[GLLUG] SD flash memory cards

[Marr]

On Thursday 20 April 2006 5:28pm, Charles Ulrich wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I recently purchased a really nifty camera that unfortunately has less
> than stellar Linux support. (gphoto2 supports it, but only in the
> development branch. Their latest stable release was almost a year ago
> which does not bode well for near-future support for my camera.)
>
> The camera uses SD flash memory cards which are nice because they're
> small and insanely cheap. Unfortunately, I read somewhere that SD card
> readers have no open source drivers because the interface for them is
> proprietary. I don't know if this applies to USB SD card readers. Does
> anyone know if a USB SD card reader will be recognized as a standard USB
> mass storage device or if even those need special drivers?

Hi Charles,

USB-based SD card readers are properly recognized and don't need special 
drivers under Linux.

I've got a SanDisk 'ImageMate' multi-format USB card reader (model 'SDDR-73') 
and I've successfully used it (plugged into my Slackware PC) many times to 
read both SD and CF format cards over the last 3 years.

As for 'gphoto2' (and 'libgphoto2'), I've used it (and even contributed a few 
patches a few years ago), but I've found, like probably a lot of other users, 
that it's easier to just pop the storage card (CF in my case) out of the 
camera and plug it into a card reader. In fact, my latest PC case (Antec 
'Aria') even has a multi-format card reader built right into the front panel 
(which plugs into an on-board USB header on the motherboard).

Bill Marr