debian lidl webcam

Fionn101

can anyone tell me how I can get the lidl usb webcam to work on debian linux
http://www.mysilvercrest.de/en/artikel.php?a=128&av=2

a link to a driver or how to would be great.

Also I downloaded skype which won't install because of dependencies on lbqt4.after downloading libqt4 it won't install because of dependencies on another package libc6.

is there a package that will rollup all other packages I may need to get skype working? or can someone tell me how to get libc6 ?? do i need this to get skype and the other packages working?

thanks in advance

Fionn

Fionn101

so I now noticed that update manager icon on the dektop bar had a notice telling me to run sudo apt-get install -f to fix errors ,

it then removed libqt4-gui and installed libqt4-core (must have d/l the wrong one)

time to try installing skype again ...

niallb

Could you run the command 'lsusb' and see what IDs are related to the cam?
Open a terminal and type it in, you should see something like this:
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode)
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 093a:2600 Pixart Imaging, Inc.

If you're not sure which one is the camera, post it all up.

There's millions of people selling basically the same cameras, so the brand name
isn't always useful. Often you'll even find a number of different cameras with
the same name - Logitech are great at that!

I've a Silvercrest branded camera too, but it's really a Pixart as above.
My one was supported by the latest version of the gspca driver.

Debian is not a great distro for making it easy to find this kind of driver,
though it will let you install it if you wish of course.
Debian tends to be slow to include the latest versions of anything.

You'll need to have at least the kernel headers installed and a compiler etc to build the module.
Being debian, you can set all that up with:
aptitude install build-essential

If you were running ubuntu, which uses similar tools to debian,
there's a tool called module-assistant which gives you a menu
to download and build a huge range of unusual driver modules.
Maybe it's on debian these days, see if aptitude install module-assistant
gets you anywhere. If so, this could be quite straightforward.

If the gspca version from module-assistant, doesn't work, try the latest version, currently(2007-12-11)
gspcav1-20070508
If that fails too, there's also spca5xx in the module-assistant list which supports a lot of similar cameras.

Some day soon, both of those drivers will merge with what is already in the kernel,
and then it'll be easier. Until then, they have to be downloaded seperately.

Hope that gets you started,
NiallB

Fionn101

man,thanks a million for the answer , I'm now well on the way to figuring this out,

so far I have downloaded module-assistant but I do not see gspca in the list. When I download the files from your link I get a gspca-xxx.tgz file, and when I extract this .tgz file I just get a bunch of files in a directory and I'm not sure what I should do with these files.(do these files compile?)

I'm going to check how I add modules to module-assistant.....

Fionn101

quick update, I'm still unsure about how I compile all those files contained in gspca.2.18.xxx.tgz.

so...I've gone into module assistant as root and selected the spc5xx module and will see how that goes,can't get any worse than my fashion sense

Fionn101

can anyone tell me how I may build those files that were part of the .tgz file ?

tia

bushy...

Usually goes along the lines of :
config (often different , have a look around)
make
make install

There should be a README in there somewhere that outline it.

oscarBravo

config usually has to be run as ./config, as the current directory isn't in the search path.

niallb

extract the archive and cd into the directory gspcav1-20070508/
You'll find a script in there called ./gspca_build

Run it as root.

root@fionn01:/usr/src/modules/gspcav1-20070508# ./gspca_build


You'll need to have make and friends installed.
apt-get install build-essential kernel-headers should have taken care of that.
If not, get your kernel version by typing uname -r, and search for that in
the list of packages with kernel-headers in front of it.
If all of those are in, the script will build and install the module.
No need to worry about module-assistant. One nice thing that it
does is to build a debian package with the driver in it, but you can
live without that. It'll still load automatically when needed.

Of course, all this assumes your silvercrest camera is similar to my one!
What's the USB ID ?

Fionn101

thanks again for all the replies, it really helps.

I've learned that 'make' compiles all the files within a tgz file.
As suggested I ran the ./gspca_build which seemed to work fine.

the usb info for the camera is Bus 001 Device 007: ID 0c45:613b Microdia

right,time for another noob qs, when I make a set of files and they install , how do I then launch the app. I know some of the app's do not have gui's but is gspca one of them???

Is gspca an application that will show my camera feed in a box on the window,or rather a driver that allows applications to use the camera ?

niallb

gspca is the module to support your camera (possibly).
Similar to a windows driver as you say.
It's not an application at all, but once it's loaded,
any program that can handle a webcam
should see your camera.
Try aptitude install camorama, and then look for it on the menus.
If you're using Gnome, it should be under
Applications -> Graphics -> Camorama Webcam Viewer

If that doesn't work, check to see do you have an active camera:
ls -l /dev/video* should show you a file or two.
This particular camera doesn't sound like it's well supported though.
I found a post saying it crashed after a few minutes on a first search.
on the bright side, the driver you've just built should support it!
Search for "0c45:613b linux webcam" if you want to get useful results.

Good luck, I'm sure lots of people have this camera now, so firstly this is useful,
and secondly support is likely to improve over the next few months.

Fionn101

niall, sound man , that worked a charm, and better still now I understand the driver loading process.

canorama started streaming the camera instantly, now I can chat to my bro over xmas. excellent,seriously nice one for all the replies.