gphoto2, the Good Parts

gphoto2 (frontend, cli)

USB-control cameras via command line

libgphoto2 (backend library)

USB-control of cameras via C libraries

To install either frontend or backend from a .tar file, or from Git source:

# untar
tar xvzf gphoto2-2.5.14.tar.gz

autoreconf --install --symlink
./configure [--prefix=/usr/local]
make [-j4]
sudo make install

Or, for my future reference:

# all at once, on Raspberry Pi
autoreconf --install --symlink; ./configure --prefix=/usr/local; make -j4; sudo make install

The long version:

# Install these tools to your system: automake, autoconf, autopoint, gettext, libtool

# Create ./configure script
autoreconf --install --symlink

# run configure script
./configure --prefix=/usr/local

# check output, should be like
libusb: yes
# etc...
"Please check whether the configuration I detected matches what you would like to have"...
# etc...

# for quad core
make -j4

# Raspbian / Ubuntu requires sudo because we can't touch /usr/local
sudo make install

# to verify installation (presupposing you have the CLI frontend `gphoto2` installed already)
gphoto2 --version