Configuration report: jPhoto 0.3.6, Sony DSC P5 digital camera, Debian Woody (testing)

["Jason Dobbs" <jdobbs@postmaster.co.uk>]

I have been using jPhoto 0.3.6 succesfully with the Debian Woody (testing) distribution on a HP Kayak XV (Intel Pentium 266MMX, 64MB). My digital camera is a Sony DSC P5. I had to put it into 'PTP transfer mode' for it to work with jPhoto.

Here are the packages I installed to get jPhoto running...

Kernel...

debbie:~# apt-get install kernel-source-2.4.17
Then built a 2.4.17 kernel with USB support. This required a fair bit of research on Linux/USB-related websites to figure out a working configuration.

Java...

Put 'deb http://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/ftp/mirror/java-linux/debian woody non-free'
in  '/etc/apt/sources.list'
debbie:~# apt-get install j2sdk1.3

USB...

debbie:~# apt-get install usbmgr
Get:1 http://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch testing/main usbmgr 0.4.8-4 [34.0kB]
Unpacking usbmgr (from .../usbmgr_0.4.8-4_i386.deb) ...
Setting up usbmgr (0.4.8-4) ...
Starting usbmgr: usbmgr.

debbie:~# apt-get install usbview
Get:1 http://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch testing/main usbview 1.0-1 [205kB]
Unpacking usbview (from .../usbview_1.0-1_i386.deb) ...
Setting up usbview (1.0-1) ...
This is not strictly required for jPhoto, but it's a nice graphical diagnostic tool

debbie:~# apt-get install usbutils
Get:1 http://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch testing/main usbutils 0.9-1 [49.8kB]
Unpacking usbutils (from .../usbutils_0.9-1_i386.deb) ...
Setting up usbutils (0.9-1) ...
This is not strictly required for jPhoto, but I thought it might be useful for troubleshooting

jPhoto...
Installed from a tarball, in my home directory (it would be nicer if it were packaged for Debian)

jdobbs@debbie:~/jphoto$ zcat jphoto-0.3.6-src.tgz | tar xvf -
jdobbs@debbie:~/jphoto/jphoto-0.3.6-i386$ cd jphoto-0.3.6-i386
jdobbs@debbie:~/jphoto/jphoto-0.3.6-i386$ su root
debbie:/home/jdobbs/jphoto/jphoto-0.3.6-i386# ./jphoto devinfo

PTP device at usb-bce0-1
DeviceInfo:
Manufacturer: Sony Corporation
Model: Sony Digital Still Camera
Device Version: 01.0004
PTP Version: 1.0
Operations Supported:
        GetDeviceInfo OpenSession CloseSession GetStorageIDs GetStorageInfo 
        GetNumObjects GetObjectHandles GetObjectInfo GetObject GetThumb 
Events Supported:
        CancelTransaction StoreAdded StoreRemoved 
Device Properties Supported:

Capture Formats Supported:

Image Formats Supported:
        EXIF/JPEG TIFF/EP GIF MPEG 

Immediately after installing, it would only run as 'root' because of a /proc/bus/usb permissioning issue.

This was solved according to the jPhoto README i.e. add to /etc/fstab
usb             /proc/bus/usb   usbdevfs        devmode=0666            0       0

Then I could use it from my own user account.

Overall impression: both Debian + jPhoto installations were straightforward. The hardest bit was figuring out the kernel configuration. It worked first time, but it's not at all obvious which of the different USB kernel configurations are needed. I've probably got support for USB features I will
never use in the resulting kernel.

Many thanks to the jPhoto developers for this very useful software!

Jason Dobbs