How do I copy files from a Nikon SLR to a laptop running Solaris?

I've got a Sony Vaio VGN-SZ4XWN/C laptop

http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProd...y=VN+SZ+Series

and a Nikon D3 digital camera (35 mm)

http://www.europe-nikon.com/product/.../overview.html


The laptop runs Sun's Solaris Express build 95 the vast majority of the
time.

I'd like to copy the data from the cameras two Compact Flash cards via
USB to the laptop, without having to run a Windows PC. (The laptop can
boot Vista too, but I avoid that whenever possible.)

I was rather expecting this to "just work", as USB memory sticks have
immediately worked when I have plugged them into the laptop. But things
are not going quite as well with the Nikon D3.

First there is this message in /var/adm/messages, when the laptop is
booted with the camera on. I assume this is a USB/Camera issue.

Earlier in the day the laptop could read the camera type (NIKON D3) and
the S/N (000002071018) from the camera.

Aug 15 07:37:54 kingfisher unix: [ID 954099 kern.info] NOTICE: IRQ16 is
being shared by drivers with different interrupt levels.
Aug 15 07:37:54 kingfisher This may result in reduced system performance.
Aug 15 07:38:10 kingfisher usba: [ID 912658 kern.info] USB 2.0 device
(usb4b0,41c) operating at hi speed (USB 2.x) on USB 2.0 root hub:
image@1, usb_mid3 at
bus address 3
Aug 15 07:38:10 kingfisher usba: [ID 349649 kern.info] NIKON DSC D3
000002071018
Aug 15 07:38:10 kingfisher genunix: [ID 936769 kern.info] usb_mid3 is
/pci@0,0/pci104d,81e6@1d,7/image@1
Aug 15 07:38:10 kingfisher genunix: [ID 408114 kern.info]
/pci@0,0/pci104d,81e6@1d,7/image@1 (usb_mid3) online
Aug 15 07:38:10 kingfisher usba: [ID 349649 kern.info] usba: no
driver found for interface 0 (nodename: 'image') of NIKON DSC D3
000002071018
Aug 15 07:38:46 kingfisher genunix: [ID 314293 kern.info] device
pci8086,27a2@2(display#0) keeps up device sd@0,0(sd#0), but the latter
is not power managed
Aug 15 07:39:24 kingfisher genunix: [ID 408114 kern.info]
/pci@0,0/pci104d,81e6@1d,7/image@1 (usb_mid3) offline
Aug 15 07:39:26 kingfisher usba: [ID 912658 kern.info] USB 2.0 device
(usb4b0,41c) operating at hi speed (USB 2.x) on USB 2.0 root hub:
image@3, usb_mid4 at
bus address 3
Aug 15 07:39:26 kingfisher usba: [ID 349649 kern.info] NIKON DSC D3
000002071018
Aug 15 07:39:26 kingfisher genunix: [ID 936769 kern.info] usb_mid4 is
/pci@0,0/pci104d,81e6@1d,7/image@3
Aug 15 07:39:26 kingfisher genunix: [ID 408114 kern.info]
/pci@0,0/pci104d,81e6@1d,7/image@3 (usb_mid4) online
Aug 15 07:39:26 kingfisher usba: [ID 349649 kern.info] usba: no
driver found for interface 0 (nodename: 'image') of NIKON DSC D3
000002071018
A

But I was unable to do anything useful with them. Now I don't seem to be
able to do that - just getting a message that the connection to port 3
is failing.


Aug 15 15:30:56 kingfisher usba: [ID 691482 kern.warning] WARNING:
/pci@0,0/pci104d,81e6@1d,7 (ehci0): Connecting device on port 3 failed


I found the Solaris USB cameras project

http://sourceforge.net/projects/so-usbcamera/

but the last file releases was in 2005, so I might as well ignore that.

I found a blog entry too, date 2005

http://technopark02.blogspot.com/200...era-howto.html

but several remarked that is is now out of data and Solaris has much
better support for cameras.

Has anyone used a reasonably modern Nikon SLR on reasonable recently
version of Solaris? As I say, I'm using Solaris Express on the laptop,
but I also run Solaris 10 update 4 on my Sun Blade 2000. I'd like to be
able to plug the camera into that too - the Blade 2000 has a USB 2 card,
so speed should be OK.

Dave

In article , Dave wrote:

Has anyone used a reasonably modern Nikon SLR on reasonable recently
version of Solaris? As I say, I'm using Solaris Express on the laptop,
but I also run Solaris 10 update 4 on my Sun Blade 2000. I'd like to be
able to plug the camera into that too - the Blade 2000 has a USB 2 card,
so speed should be OK.

put the camera into mass storage mode (p. 257 and p. 408). if solaris
can handle standard usb mass storage devices, it should just work.
alternately, get a card reader.

