[ubuntu-uk] Laptop webcam for Jaunty

[Tony Pursell]

I have found that webcams sometimes work and sometimes don't.  
You want to find something that will work with Skype, Cheese and 
SANE (to name just a few apps).  SANE, for instance, is very fussy 
and only works (AFAIK) 'out of the box' with UVC (USB video class) 
compliant webcams.  None of the 3 webcams that I have (a Logitech, 
a Labtech, which is a Logitech by another name, and a Tesco Value 
webcam) use this standard so I cannot import an image into GIMP, 
which uses SANE.

To make sure whether your web is UCV compliant, or not, you need 
the 8 character hexadecimal Device ID (ffff:ffff) where the first 4 chars 
are the manufacturer code and the last 4 are the device code. The 
problem is that this code is rarely quoted on the packaging so you 
won't know until you get it home, plug it in and run lsusb, exactly what 
it is.  I have seen reports that two Logitechs with the same model 
number on the packaging can have different device codes, one 
compliant and the other not.

Some USB webcams, I am told, can be enabled with other device 
drivers, which are not installed as standard by Ubuntu (although the 
sources are available for the main ones in Synaptic - probably 
Multiverse).

Go to 

http://www.quickcamteam.net/devices

to see the status quo for Logitech webcams and 

http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/

for more on UVC.

Tony




On 23 May 2009 at 12:56, Simon Wears wrote:

> I got myself a Logitech Quickcam S7500, works great for me straight out the
> box. Clips onto my flat screen monitor, same with laptop. Can be a bit
> tricky getting it to work with aMSN, but *apparently* works great with
> Skype. Haven't tried it myself, as I don't use Skype.
> 
>  A list of supported webcams is here though:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsMultimediaWebCameras
> 
> 2009/5/22 Tony Arnold <tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk>
> 
> > Dave,
> >
> > Dave Morley wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2009-05-21 at 16:02 +0100, Tony Arnold wrote:
> > >> Can anyone recommend/suggest a webcam that can be clipped to the top of
> > >> my laptop that will work out of the box on Jaunty? I'd want to use it
> > >> with Skype.
> > >
> > > Go to Asda and buy there cheap tat one.  It's not the greatest in the
> > > world but it works fine for skype :)  Anything else might be pushing it.
> >
> > Thanks for the pointer. I'd never think to go to ASDA for an item like
> > this! I'll give it a try.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Tony.
> > --
> > Tony Arnold,                        Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 6093
> > Head of IT Security,                Fax: +44 (0) 870 136 1004
> > University of Manchester,           Mob: +44 (0) 773 330 0039
> > Manchester M13 9PL.                 Email: tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk
> >
> > --
> > ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
> > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
> > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Simon Wears
> MunkyJunky at Gmail.com
> http://MunkyJunky.com | http://Twitter.com/MunkyJunky
> MunkyJunky on irc.freenode.net
>