How to detect FireWire interface and Connected device on it, in Ubuntu 11.04?

Question

I have a FireWire camera LifeSize connected to my PC in the FireWire interface. My PC has miniPCI slot and with external converter its having a FireWire interface. Now its Ubuntu who is not showing me anything at all when i try:

$ uname -a
Linux desktop 2.6.38-11-generic-pae #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 29 20:51:21 UTC 2011 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:16.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family KT Controller (rev 04)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 05)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b5)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev b5)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev b5)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b5)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev b5)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 05)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family 4 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family 2 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 05)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82574L Gigabit Network Connection


$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 046d:c31c Logitech, Inc. 
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 046d:0821 Logitech, Inc. 
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub


$ dmesg | grep FireWire  ;no results

$ grep FireWire /var/log/kern.log ;no results

How can i detect my FireWire interface is up and working and see my Camera?

Answer 1

It looks like your hardware is not detected when I compare the output you get with what I get.

I have a Firewire controller in my Linux machine and get this output:

[ROOT@bellatrix] /etc# lspci | grep -E -i "(1394|firewire)"
05:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB82AA2 IEEE-1394b Link Layer Controller (rev 02)

[ROOT@bellatrix] /home/tim# dmesg | grep -E -i "(1394|firewire)"
[    7.398547] firewire_ohci 0000:05:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[    7.449050] firewire_ohci: Added fw-ohci device 0000:05:00.0, OHCI v1.10, 4 IR + 8 IT contexts, quirks 0x2
[    7.950098] firewire_core: created device fw0: GUID 0000000000500169, S800
[    7.953162] firewire_core: created device fw1: GUID 081443610005001b, S800
[    7.953167] firewire_core: phy config: card 0, new root=ffc0, gap_count=5
[    8.271968] video1394: Installed video1394 module
[    8.283609] ieee1394: raw1394: /dev/raw1394 device initialized


[ROOT@bellatrix] /etc# lsmod | grep -E -i "(1394|firewire)"
raw1394                19765  0 
video1394              13215  0 
ohci1394               25605  1 video1394
ieee1394               79879  3 raw1394,video1394,ohci1394
firewire_ohci          23123  0 
firewire_core          48581  1 firewire_ohci
crc_itu_t               1651  1 firewire_core

I wouldn't expect output from lsusb. Try searching for '1394' or case-insensitive FireWire. Does that help? Also you might want to check some other things:

• Did you enable FireWire in your kernel?
• Did you load the FireWire related modules?
• Do you get any error messages

Also, coriander is an excellent tool to use 1394 cameras on Linux. Try installing that to see if it gives any (additional) error messages that might point to the problem.

Answer 2

Simply, your kernel doesn't have firewire1394 support. So, you need to build your kernel with firewire1394 driver enabled using.

make menuconfig

After this you can select the firewire1394 driver and dependencies. Then you compile the kernel and install it.