doc/manual/quicks ... sing-gtkam