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+# libgphoto2
+
+Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of gphoto! This is libgphoto2, the
+successor of gphoto with lots of new features and additional camera
+drivers.
+
+If you miss a feature, would like to report success or failure, or have any
+questions, please don't hesitate to contact our mailing list.
+
+
+## What is libgphoto2?
+
+libgphoto2 is a library that can be used by applications to access various
+digital cameras.  
+
+For more information on gphoto, see [gphoto project home page].
+
+There, you can also get information on mailing lists, supported cameras,
+and availability of gphoto2. Another source of information is [gphoto github project page].
+
+where you can access our SVN server to fetch the source code of
+gphoto2, gtkam and GnoCam (see below).
+
+
+## What is libgphoto2 not?
+
+libgphoto2 itself is not a GUI application, opposed to gphoto. There are
+GUI frontends for the gphoto2 library, however, such as gtkam for
+example.
+
+libgphoto2 can only talk to cameras the language of those it understands.
+That is, if you own a camera that speaks a language that isn't published
+anywhere and nobody has been able to figure out the meaning of the sentences,
+libgphoto2 cannot communicate with those cameras.
+
+Then, there are cameras supporting the so-called USB Mass Storage protocol.
+This is a protocol that has been published and lets you access any storage
+device, be it a camera or a disk connected via USB to your computer. As there
+are already drivers for this protocol out there, you don't need an additional
+library like libgphoto2. The list of camera that use USB Mass Storage is getting
+longer everyday, so we won't publish it.
+
+For a more up to date list, you can consult [camera list with support status].
+
+Your operating system will tell you about that because it is likely to recognize
+the device as a SCSI disk that you can mount (for Linux 'dmesg' will tell you).
+Again, those cameras *cannot* be accessed through libgphoto2. Some of them can
+be switched to use a different communication protocol and might be in that case
+useable with libgphoto2.
+
+Other camera support a protocol called PTP or USB Imaging Devices that has
+been developed by Kodak and other. libgphoto2 does support PTP. Also working
+will be cameras labeled as "PictBridge", which is a extension to PTP.
+
+Almost all cameras that are not mass storage support it these days, including
+but not limited to all Nikon, Canon, Fuji, Sony, Panasonic, HP and more.
+
+PTP camera unknown to libgphoto2 will be detected as a generic PTP camera and
+will work as-is without any changes.
+
+MTP (Microsoft Transfer Protocol) capable devices will also be accessible,
+since MTP is based on PTP.
+
+
+## Platforms
+
+libgphoto2 should compile and run on pretty much all Unix-like platforms.
+libgphoto2 has _not_ (yet?) been ported to any operating system from MicroSoft.
+
+
+## How to set up libgphoto2
+
+For information on how to set up libgphoto2 and its frontends, see
+The gphoto2 Manual.
+
+It is available at the following places:
+
+ - At the gphoto website: [gphoto project home page]
+ - In the SVN module gphoto2-manual
+
+The gphoto2 Manual includes information about setting up USB
+hotplugging.
+
+If you run into problems, you may also consult the FAQ (also included
+in The gphoto2 Manual).
+
+
+## Frontends
+
+gphoto2 is a command line frontend which is quite powerful,
+especially in combination with scripts. See The gphoto2 Manual
+for a short description.
+
+For the GUI lovers, there are for example digikam (KDE), gthumb (GNOME),
+f-spot (GNOME / Mono) and more. We also have a GTK2 reference GUI
+called gtkam, which is unmaintained, its only special features are
+capture ability.
+Additionally, there are plugins for other programs available like
+kio_camera (KDE - Konqueror) and a fuse plugin, gphotofs.
+
+
+## Reporting Bugs
+
+Every piece of software contains errors and flaws. So does
+libgphoto2. When you encounter something that does not work, please do
+the following:
+
+1. Find out whether this is a known problem.
+
+2. Reproduce the problem with debug output enabled and the language
+    set to English, so that the development team will understand the
+    messages. You can do this by running:
+
+        env LC_ALL=C gtkam
+
+    if you're using the gtkam frontend or running:
+
+        env LC_ALL=C gphoto2 --debug-logfile=logfile.log --debug <options>
+
+    using the gphoto2 command line interface.
+
+3. Report the problem on the mailing list with the corresponding debug
+    output if it is small. If it is more than a few kilobytes, please
+    don't post the complete debug output on the list.
+
+
+[gphoto project home page]: http://www.gphoto.org/
+[gphoto github project page]: https://github.com/gphoto
+[camera list with support status]: http://www.teaser.fr/~hfiguiere/linux/digicam.html
+[jphoto home page]: http://jphoto.sourceforge.net/
+[information about using USB mass storage]: http://www.linux-usb.org/USB-guide/x498.html
+[gphoto development mailing list]: gphoto-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
+[gphoto user mailing list]: gphoto-user@lists.sourceforge.net
+[gphoto translation mailing list]: gphoto-translation@lists.sourceforge.net