Webcam on EeePC 900

[Gilles Gravier]

Hi all!

OK... So this is the followup on my trials with Ubuntu on the EeePC 900.

I couldn't get my bloody webcam to work. I tried everything. I even 
wiped Ubuntu, re-installed Xandros, bitched about the ton of oudtated 
apps (OOo 2.04, Skype 2.0 beta, and so on), stupid keyboard maps that 
aren't properly set... and no easy way to set them. Oh well. Then I 
copied the whole Xandros distro to a file server so that I could get 
access to the files after. Then I reinstalled Eee Ubuntu, then I copied 
the kernel module for the webcam from Xandros to Ubuntu.

Nothing worked. I was about to call it a night (midnight, actually) when 
I had an idea. Believe me, a ballsy, but stupid one. I rebooted, went to 
BIOS, and ENABLED that stupid camera from the BIOS...

Whaddayanow... It's a very VERY standard USB-VC webcam... which means 
that Ubuntu, once I rebooted, AUTOMATICALLY recognized it and worked 
with it...

Skype uses it. Ekiga uses it. UCView uses it.

I was extremely upset to have spent 48 hours trying to get a stupid 
camera working... when it WAS working, all the time, but simply NOT 
enabled in the stupid BIOS.

Oh well. Next time, I'll try FIRST to drink a glass of Bushmill's 
whiskey BEFORE going on a quest to get some fancy piece of hardware working.

Soooo... now I am a VERY happy camper with Hardy Heron on my ASUS EeePC 
900... Everything I need works. I can even read Divx movies with VLC and 
it's faster (no screen glitches) than with the Xandros original OS...

Only things that I'm not 100% happy with, but which aren't show stoppers :

1) Boots slower that Xandros (but it remains acceptable - total of 53 
seconds from press of power switch to login screen)
2) Still have to do some hacks (described on 
http://ubuntu-eee.tuxfamily.org/) in order to get more battery life, and 
allow proper shutdown
3) Installation still requires manual partitionning to remove SWAP 
partition (not very noob friendly)

Cheers,
Gilles