—Linux and Cybershot—

    Once again Linux users have come through for one another, and have contributed the following information about getting Cyber-shots� to work under various Linux distributions.

   I just installed Red Hat 7.1 and when I connected my camera is appeared to set up without any additional configuration needed. In fact, it worked perfectly as a (read-only) plug-and-play drive.

   Atte André Jensen, Cybershot Enthusiast, has installed Cyber-shots� under the latest Mandrake version, Mandrake 8. I believe the distribution must be using the 2.4.x kernel.

    Yves Lafon has successfully installed a P1 under Linux on a Sony VAIO. Check out the details.

"I just tested the P1 under Linux (using the brand-new 2.4.3 kernel) and it worked just fine. No patching of the kernel was required; the P1 correctly identifies itself as a USB Storage Device, and Linux has a generic storage driver that deals with those. The camera is mounted as a SCSI disk, just as under 2.2.x, and is then easily readable. Writing seems to be disabled (it mounts as read-only)."
-Emil Brink, Cybershot Enthusiast

There seems to have been an issue with Linux kernels 2.4.8 and 2.4.9. The device was recognized (hot), but was not mountable as a DOS drive. That has been fixed with the newly released 2.4.10 kernel. Build with SCSI emulation, USB, and FAT/VFAT. The device will be recognized and mountable. It will appear as the next scsi device, ie. if you have a scsi hard drive, /dev/sda, it will appear as /dev/sdb. dmesg will tell you what device it is.
-Jim Sauber, Cybershot Enthusiast