On Fri, 15 Aug 2008, Dave wrote:

I'd like to copy the data from the cameras two Compact Flash cards via USB to
the laptop, without having to run a Windows PC. (The laptop can boot Vista
too, but I avoid that whenever possible.)

I was rather expecting this to "just work", as USB memory sticks have
immediately worked when I have plugged them into the laptop. But things are
not going quite as well with the Nikon D3.

It might be easiest to remove the memory cards from your camera, and plug
them into your computer using a memory card to USB converter. That's how
I retireve files from my Canon camera. (No idea if I *Need* to do this,
but it works like a charm!)

HTH,

--
Rich Teer, SCSA, SCNA, SCSECA

CEO,
My Online Home Inventory

URLs: http://www.rite-group.com/rich
http://www.linkedin.com/in/richteer
http://www.myonlinehomeinventory.com

nospam wrote:
In article , Dave wrote:

Has anyone used a reasonably modern Nikon SLR on reasonable recently
version of Solaris? As I say, I'm using Solaris Express on the laptop,
but I also run Solaris 10 update 4 on my Sun Blade 2000. I'd like to be
able to plug the camera into that too - the Blade 2000 has a USB 2 card,
so speed should be OK.

put the camera into mass storage mode (p. 257 and p. 408). if solaris
can handle standard usb mass storage devices, it should just work.
alternately, get a card reader.

Thank you for that - it worked pretty well - I can not get data off my
D3 without booting into Windows! Although perhaps a Solaris guru can
address the slight issue remaining.

I put the Nikon D3 into mass storage mode as you suggested, inserted the
USB cable, typed 'df' on my Sony laptop, running Solaris Express build
95. Solaris had mounted a compact flash card.

$ df -h
Filesystem size used avail capacity Mounted on
/dev/dsk/c1d0s0 12G 5.1G 6.8G 44% /
SNIP
/dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0:1 3.7G 3.7G 23M 100% /media/NIKON D3

It was a bit annoying it mounted it as "/media/NIKON D3", with a space
in the name, as spaces in file names are a bit of a nuisance on Unix
systems as you need to put their names in quotation marks.

A slightly more annoying issue is that I can't seem to mount both flash
cards at the same time. I get a pop-up on the Solaris laptop which says
"cannot mount volume" when their are flash cards inserted in both slots.

Either compact flash card in the D3 can be read, but I need to remove a
card from slot #1 in order that the card in slot #2 can be mounted. When
I do that, the card in slot #2 mounts OK

$ df -h
Filesystem size used avail capacity Mounted on
/dev/dsk/c1d0s0 12G 5.1G 6.8G 44% /
SNIP
/dev/dsk/c2t0d1p0:1 3.8G 3.8G 50M 99% /media/NIKON D3

Since the data in both CF slots can be seen at the same time under
Windows Vista (or at least they could when the D3 was not in mass
storage mode), I assume this is not a hardware limitation of the Nikon
D3, but rather something in Solaris that needs a bit of manual help,
rather than relying on the auto-mounter.

Any Solaris guru like to suggest how I might mount both compact flash
cards in the Nikon D3 at the same time? Individually the two compact
flash card slots appear to be using the device files /dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0:1
and /dev/dsk/c2t0d1p0:1 (note is 'd0' and the other 'd1').

I can see device files for both

# ls /dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0
/dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0
# ls /dev/dsk/c2t0d1p0
/dev/dsk/c2t0d1p0

but my naive attempt to mount the other failed.

# mkdir /foo
# mount /dev/dsk/c2t0d1p0:1 /foo
mount: /dev/dsk/c2t0d1p0:1 or /foo, no such file or directory

Dave

Dave wrote:
nospam wrote:
In article , Dave wrote:

Has anyone used a reasonably modern Nikon SLR on reasonable recently
version of Solaris? As I say, I'm using Solaris Express on the
laptop, but I also run Solaris 10 update 4 on my Sun Blade 2000. I'd
like to be able to plug the camera into that too - the Blade 2000 has
a USB 2 card, so speed should be OK.

put the camera into mass storage mode (p. 257 and p. 408). if solaris
can handle standard usb mass storage devices, it should just work.
alternately, get a card reader.

Thank you for that - it worked pretty well - I can not get data off my
D3 without booting into Windows!

I meant to say I can *now* get data off the D3 without windows.

i.e.

not - now.

