as per some other guide, i installed the libdc1394 library. nothing.

i also realized that i didn't have the video1394 module loaded. i loaded that. nothing.

though, my dmesg now says this:

ieee1394: hpsb_update_config_rom() is deprecated
ieee1394: Failed to generate Configuration ROM image for host 0

i have also used testlibraw, and came up with this:

successfully got handle
current generation number: 2
2 card(s) found
  nodes on bus:  1, card name: ohci1394
  nodes on bus:  0, card name: ohci1394
using first card found: 1 nodes on bus, local ID is 0, IRM is 0

doing transactions with custom tag handler
trying to send read request to node 0… completed with value 0x4753c2b3

using standard tag handler and synchronous calls
trying to read from node 0… completed with value 0x96c1c2b3

testing FCP monitoring on local node
got fcp command from node 0 of 8 bytes: 01 23 45 67 89 ab cd ef
got fcp response from node 0 of 8 bytes: 01 23 45 67 89 ab cd ef
testing config rom stuff
get_config_rom returned 0, romsize 64, rom_version 7
here are the first 10 quadlets:
0. quadlet: 0x2fd60404
1. quadlet: 0×34393331
2. quadlet: 0x32a264e0
3. quadlet: 0×66061100
4. quadlet: 0xcc5c6745
5. quadlet: 0xa0820300
6. quadlet: 0×06110003
7. quadlet: 0×02000081
8. quadlet: 0xc083000c
9. quadlet: 0x2a2c0600
update_config_rom returned 0

polling for leftover messages

i have no idea what this all means at the moment. more to come.

here is my plea for help on linuxquestions.org:

 ok i've been searching for hours and i don't even remember anything i've read anymore, so i'd like to hear some suggestions as to why i can't get my firewire card to capture video from my camera.

when i run dvgrab i get "Error: no camera exists"

when i run kino, i press capture and it times out waiting for my camera to start playing, which it is.

cinelerra crashes as soon as i click on "Record"

it obviously sounds like the card isn't recognizing the camera, or the system isn't recognizing the card. thing is, i have two firewire inputs, one PCI, and one on-board. both produce the same result.

i needlessly tried a modprobe but i got a big fat "failed", which didn't surprise me, as the modules have been built-in and apparantly loaded at boot, according to dmesg.

any suggestions?

also, i was able to capture on (*gasp*) windows, so i know the camera works.

im running 10.2, and 2.6.16.11.

lspci:
[CODE]
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P PCI to AGP Controller (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200 Ultra] (rev a1)
02:03.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 46)
02:05.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 04)
02:0a.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 80)
02:0b.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c940 10/100/1000Base-T [Marvell] (rev 12)
[/CODE]

portion of my dmesg pertaining to firewire:
[CODE]
ohci1394: fw-host0: OHCI-1394 1.0 (PCI): IRQ=[18]  MMIO=[fa005000-fa0057ff]  Max Packet=[2048]  IR/IT contexts=[4/8]
…
ohci1394: fw-host1: OHCI-1394 1.0 (PCI): IRQ=[19]  MMIO=[fa004000-fa0047ff]  Max Packet=[2048]  IR/IT contexts=[4/8]
video1394: Installed video1394 module
ieee1394: raw1394: /dev/raw1394 device initialized
…
ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023]  GUID[0011066645675ccc]
…
ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[1-00:1023]  GUID[00000ae6ff118a81]
[/CODE] 

 and my follow-up to myself:

update:

at the request of something i read on another site, i recompiled the kernel with 1394 built as modules. all the modules are loaded, and i get the same results as above.

i have installed libraw, libavc, libdv among others that don't come to mind at the moment.

the only difference at the moment is that i'm now running 2.6.16.14, with 1394 still compiled as modules.

my /dev/raw1394 is rw by all, and this is all driving me completely insane.

i actually installed windows in another machine and put the firewire card in, but windows somehow actually handled the whole situation much worse.

somewhere in the middle of all of that i installed winxp on vmware within slack, only to find out that vmware doesn't support firewire. props to vmware.

more to come. hopefully me saying "it works now", or something to that effect.