usb: disable

[Joel Hammer]

I am still fussing with digital photos.

I would like to have my digital camera, with a usb connection, tethered to a
computer (linux). I would like to shoot a series of photos with the camera,
then, with a simple command on the computer, transfer those photos to the
computer.

The problem is that when you plug in the usb cable into the camera, the
camera goes out of the picture taking mode, so it is useless for photos.

However, if I plug in the usb cable without the cable being connected to
the computer, the camera stays in the picture taking mode. Voila. This
suggests there may be a solution.

So, the obvious questions are:

1. Is there such a beast as a usb switch box which would accomplish this
with a minimum of fuss?

2. Is there a way to disable the usb socket via software, like removing
modules or sending a 0 into a file in /proc ?

I have tried taking out all the usb modules, but that didn't work.

Here are the modules I load to get the usb port to work with my camera:


Module                  Size  Used by
usb-storage            23284   0  (unused)
nls_iso8859-1           2636   0
ide-scsi                7428   0
sr_mod                 11800   0
sg                     21692   0
sd_mod                  9832   0
scsi_mod               53024   4  [usb-storage ide-scsi sr_mod sg sd_mod]
hid                    12016   0  (unused)
usb-uhci               21720   0  (unused)
usbcore                27940   0  [usb-storage hid usb-uhci] 

With all these modules gone, plugging in the cable still turns off the
camera.

Is there a USB driver that could be compiled as a module which I have
built into the kernel ?

Now, according to the salesmen, I could use a firewire connection to do what
I want, but, amazingly, those cameras cost several thousand dollars more
than the usb camera (Nikons).

Thanks,

Joel