Connecting a Firewire Digital Camcorder

[davecs]

I am submitting this tip in the hope that it will save someone a month of agony!

 

I recently bought a DV camcorder and PCI ieee1394 host adaptor. I checked for compatibility at the site: www.linux1394.org

 

If you look at the site there is a load of scary stuff about recompiling the kernel, etc, but with Mandrake 9.1 you don't need to.

 

This is what you need to do:

 

First visit the easy urpmi site (http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon) and setup you software source manager so you can load up all the programs and libraries recommended by the linux1394 site. I think you can get them all bar one. You'll definitely need libraw1394, libdc1394, testlibraw1394, gscanbus, kino, dvgrab, etc. I seem to remember that I found all of these except one via software source manager except one, I think it was libdc1394, but I found an rpm using a google search. Basically, in the "add software" icon in Mandrake Control Centre, search for 1394 and install everything, plus Kino and Dvgrab. Gscanbus is also worth having to check if everything works.

 

Open a terminal, and, as root, add the following lines to /etc/rc.local (hint type "kate /etc/rc.local"):

 

modprobe video1394

modprobe dv1394

modprobe raw1394

 

Due to dependencies, ieee1394 and ohci1394 or equivalent will also be loaded.

 

Now add these lines to /etc/modules.conf

 

alias /dev/raw1394* raw1394

alias /dev/dv1394* dv1394

 

Once saved, reboot.

 

Once back in KDE or gnome, open a terminal, change to root and type in:

 

cd /dev

mknod raw1394 c 172 0

mknod dv1394 c 172 0

 

(don't worry that these lines produce an error that they are already present)

 

chmod 666 raw1394

chmod 666 dv1394

 

Now programs like Kino should run and recognise the ieee1394 subsystem.

[Guest viewsonic]

Nice write up--Thanks!

[DaveQB]

I'll give that a whirl when i get home. Similiar guides have failed for me.