webcam support/hardware compatibility list

[David]

I'd like to buy a webcam that has good support in fedora,
preferably without any kernel patches/proprietary drivers.
Any suggestions?

Here are the web cams on my local Office Max shelf (or at
least are on their web site):

Creative WebCam Live! Pro (VF0080)
    Creative Labs Live CAM Notebook Pro Webcam (VF0250)
    Creative Labs VF0070 Live! Ultra WebCam for Notebooks
    Creative WebCam Live! Ultra (VF0060)
    Logitech 961399 Labtec Webcam Plus
    LOGITECH 961422-0403 QuickCam Orbit MP Webcam
    Creative Labs Web Camera VF0180EF Live!
    Logitech QuickCam Chat
    Logitech Quickcam Pro 5000
    Logitech 961403-0403 QuickCam Fusion
    Logitech Quickcam Communicate STX
    Logitech Deluxe Quickcam for Notebooks
    Logitech QuickCam Chat for Skype (961556)

Which of these, if any, will "just work"?

I've looked at:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/HCL
and
http://www.linux.com/howtos/Webcam-HOWTO/hardware.shtm

The fedora hardware compatibility list isn't maintained because
it's a rapidly moving target and the webcam howto doesn't give
me a warm fuzzy feeling that I can print it out and go to a local
electronics store and buy a webcam that will just work with fedora.
I don't need a list of webcams - I just want a reference for a
single webcam that is known to work well out of the box with
fedora core drivers and is on store shelves today.

Thanks in advance!

David

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[Mark Fraser]

In article ,
   David L  wrote:
> I'd like to buy a webcam that has good support in fedora, preferably
> without any kernel patches/proprietary drivers. Any suggestions?
> Here are the web cams on my local Office Max shelf (or at least are on
> their web site):

[Snip]

There are a couple of pages of interest that I've found:

http://mxhaard.free.fr/
http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/

The second site does look like they support some of the Logitech devices in
your list, unfortunately I couldn't find anything on the site to download.

[Nigel Henry]

On Wednesday 31 January 2007 21:35, David L wrote:
> I'd like to buy a webcam that has good support in fedora,
> preferably without any kernel patches/proprietary drivers.
> Any suggestions?

I may as well start this off. I hadn't been bothered about a webcam, but my 
local Aldi supermarket had some webcams reduced from 25€ to 5€ so I went for 
one. It was a Lifetec LT9388 using the ov511 driver, and amazingly is 
supported in Linux. I have no problem capturing images with this using 
"Camstream", but Kopete is a bit hit and miss. You need KDE 3.5 to have the 
correct Kopete version to use the webcam. I have little contact with my 2 
contacts on Kopete, so havn't been able to see if I can send webcam images. 
Yoy do have a preview of the webcam image on Kopete, but have to admit that 
this is unreliable. Sometimes I just see a green background with some sort of 
logo on it which is a bit weird, and other times the webcam image is there, 
but very dark, and nothing that I do can get it brighter. These results are 
on FC5, Kubuntu, and Debian Etch.

I also have a TV card using the bttv driver, and normally use Xawtv to watch 
the TV. Xawtv will also display webcam images, but I only was able to view 
them in greyscale. After a bit of Googling I found a fix. Add an option 
to /etc/modprobe.conf, as below.
options ov511 force_palette=15

Webcams appear to have some problems. As I've said, Camstream will capture 
images fine, but the problems seem to be with using the webcam, and instant 
messaging. Kopete from KDE 3.5 and onwards is supposed to work, and also aMSN 
is supposed to work.

I've put some links below.

http://alpha.dyndns.org/ov511/cameras.html
http://webcam.sourceforge.net/
http://tomatlab.videontv.org/webcam/webcamlinux.html
http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/linux/webcam.html
http://www.linux.com/howtos/Webcam-HOWTO/framegrabbers.shtml

Thats about all I can remember for now.

Nigel.

[Rick Stevens]

On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 23:20 +0100, Nigel Henry wrote:
> On Wednesday 31 January 2007 21:35, David L wrote:
> > I'd like to buy a webcam that has good support in fedora,
> > preferably without any kernel patches/proprietary drivers.
> > Any suggestions?
>
> I may as well start this off. I hadn't been bothered about a webcam, but my 
> local Aldi supermarket had some webcams reduced from 25€ to 5€ so I went for 
> one. It was a Lifetec LT9388 using the ov511 driver, and amazingly is 
> supported in Linux. I have no problem capturing images with this using 
> "Camstream", but Kopete is a bit hit and miss. You need KDE 3.5 to have the 
> correct Kopete version to use the webcam. I have little contact with my 2 
> contacts on Kopete, so havn't been able to see if I can send webcam images. 
> Yoy do have a preview of the webcam image on Kopete, but have to admit that 
> this is unreliable. Sometimes I just see a green background with some sort of 
> logo on it which is a bit weird, and other times the webcam image is there, 
> but very dark, and nothing that I do can get it brighter. These results are 
> on FC5, Kubuntu, and Debian Etch.
>
> I also have a TV card using the bttv driver, and normally use Xawtv to watch 
> the TV. Xawtv will also display webcam images, but I only was able to view 
> them in greyscale. After a bit of Googling I found a fix. Add an option 
> to /etc/modprobe.conf, as below.
> options ov511 force_palette=15
>
> Webcams appear to have some problems. As I've said, Camstream will capture 
> images fine, but the problems seem to be with using the webcam, and instant 
> messaging. Kopete from KDE 3.5 and onwards is supposed to work, and also aMSN 
> is supposed to work.
>
> I've put some links below.
>
> http://alpha.dyndns.org/ov511/cameras.html
> http://webcam.sourceforge.net/
> http://tomatlab.videontv.org/webcam/webcamlinux.html
> http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/linux/webcam.html
> http://www.linux.com/howtos/Webcam-HOWTO/framegrabbers.shtml
>
> Thats about all I can remember for now.