Dave wrote:

I put the Nikon D3 into mass storage mode as you suggested, inserted the
USB cable, typed 'df' on my Sony laptop, running Solaris Express build
95. Solaris had mounted a compact flash card.

$ df -h
Filesystem size used avail capacity Mounted on
/dev/dsk/c1d0s0 12G 5.1G 6.8G 44% /
SNIP
/dev/dsk/c2t0d0p0:1 3.7G 3.7G 23M 100% /media/NIKON D3

It was a bit annoying it mounted it as "/media/NIKON D3", with a space
in the name, as spaces in file names are a bit of a nuisance on Unix
systems as you need to put their names in quotation marks.

That'll be because that's how the camera identifies its self, or how it
has labelled the volume.

A slightly more annoying issue is that I can't seem to mount both flash
cards at the same time. I get a pop-up on the Solaris laptop which says
"cannot mount volume" when their are flash cards inserted in both slots.

Again, this sounds like a camera issue. Just do what I do and use a USB
card reader.

Since the data in both CF slots can be seen at the same time under
Windows Vista (or at least they could when the D3 was not in mass
storage mode), I assume this is not a hardware limitation of the Nikon
D3, but rather something in Solaris that needs a bit of manual help,
rather than relying on the auto-mounter.

More likely there's a Nikon driver for windows? If windows can't see
them both in mass storage mode then the problem is in the camera. It
probably only supports one device in that mode.

Any Solaris guru like to suggest how I might mount both compact flash
cards in the Nikon D3 at the same time?

Use two USB card readers?

--
Ian Collins.

Huge wrote:
On 2008-08-15, Dave wrote:

Has anyone used a reasonably modern Nikon SLR on reasonable recently
version of Solaris? As I say, I'm using Solaris Express on the laptop,
but I also run Solaris 10 update 4 on my Sun Blade 2000. I'd like to be
able to plug the camera into that too - the Blade 2000 has a USB 2 card,
so speed should be OK.

Not terribly helpful, but I have a Nikon D50 and a Sunblade 2000. Plugging the
camera into the USB socket "just works" as one would expect. If there are any
logs or somesuch I can post for you, just ask.



Thank you, but I have it working now. The only issue I have is that the
D3 has two compact flash slots. These can be used for various ways

1) Write to both cards as a backup
2) Write RAW to one and JEPG to the other
3) Use them so that when #1 fills up, the camera writes to #2.

But I can't seem to access the card in slot #2 if there is one in slot
number 1 - I need to remove the card in slot #1 to get at the one in
slot #2. A bit annoying, but not the end of the world.

Huge wrote:

Not terribly helpful, but I have a Nikon D50 and a Sunblade 2000. Plugging the
camera into the USB socket "just works" as one would expect. If there are any
logs or somesuch I can post for you, just ask.


BTW Huge,

I don't know if you are interested on Capture FX on Solaris, but I've
contacted Nikon and asked them if there is any chance of them porting it
to Solaris x86. It will never happen unless people ask, and there is
nothing to lose by asking.

In comp.unix.solaris Dave wrote:
Either compact flash card in the D3 can be read, but I need to remove a
card from slot #1 in order that the card in slot #2 can be mounted. When
I do that, the card in slot #2 mounts OK

Is the problem that both cards have the same filesystem label, and thus
the automounter tries mounting them both on the same mountpoint? Maybe
re-labelling one or the other would fix that. "NIKON D3" and "NIKON D3-2"
for example.

--
Brandon Hume - hume - BOFH.Ca, http://WWW.BOFH.Ca/

Huge wrote:
On 2008-08-16, Dave wrote:
Huge wrote:

Not terribly helpful, but I have a Nikon D50 and a Sunblade 2000. Plugging the
camera into the USB socket "just works" as one would expect. If there are any
logs or somesuch I can post for you, just ask.

BTW Huge,

I don't know if you are interested on Capture FX on Solaris,

I don't know. Am I? )


Sorry, Capture NX

http://www.europe-nikon.com/product/.../overview.html


If you have a Nikon D50 and you use Solaris, you might be interested in
a Solaris version of it, to get the best from your raw files - I assume
the D50 supports the raw file (.NEF format).

From what I can gather, and I have not run it myself, Capture NX is
like a poor version of Photoshop, but has the advantage that it can
process the raw files in a way nothing else can, as nothing else knows
the file format fully. (There are plugins to read .NEF files for Gimp,
but I don't believe they have access to all the information that Capture
NX does.)

Anyway, I think it is good to let Nikon know that not everyone uses OS X
or Windows.

dave