[Gllug] All I want for Christmas is.....

[Simon Morris]

....a working webcam.

I bought a webcam on the weekend that initially looked like it was
going to work out of the box.

Took my laptop into the shop tailed /var/log/messages and saw some
encouraging entries

Dec  8 10:02:44 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: new full speed USB device
using address 2
Dec  8 10:02:45 localhost kernel: Linux video capture interface: v1.00
Dec  8 10:02:45 localhost kernel: sn9c102: V4L2 driver for SN9C10[12]
PC Camera Controllers v1:1.01-beta
Dec  8 10:02:45 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: SN9C10[12] PC Camera
Controller detected (vid/pid 0x0C45/0x600D)
Dec  8 10:02:45 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: PAS106B image sensor detected
Dec  8 10:02:46 localhost usb.agent[5800]:      sn9c102: loaded successfully
Dec  8 10:02:46 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: Initialization succeeded
Dec  8 10:02:46 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: V4L2 device registered as /dev/video0
Dec  8 10:02:46 localhost kernel: usbcore: registered new driver sn9c102

so all looks good. No video apps work with it at all though. They
can't access /dev/video0 even as root, and even with the mode changed
for non-root users.

If I cat /dev/video0 I get the expected stream of characters, but by
covering and uncovering the lens you can see the data changing. So i
guess the camera works!

[it's actually quite cool and matrix like. I considered training
myself to view webcam images through the medium of ACSII but I should
really be getting it working properly also]

According to a mailing list post* the problem is that this driver is
for Video for Linux 2... most apps don't support this yet.

So what can I do? I'd like to get it working without having to wait
for new releases of apps to come out.

Camera is a Chicony TwinkleCam
OS is Ubuntu latest release
Kernel 2.6.8.1-3-386

* http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2004-November/msg00423.html

Thanks

~sm
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