webcam support?

To my knowledge, knoppix doesn't include a program for live webcam video streaming. (correct me if I'm wrong)

Knoppix needs this!

well more searching has revealed that knoppix has gqcam and xawtv... so I guess I was wrong.. I'll try them out tonight!

I got gqcam & xawtv working but ALAS the other tools in the xawtv package don't seem to be installed.

It would be nice to have the webcam tool in that package!

I am also interested in this wabcamability. thou I have had problems using both my haphaugue tv capture card and Maplins minicam and also my usb camera.

what is the recomended hardware for webcamming?

I have one of the logitech quickcams that were very commonplace for awhile. I found the linux driver at http://qce-ga.sourceforge.net.

BTW I managed to download the xawtv source code and compile the whole package, using only live CD (no HD!) So now I have the webcam program that was part of the xawtv package not included in the knoppix distro.

That sounds groovy!
Dont suppose you can remember how you did it and what problems you came up against?
I feel this forum needs you.

:shock:
no pressure!

Actually I didn't run into any problems, I just downloaded the xawtv source from http://linux.bytesex.org/xawtv and followed the usual compile routine per the readme: configure, make, make install (cant remember the order). I was quite surprised when it sucessfully compiled it with a stock knoppix distro. since I wanted to use the webcam program to periodically take pictures and ftp them to a ftp site, the tricky part was configuring the .webcamrc file in the home directory. see http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/linux/webcam.html for tips on that

Oh after compiling the driverI would save the driver (I named it quickcam.o) to a usb keydrive for easy retrieval after reboot, and I do the following 2 commands to load it.
sudo modprobe videodev
insmod quickcam.o

Here are some more linux webcam links:

ideo4linux mailing list https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listi...deo4linux-list
http://hshanemd.net/docs/HOWTOS/Webc...ices.html#QCAM
http://www.linux.com/howtos/Webcam-HOWTO/devices.shtml
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/VideoLAN-HOWTO/index.html
l

There is a project 'pencam2', formerly 'pencam/ pensnap', to support the Aiptek pencam dual with stv0680/ stv680 chip.

A few years ago I took the sources of that project, and merged them with svgalib, to put liveimages (at a rate of 3pics per second) to the console, which worked not very stable, but somewhat stable: Too fast capturing (> 3 pics/sec) often lead to abortion, while slow capturing (<3 pics/sec) went over hours.

When trying to recompile it for kernel 2.6, I failed - the libusb is making troubles - and I didn't find time to fix it.

my project is called 'vgasnap' and easily found on my homepage or at freshmeat.

At freshmeat you will find nearly everything :)

I finally got xawtv to work, using knoppix 3.6. Now, knoppix works with my old crappy usb camera to some extent.

Problem is, they did not install the actual webcam application that works with xawtv. I tried downloading the .deb, using alien to get it in a .tgz and running it, but there are dep problems. I can't just use apt-get install webcam like the linux webcam faq suggests.

Any ideas? Do I need to download the xawtv package and make the whole thing? I really just need the simple webcam app.

Thanks!

xawtv is SUPPOSED to be able to capture video, but i haven't heard anyone getting this working yet.

I used the webcam utility that comes with xawtv and didn't really care for it too much as (IMHO) it was pretty heavy on the configuration end to get it to do what I wanted. Now using a very simple utility called motion.

http://motion.sourceforge.net/

I run everything from a CD so I carry around a thumbdrive with basic utilities, scripts, and drivers I need. On there I have the logitech quickcam-usb drivers and a compiled motion binary.

There are limitations; motion works on motion detection, so you can't get a standard 30FPS video like you can with some web utilities. However, it does a great job of letting you set the thresh hold sensitivity. When it detects motion, it takes a picture. The resulting jpgs I join together to make a DIVX avi file, or just watch via slide show in kuickshow.

Usually use the command:

./motion -Q -L85

for decent framerate and no annoyin beep everytime a jpg is rendered.

Its not perfect, but it is very small and portable, and I found easiest to deal with. Also great for just testing a webcam.

As a final note, if you want standard 30 FPS avi type video, I do the same sort of thing by carrying around a compiled version of streamer which is part of the mplayer package, but I just use this utility. These files are good quality, but get HUGE quickly (approx 10M a minute rough guess). I never have been able to get mencoder working with my logictech quickcam, keeps skwauking about not having a bttv device attached (duh!). Theortically it should work with better quality and smaller video foot print.

~pau1

Since knoppix 3.6 does not include the webcam app that comes with xawtv, I had to work around it.

I managed to get the webcam application that comes with xawtv to work, but I had to:

1. su to root
2. copy the xawtv source to /home/knoppix and unzip / untar
3. ./configure -prefix /home/knoppix/xawtv; make; make install

Then I could follow the instructions available at:
http://www.aboutdebian.com/webcam.htm
They give you a sampe webcam.conf file and a webcam.htm file you can put in /var/www. This is nice, as you can edit the webcam.htm file to expand your image or speed up the refresh rate, or put text around your image.

The refresh is sorta slow, but that is ok. The only problem is getting the new xawtv distribution copied over every time I reboot to restart the webcam. I was hoping to run it off a default knoppix install, but this is not too bad. Once it starts running, it should run until the power kicks.

And I need to set a password on the webcam.htm file. I assume that will be relatively easy with htpasswd.

Oh, and the 3com vicam based card is flaky. I can run xcam and set the brightnes and color, but xawtv of gqcam may or may not run. Basically, it looks like xcam initializes something that allows the other applications to run, but those applications don't retain those settings so you have to run xcam again.

I have hooked a Logitech webcam to linux26 which is recognised. When I run
gqcam
nothing happens.

Neither anything happens with
xawtv

There are two xawtv programs at multimedia video

xawtv and xawtv (xwatv)

The first one asks for 4 steps and aborts saying no channel found. Anad anyway nothing happens afterwords. Both programs gqcam and xawtv just disappear !!!

Any ideas ?

xcam was the only one of three (xcam, gqcam, xawtv) that worked for me. After I run xcam and change from gray to color, I can run gqcam or xawtv and they work (once). I have to run xcam again to reinitialize.

Try usbview to make sure something is found when your camera is plugged in.\

Try xawtv -hwscan to see if /dev/video0 shows up.

Try building the entire xawtv package... It really is not too bad.

xawtv and gqcam work for my aiptek dual pencam (stv[0]680 chip, no audio), but only a short while, then the whole X11 hangs.
I can switch to a root-console, and kill the process.
Normally my usb-mouse isn't working then, and I have to

Code:

---

rmmod uhci-hcd
modprobe uhci-hcd

---

to get it working again.

I didn't test 'webcam' till now.