I'm using a "Creative Webcam Live!":

[root@prophead VideoStuff]# lsusb
<snip>
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 041e:4036 Creative Technology, Ltd Webcam
Live!/Live! Pro

It uses the gspca driver and seems to work well with video chats
(ekiga), kopete and the lot, at least as far as my (minimal) testing
goes.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     [e-mail] -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-  What's small, yellow and very, VERY dangerous?  The root canary!  -
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Rick Sewill]

On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 12:35 -0800, David L wrote:
> I'd like to buy a webcam that has good support in fedora,
> preferably without any kernel patches/proprietary drivers.
> Any suggestions?
>
> Here are the web cams on my local Office Max shelf (or at
> least are on their web site):
>
> Creative WebCam Live! Pro (VF0080)
>    Creative Labs Live CAM Notebook Pro Webcam (VF0250)
>    Creative Labs VF0070 Live! Ultra WebCam for Notebooks
>    Creative WebCam Live! Ultra (VF0060)
>    Logitech 961399 Labtec Webcam Plus
>    LOGITECH 961422-0403 QuickCam Orbit MP Webcam
>    Creative Labs Web Camera VF0180EF Live!
>    Logitech QuickCam Chat
>    Logitech Quickcam Pro 5000
>    Logitech 961403-0403 QuickCam Fusion
>    Logitech Quickcam Communicate STX
>    Logitech Deluxe Quickcam for Notebooks
>    Logitech QuickCam Chat for Skype (961556)
>
> Which of these, if any, will "just work"?
>
> I've looked at:
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/HCL
> and
> http://www.linux.com/howtos/Webcam-HOWTO/hardware.shtm

I had the experience of buying a webcam, a Logitech QuickCam Express,
from Walmart, that I thought was supported, only to learn Logitech had
changed the chip set, but kept the name QuickCam Express.

I learned, it was important to find out the VendorID/ProductID.

Unfortunately, the VendorID/ProductID is not listed on the package.

The person at http://mxhaard.free.fr/ was very helpful in getting the
webcam to sort of work.  Unfortunately, my knowledge of webcams and
color was so limited I could only help him to a point, and he had to
wait for more knowledgeable people to get this webcam to get the colors
even close to being correct.

Companies release products, under the same name, using different chip
sets.  Each chip set may need a certain amount of driver tweaking or may
need a completely new driver.

I realize my comment does not help answer the original question.
I relate this experience as a cautionary note of what might happen.

[David]

> On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 12:35 -0800, David L wrote:
> > I'd like to buy a webcam that has good support in fedora,
> > preferably without any kernel patches/proprietary drivers.
> > Any suggestions?

[snip]
> I had the experience of buying a webcam, a Logitech QuickCam Express,
> from Walmart, that I thought was supported, only to learn Logitech had
> changed the chip set, but kept the name QuickCam Express.
>
> I learned, it was important to find out the VendorID/ProductID.
>
> Unfortunately, the VendorID/ProductID is not listed on the package.

[snip]
> I realize my comment does not help answer the original question.
> I relate this experience as a cautionary note of what might happen.

Yea, I had a similar experience with a webcam that I bought several
years ago, so I just used it on a Windows box.  But I'm trying to never
boot to the dark side of my hard drive anymore.  I can't seem to find
that old webcam, so I'd like to buy a new one.  I was hoping it was a
little easier to buy one in 2007 with a little bit of confidence that it 
would
actually work under Linux.  But the responses so far seem to
indicate that the webcam development is still mostly done outside of
what's shipped with most Linux distributions.?  I guess I'll just by one
that has the same name as one that was listed in one of the
responses and return it if it doesn't work.

Thanks for the responses.  I will post the results of my adventure.

David

PS - Perhaps webcam and other drivers will be easier to find in
the future because of this:
http://kerneltrap.org/node/7636

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[David]

> In article ,
>    David L  wrote:
> > I'd like to buy a webcam that has good support in fedora, preferably
> > without any kernel patches/proprietary drivers. Any suggestions?
> > Here are the web cams on my local Office Max shelf (or at least are on
> > their web site):
>
> [Snip]
>
> There are a couple of pages of interest that I've found:
>
> http://mxhaard.free.fr/
> http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/

I bought a webcam that was listed as supported at
http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/ ... a Logitech Quickcam Pro
5000.  That was the only one on the shelf
that had been mentioned as being supported.

When I tried it with ekiga, I got an error:

Your driver doesn't seem to support any of the
color formats supported by Ekiga.  Please check
your kernel driver documentation in order to
determine which pallette is supported.

I did some web searching and found that if I
installed the module with trace=15 and stood
on one leg, ekiga would be happy and show
a nice picture (well, as nice a picture as it
could show with me in it) for a little while.
Then it gives the same error message again
and video disappears.  :(

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