Episode 37: Webcams
00:00:52 News & personal updates
ROTHGAR
MythTV 0.23 was released (and installed)
Looking at virtual solutions at work
Using Diigo to bookmark sites with annotations
Hoping to buy and move into his house soon
CHARLES
New job within the same company
Giving presentation to American Women’s Society of CPAs about mobile computing using a BlackBerry
Linux Mint 9 “Isadora” released
ROTHGAR
00:29:55 Webcams
Michel Xhaard is responsible for making ~250 webcams work under Linux
Webcam charts
http://mxhaard.free.fr/spca5xx.html
http://opensource.creative.com/webcam.html
http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/
http://302found.com/linux_webcams/
Webcam software
GUI programs
Cheese
Skype
vlc (open capture device)
camorama
Command line tools
fswebcam
webcam
webcamd
Use the commands lsusb to find model and dmesg to find the driver
Models we use
Rothgar
- Logitech webcam pro 9000 – Rightlight, RightSound technology (Windows only), 720p video recording (Windows only?)
- Built in 2MP for 2730p laptop – cheese was really dark, vlc worked great, camorama said it couldn’t open the device
- iSight 1.3MP from MacBook Pro and iMac (need to verify they both work)
- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MactelSupportTeam/AppleiSight
- Microsoft webcam – Doesn’t work, green screen in Linux
Charles
- Logitech QuickCam Communicate MP (Worked out of the box with Cheese)
How to make it work
Install V4L and V4L2 drivers
V4L and V4L2 are video input drivers for linux
Small troubleshooting guide: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/html_single/Webcam-HOWTO/
00:58:54 Web site of the week
More info
Hosts: Charles, Rothgar, SiKing, Art Vanderhoff
Shared Google Reader: Charles, Rothgar
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Congratulations on being able to trivialise the Mono debate by reducing it to people don’t want Mono because it originated with Microsoft, a big corporation.
Mono should not be used as long as Microsoft alleges that Linux infringes on its IP without specifying what infringement. By using Mono you feed the FUD. Microsoft will not come clean on the status on Mono saying only that Novell users are protected. It is released under several licenses and this makes understanding its legal status very hard. Just because it is licensed does not mean that that license will stand up in court. It all adds up to much confusion which Microsoft will not clarify because it serves their interests to keep us on the hook and maintain the FUD.
You do a disservice to anybody who refuses to use Mono on the grounds that it is giving in the the FUD and resents being bullied.
I for one will never use Mono or any Mono application no matter how good it is. The corporate landscape is littered with dead projects that Microsoft killed off any way it could, legal or otherwise. Our interests are not served by chasing any standard that they develop because once you do then you are always playing catch up and they will use that the leverage against you.
Shame on you for being short sighted and using anything that is available to you, even if in the end it may destroy that which you claim to value.
I personally never really understood that whole debate about what is or isn’t acceptable as politically correct when it comes to software. Have a look at http://patentabsurdity.com/ The US Patent and Trademark Office basically F-ed up, big time, like really big time, and all the software corporations have to protect themselves against the fallout. Microsoft, being a big corporation, is no different. It’s not Microsoft that is to blame, it is the USPTO!
Interesting to learn that the Steam on Linux effort was reported as long ago as May 2010.
As I write this (Jan 2013), Steam is in closed beta on Linux with around registered 10,000 users.
I’ve been using GIMP for three or four years now. It’s well worth the effort to run through some of the tutorials and take the time to explore the features.
I have GIMP on Windows and Linux, it meets all my image editing needs, which are pretty varied, including creation of textures for 3D modelling.