Sony Handycam DCR-HC26

My friend recently bought a Sony Handycam DCR-HC26 and it came with some windows software to capture video from it that totally sucks. So of course, the first thing that I thought was, "Hey! I bet someone less lazy than me on linux has already bought this thing". So of course, I checked apt and, after that unsettling failure, www.google.com/linux as well. However, I can't seem to find anyone that got this particular camera working under linux (not to mention the fact that there seemed to be almost no software to use with Video cameras). Does anyone know of a way to connect this camera to my Compaq Presario v5000 laptop via usb? I don't want to have to use firewire, because I don't have any computers with firewire cards. Thanks for any help you can give.

What does dmesg reports after connecting the camera?

There was too much information to post so I piped it to grep usb.

Code:

---

[  13.761122] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[  13.761143] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[  13.761161] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[  13.843390] usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[    3.688000] usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[    6.236000] usb usb3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[  25.932000] usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper
[ 1413.968000] usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
[ 1414.172000] usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 3119.460000] usb 2-2: USB disconnect, address 2
[ 3653.368000] usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3
[ 3653.568000] usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 3654.624000] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio
[ 3672.164000] usb 2-2: USB disconnect, address 3

---

Oh, btw, my friend is gay and wants me to put this down, :banana: .

Try dmesg | tail after connecting the camera, just USB doesn't give enough info

sudo dmesg | tail gave me this.

[ 3653.568000] usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 3654.624000] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio
[ 3672.164000] usb 2-2: USB disconnect, address 3
[ 3672.296000] psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio4/input0 lost sync at byte 1
[ 3672.300000] psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio4/input0 lost sync at byte 1
[ 3672.300000] psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio4/input0 lost sync at byte 1
[ 3672.304000] psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio4/input0 lost sync at byte 1
[ 3672.316000] psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio4/input0 - driver resynched.
[ 6410.880000] usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4
[ 6411.080000] usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice