On Thursday 02 January 2003 11:08 am, you wrote:
> What can you guys recommend for a linux friendly, cheap, plentifully, USB
> camera, both black/white and/or color?

The Nikon CoolPix 2500 is recognized as a standard USB drive, either using 
the supplied cable or removing the Compact Flash card and inserting it in a 
reader or PC Card adapter.

The 2500 was as low as $199.95 at one point. it's fun camera that takes good 
pictures.

Nikon now has the CoolPix 3500 (my boss has this; I have the 2500) - three 
MegaPixels instead of two. It has the same features are the 2500 and should 
work fine with Linux.

The 2.4 kernel with hot plugability treats a Compact Flash card as just 
another drive so any camera that uses that popular storage media (and saves 
in TIF or JPEG formats) will work with Linux. No need to connect the camera 
or use any special software just mount the drive and copy the pictures over 
to your home directory. View them in Konqueror or edit them in GIMP.

It's a simple matter to right click on the KDE desktop and add a new hard 
disc device and even add custom icons showing your camera. You can search 
Google Images for suitable pictures. Mine shows the 2500 closed when not 
mounted and the lens swiveled into taking position when the device is mounted.

tail -f /var/logs/messages (for Debian or /var/log/messages under Mandrake, I 
think) will tell you if the device is properly recognized when plugged in.

Another site that has good reviews is http://www.steves-digicams.com/.

Dennis Kibbe