web cams

[Stephen Burke]

Cyber Source wrote:

> Hello all,
>  Does anyone have any good recommendations for a web cam with Linux? 
> Most specifically with FC3 and worked right out of the box? Also, any 
> GnomeMeeting people out there?

Hello,

I'll take a stab at this, since I would like to consider myself one of 
the "GnomeMeeting people", even if my actual time online using it is 
rather pathetically limited. I have been toying with it for a couple of 
years, though. The problem was, I built a gm system to connect with a 
location in NYC (someone all wrapped up in M$ and polycom cameras, 
unfortunately [poycom cams decidedly DO NOT work on Linux and polycom 
officially DOES NOT give a shit] ), but by the time I had my system 
going, the new york side of the connection sort of lost interest and 
time for the whole project, so I have only been able to use it once 
there for a purpose that was originally meant to be a regular thing (a 
long story that I won't relate here).

That one time, it worked great, and that was version 0.98.5 or so I 
think, so it probably works better now (1.2, I think), though I haven't 
upgraded to the latest version yet. If you get a gm setup going, I would 
be interested to connect with you and really learn what the thing can 
DO, gm to gm (with maybe a bit of OpenMCU tossed into the mix, if we can 
find other interested parties who also want to connect).

As for ANY webcam working "right out of the box"  with Linux I have 
serious doubts, though I have not yet been too successful  in the 
attempt or two I have made at setting up a useful FC3 system, so I am 
somewhat ignorant there. 

I have been sticking with the  logitech variety of cam (quickcam 3000 
and  4000 pro) because at the time that I was on the same quest that you 
are on, they were the only reaonably priced cams that I could find 
drivers for, here:

http://www.smcc.demon.nl/webcam/

along with the installation instructions here:

http://www.isthe.com/chongo/tech/comp/pwc/rh8.0.html

Though those instructions are for RH8, they worked perfectly  for RH9 
(which I was totally psyched about when it was released, since 8 didn't 
like the soundcard on my laptop - I needed to able to use it at various 
locations).  Again, I still haven't figured out how different FC3 is 
from RH9, but it must be vaguely similar, tight? Feel free to 
disillusion me if I'm wrong here.

In the meantime, perhaps I will try putting FC3 on the laptop that came 
back from nyc (after a failed attempt to convince a M$ junkie of the 
virtues of Linux) a bit TOO screwed up for me to fix, and try to get it 
working. I put mandrake 9.2 on it at one point, but the entire system 
froze when I plugged the logitech into it, so I abandoned that idea and 
then ran into the following when I went to redo the whole 
RH9-gm-logitech setup that had been working before.

Sometime last summer ( I missed the whole thing, as I was  in Canada and 
totally offline at the time) , there was some sort of raging battle of 
wills between the driver developer and the Linux kernel maintainers (you 
can read all about it at the smcc.demon.nl site {and /. and various 
other places, apparently} if you want) which resulted in that guy 
abandoning the project. I only read enough to be kind of glad to have 
missed it, as the whole thing seems to lack the sort of reason that I 
value in a good argument as opposed to the foolish emotionalism and 
confused logic that I started running into there).  I know it works for 
logitech quickcam pro 3000 and 4000. More are listed here :

http://www.lavrsen.dk/twiki/bin/view/PWC/WorkingWebcamsWithPWC?CGISESSID=bfec799df07030919b0808c0d9d49a65

At first, I was most encouraged to find that driver since (like you, 
probably) I didn't find much else out there in terms of Linux friendly 
camming. After the row, it started getting a bit tedious, but I still 
haven't found much else.

I was psyched all over again recently to find phillips webcam support 
available when I was building my gentoo kernel, but I haven't been able 
to get that system working well enough to toy with the cam aspect yet.
I got some good advice here (thanks, Dave), but now when I boot I get 
'*ERROR: Problem starting needed services   "netmount" not started', so 
I cannot get to the web with it to get what I need to make it go (a 
window manager, gm, etc). Googling hasn't turned up too much of use on 
that problem yet, except for various other people who suddenly lost 
their web connections after finishing with the LiveCD part of the 
installation, but don't seem to have the answer (or one I can deal with 
presently, anyway).

But I digress. This is a gnomemeeting wrestling match for the moment, 
not a gentoo one. That's as close as I've seen to "out of the box" in 
the Linux/webcam realm, though.

Anyway, that particular dropped ball (the PWC driver for phillips cams) 
was picked up by someone else here:
http://www.saillard.org/linux/pwc/ , but that site seems to be mainly 
geared toward people who know quite a bit more about the inner workings 
of PWC than me, so I'm not yet sure that the continued maintenance of 
that driver is particularly useful to me at the moment, since one RH9 
laptop setup I have still works so I'm trying not to break it until I 
learn more about such things. Perhaps it will all be perfectly clear to 
you, and you can clue me in over a gm connection in the future.  Or 
maybe I have to go back and actually read the wiki I just found when I 
went back there now to get you the link.

By the bye, I have a 3000 and TWO 4000's here (another idea that never 
quite panned out) and would be willing to let one of the 4000's go 
pretty cheap, if you're interested. 

I would like to see you get your gm system up and running, since I have 
been really wanting to master that beast, and everyone I know who is 
even vaguely interested in H323-type (teleconferencing) stuff is all 
wrapped up in either M$ or mac, which kind of adds too many headaches to 
the ones already presented by our beloved GNU/Linux (with M$, at any 
rate, since macs can only ever teleconference with other macs, from what 
I've seen).

I realize this was a long answer to a short question, but the whole 
story is quite a bit longer, so I've spared you quite a bit of it.

I hope it helped some, anyway.

Good luck,
S.