Tuesday, February 05, 2008

 

Webcam, Video Chat, and Linux

I have been delaying purchasing a webcam for past one and a half years. Reason, I don't have windows. And webcams don't work on Linux. And even if they do, MSN is the only IM service you can use (via kopete) for video chat. Well no longer.

Today I purchased a Logitech QuickCam Communicate STX after installing windows on my home desktop. Surprisingly, it works without any pain on my SuSE 10.3 desktop. All I did was to install the driver rpm by adding the repository http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/drivers:/webcam/openSUSE_10.3 followed by installation of RPMs containing string spca. The installed rpms were, gspcav-kmp-default, gspcav1-kmp-default, and spaca5xx-kmp-default. Reboot after installation of the driver made Linux recognize the camera.

Now to use the webcam for video chat, there were two options: MSN via Kopete or Skype via their recently released beta 2.0 client. I prefer skype.

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# posted by nileshbansal @ 11:30 pm - -   -bookmark at -del.icio.us   del.icio.us -
Comments:
Don-t be daft. Webcams work fine in Linux. In fact recent research showed that Linux is the os with the most hardware supported. If you want a good MSN client turn AMSN it-s as good, if not better due to the lack of commercials, as live messenger. Peace.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 5:42 pm, January 31, 2009
 
Hi! I have used skype on linux it detects it, but there are a lot of problems with voice there is a lot of disturbance.
# posted by Blogger SATYAANVESHI : 3:14 am, August 18, 2009
 
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
# posted by Blogger Adi : 7:32 am, November 24, 2009
 
tinychat and stickam dont work in linux, for broadcasting. somebody needs to fix it. you cant change the settings you need to change, like clicking Allow on the webcam access. "you clicked close without enabling your cam and mic" but i didnt even click close. this is in every linux i've tried. someone should make a GUI that is just a linux kernel, latest firefox, latest flash player, latest java. and all of those things fully functional. test it out on tinychat, stickam, and quakelive. and get the native ventrilo client from mangler.org working in it. all it needs are its dependencies and it will work fine. throw in Gparted, an installer, Xchat or something like that, optional. those last few could be optional addons through the package manager, if it is a minimalistic, yet fully functional live cd
# posted by Blogger Unknown : 2:44 am, December 09, 2009
 
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
# posted by Blogger Daniela : 10:59 pm, December 10, 2009
 
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