Random Walking

Importing Olympus Stylus 500 Photos with Linux

After recently purchasing a new digital camera I immediately wanted to test it out under Linux. Grabbing the USB cord, I plugged it into my computer and was overjoyed to see that the default configuration of Ubuntu mounted the drive automatically. Now I could copy file back-and-forth easily. However, I really wanted to use gThumb to automatically sync my camera with my computer. Sadly, gThumb doesn't support syncing with a mounted drive and my camera is not supported directly.

Trusty rsync to the rescue! Using a small bash script, along with a change in GNOME's "Removable Drives and Media" profile, my camera now syncs automatically once I plug it in.

Step 1

Create the following script somewhere. I choose ~/bin.

  #!/bin/bash

  SRC=$1/DCIM/100OLYMP
  DST=/home/shared/Photos/camera_sync/

  rsync -rtv --modify-window=1 --progress --ignore-existing $SRC $DST

  xmessage "Camera Sync Complete!"
  
  

Step 2

Find the gnome removable media preferences application. (On Ubuntu it's at System->Preferences->Removable Drives and Media).

Under the Multimedia tab change the Digital Camera command to:

  gnome-terminal -e "/path/to/your/script %m"
  

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Syncing the iRiver

The iRiver iHP-100/120/140 is a great player for any Linux geek. It mounts as a regular filesystem, and supports ogg! This page collects a list of references to sites with iHP information and helpful hints I've found.

  #!/bin/bash

  # Mount the filesystem.  Requires correct entires in /etc/fstab
  mount /iriver

  # Sync with the following options
  #  -r : Recurse into directories
  #  -t : Preserve modification times
  #  -v : Verbose output
  #  --modify-window : FAT filesystems don't store high enough time
  #                    resolution, so this prevents unnecessary transfers
  #  --delete : delete files on the iriver that were removed from /home/mp3
  #  --progress : show progress for each file
  rsync -rtv --modify-window=1 --delete --progress /home/mp3/ /iriver/mp3/

  # If you want to update the database do it here
  # /path/to/database/update/tool

  # Unmount the filesystem
  umount /iriver