Canon PowerShot S500 Digital Camera in Fedora

Mauriat Miranda (https://www.mjmwired.net/contact/)

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Published: 26 January 2005 (updated: 16 October 2005)

Canon S500 Digital Camera

This [mini] guide is how I use my Canon S500 Digital Camera using Fedora Core Linux. I am currently using Fedora Core 4 and have used it successfully with Fedora Core 3.

I highly recommend this camera to everyone. It produces great pictures and it works perfectly in both Windows and Linux. I also recommend the Canon S410 (cheaper) or the Canon SD400 (more expensive).

Required Software

This setup was tested using Gnome, I have not tested KDE.

Make sure you have both gThumb (Graphics > Photo Tool) and gPhoto installed. To install gThumb run Add/Remove Software > GNOME Desktop Environment > Extra Packages > gthumb. BOTH are included in Fedora Core 3 and 4 on the CD's (or DVD). You may also install them via yum using
yum install gthumb.

You can check if the RPM's are installed (note that FC3 shipped with version 2.4 and FC4 ships with version 2.6.):

[mirandam@charon resources]$ rpm -q gphoto2 gthumb

Connection

Verify the camera connects. First run: tail -f /var/log/messages and plug in the camera. Or run dmesg after the camera is plugged in. Make sure you see some message similar to:

Jan 26 21:53:52 charon kernel: usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2

... or something like ...

usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using address 2

You can then verify that gPhoto recognized your camera:

[root@portia ~]# gphoto2 --summary
Camera summary:                                                                
Model: Canon PowerShot S500
  device version: 1-1.0.0.0
  serial number:  (null)
Vendor extension ID: 0x0000000b
Vendor extension description: (null)

Download Images

You can download images on the command line:

[root@portia ~]# gphoto2 --get-all-files
Downloading 'IMG_0128.JPG' from folder '/store_00010001/DCIM/101CANON'...      
Saving file as IMG_0128.JPG
Downloading 'IMG_0129.JPG' from folder '/store_00010001/DCIM/101CANON'...
Saving file as IMG_0129.JPG
Downloading 'IMG_0130.JPG' from folder '/store_00010001/DCIM/101CANON'...
Saving file as IMG_0130.JPG
Downloading 'IMG_0131.JPG' from folder '/store_00010001/DCIM/101CANON'...
Saving file as IMG_0131.JPG

You can also run gThumb and select File > Import Photos.

[root@portia ~]# gthumb &

Or simply run:

[root@portia ~]# gthumb-import &

More Information

• The gPhoto2 Manual
• libgphoto2 :: supported cameras
• gThumb Image viewer and browser for the GNOME Desktop
• Canon S500 Product Information
• Canon S500 Information
• Canon S410 Information