Driver for Canon Digital Camera - How to please?

[Wompoo]

I have a Canon Powershot A530 digital camera. So far my computer running on Linux Mint 16 is not recognising the camera. I can view the thumbnails, but not import the images. I did download the two drivers offered in the Software Manager: "dcraw" and "gphoto2". Is there a more specific driver required for this model camera?
When I try "import", I get this fail notice:

[Fraoch]

I sometimes have the same problem with my Canon PowerShot A1000IS. It gets into this odd state where it thinks it's mounted while Linux Mint thinks it's unmounted or vice-versa.

It's not a driver issue, digital cameras in Linux behave like a USB mass-storage device and require no drivers. In fact dcraw and gphoto2 are just programs for working with photos, they're not drivers at all.

Unfortunately that problem is a difficult one to solve. It has to do with unmounting it improperly. When it gets in that state, plug it in, power it on, try unmounting it, remounting it, pull the batteries, etc. I tried just about everything I knew. Suddenly it started working again.

Once you do get it working, the solution is to NEVER unmount the camera from a filesystem window. Always just turn it off.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific - you have to "jiggle" it a bit to get it out of that state.

In the meantime, do you have a card reader you can use to get photos off the camera?

[Wompoo]

Thanks for that information. However, I don't know what is meant by the terms "Mount" and "Unmount", even though I have Googled the terms! Sorry about my ignorance, I'm a newbie.
Also, I don't know what a card reader is,(edit: I have since found out!)

Would something like this do the job? : http://www.banggood.com/3_5-Inch-All-In ... 69214.html

Or:
Any one of these? : http://www.banggood.com/buy/card-reader.html

I'm assuming here, that a suitable card reader would function as an interface between my camera and my Linux computer. Is that correct?

[DataMan]

I have been using something similar to this for years on my Canons (G10 & EOS60). Eliminates all of the problems associated with reading camera contents via apps.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820208458

-DataMan

[Fraoch]

Thanks for that information. However, I don't know what is meant by the terms "Mount" and "Unmount", even though I have Googled the terms!

When you attach an external drive (and a camera counts as an external drive), Linux Mint will "mount" it - think of it as bolting it onto the file system. You will see a "hard drive" icon pop up in your system tray and it will appear in your file manager. Both the system tray icon and the entry in your file manager will have "eject" buttons beside them.

If you press this eject button, you unmount the drive. What Linux Mint does is stop reading from it and complete all writes to ensure it's inactive so you can unplug the USB cable.

This is the proper way to eject USB hard drives and USB flash drives. In fact it's a requirement, if you're writing to it when you unplug the USB cable the file system may be damaged - you may lose files or the entire drive may get corrupted. This might or might not be able to be fixed.

A camera should behave like a USB flash drive. However I've found that it doesn't. Properly unmounting it like you would a USB flash drive can sometimes result in a state where the file system thinks it's unmounted but the camera's operating system disagrees and this setting persists. I have found the proper way to unmount the camera is just to turn the camera off as long as Linux Mint isn't reading or writing to the camera's memory card. The drive will unmount once the power has been turned off.

So with the camera powered off try plugging the camera in and turning it on. See if Linux Mint thinks it's mounted, let Linux Mint do its thing (errors and all), then turn the camera off. Plug the camera back in with the camera power off, then power the camera back on again - on my Canon, all you need to do is press the "play" button which usually shows the images on the camera card on the screen. Try this a few times and see if you can get them to sync up.

Also, I don't know what a card reader is,(edit: I have since found out!)

Would something like this do the job? : http://www.banggood.com/3_5-Inch-All-In ... 69214.html

Yes, that's it! This is an internal card reader, permanently mounted in your computer like an old floppy drive. External ones are more popular. They connect by USB.

You will find card readers aren't as flaky as cameras and are also faster. They treat the memory card just like a USB flash drive and mount it properly. You will have to remember to properly unmount ("eject") the card though for the reasons I outlined above.

If you have a newer computer that uses USB 3.0, there are USB 3.0 card readers that are VERY fast. I have this one:

http://www.kingston.com/en/flash/readers#fcr-hs3

I also have this one, an internal card reader that uses USB 3.0 internally:

http://products.ncix.com/detail/ngear-u ... -78988.htm

Or:
Any one of these? : http://www.banggood.com/buy/card-reader.html

Yes. Just be sure that it will handle the memory card in your camera. You probably have an SD card, that's the most popular format and almost all card readers handle it. Most card readers handle other formats too (CF card, mini SD, XD, etc.)

I'm assuming here, that a suitable card reader would function as an interface between my camera and my Linux computer. Is that correct?

Yes - a faster, more reliable one. If you transfer a lot of photos it will help.

[Wompoo]

Thanks for the excellent explanation Fraoch! That's all clear, I'm glad now that I asked about "mounting" etc.

I've ordered a SD card reader. I checked; my Canon has a SD card.

Later on, I might get to try the sequence you decribe to get the computer and camera to recognise each other etc.

Jim.