Get Your Webcam Working with GSPCA
August 6th, 2008 by Elliot Isaacson
Webcams are notorious for their lack of support under Linux. But thanks to GSPCA, many webcams now have functional V4L drivers. This tutorial covers the building, installation, and configuration of the GSPCA drivers, including how to adjust color balance and brightness directly at the kernel module level.
__________________________
Special Magazine Offer -- 2 Free Trial Issues!
Receive 2 free trial issues of Linux Journal as well as instant online access to current and past issues. There's NO RISK and NO OBLIGATION to buy. CLICK HERE for offer
Linux Journal: delivering readers the advice and inspiration they need to get the most out of their Linux systems since 1994.
Sorry, offer available in the US only. International orders, click here.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
TechnoratiSubscribe now!
The Latest
Featured Videos
Linux Journal Live - eBook Readers and DRM
November 14th, 2008 by Shawn Powers in
The November 13, 2008 edition of Linux Journal Live! Shawn Powers and special guest, Linux Journal Author Daniel Bartholomew, talk e-book readers and Daniel's Kindle, DRM, and other goodness.
Run Your Windows Partition Without Rebooting
November 13th, 2008 by Elliot Isaacson in
Dual booting is a necessary evil and very inconvenient. What if you could run your windows partition in a virtual machine, so you wouldn't have to worry about rebooting anymore? With VMWare Workstation, you can.
Recently Popular
From the Magazine
December 2008, #176
The Oxford English Dictionary says the word "gadget" is a placeholder name for a technical item whose precise name one can't remember. Like that book-reader thingy from Amazon...what's it called? Spindle, Gindle...Kindle, that's it. Check it out in this month's gadget issue.
Other gadgets covered include the Nokia tablets, the BlackBerry, the Neo FreeRunner, the Dash Express, the Roku Netflix Player, the Kangaroo TV, The TomTom GO 930 and the MooBella Ice Cream System. On the larger hardware front, read the reviews of the Acer Aspire One and the YDL PowerStation. On the software front, check out the articles and columns on memcached, Samba security, Mutt, desktop gadgets, bash and Puppet. To wrap it all up, read Doc's thoughts on Google and the browser platform.
Error
On October 9th, 2008 Nedim (not verified) says:
I get this error :
make
make: sdl-config: Command not found
cc -DUSE_SDL -O2 -DLINUX -DHAVE_LIBJPEG=1 -c -o spcagui.o spcagui.c
In file included from spcagui.c:23:
gui.h:11:21: error: SDL/SDL.h: No such file or directory
gui.h:12:23: error: SDL_image.h: No such file or directory
In file included from spcagui.c:23:
gui.h:41: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before ‘SDL_Surface’
gui.h:51: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before ‘SDL_Surface’
gui.h:63: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before ‘SDL_Surface’
gui.h:76: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘...’ before ‘SDL_Surface’
gui.h:79: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘...’ before ‘SDL_Surface’
gui.h:87: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘...’ before ‘SDL_Surface’
gui.h:90: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘...’ before ‘SDL_Surface’
gui.h:99: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘...’ before ‘SDL_Surface’
gui.h:102: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘...’ before ‘SDL_Surface’
gui.h:105: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘...’ before ‘SDL_Surface’
In file included from spcagui.c:26:
utils.h:22:21: error: jpeglib.h: No such file or directory
spcagui.c:224: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘...’ before ‘SDL_Surface’
spcagui.c: In function ‘refresh_screen’:
spcagui.c:238: error: ‘Screen’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:238: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
spcagui.c:238: error: for each function it appears in.)
spcagui.c: In function ‘telecom’:
spcagui.c:289: error: ‘SDL_Surface’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:289: error: ‘screen’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:291: error: ‘Uint32’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:291: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘video_flags’
spcagui.c:292: error: ‘SDL_Event’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:292: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘event’
spcagui.c:295: error: ‘lib_flags’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:295: error: ‘SDL_INIT_VIDEO’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:297: error: ‘video_flags’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:297: error: ‘SDL_HWPALETTE’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:297: error: ‘SDL_DOUBLEBUF’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:315: error: too many arguments to function ‘draw_button’
spcagui.c:316: error: too many arguments to function ‘draw_button’
spcagui.c:317: error: too many arguments to function ‘draw_button’
spcagui.c:318: error: too many arguments to function ‘draw_button’
spcagui.c:319: error: too many arguments to function ‘draw_button’
spcagui.c:320: error: too many arguments to function ‘draw_button’
spcagui.c:321: error: too many arguments to function ‘draw_potentiometre’
spcagui.c:322: error: too many arguments to function ‘draw_potentiometre’
spcagui.c:323: error: too many arguments to function ‘draw_potentiometre’
spcagui.c:324: error: too many arguments to function ‘draw_control’
spcagui.c:325: error: too many arguments to function ‘draw_control’
spcagui.c:329: error: ‘event’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:332: error: ‘SDL_MOUSEMOTION’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:343: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_potentiometre’
spcagui.c:352: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_potentiometre’
spcagui.c:360: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_potentiometre’
spcagui.c:368: error: ‘SDL_MOUSEBUTTONUP’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:376: error: ‘SDL_MOUSEBUTTONDOWN’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:404: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_control’
spcagui.c:411: error: too many arguments to function ‘refresh_control’
spcagui.c:414: error: too many arguments to function ‘refresh_control’
spcagui.c:422: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_control’
spcagui.c:431: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_potentiometre’
spcagui.c:439: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_potentiometre’
spcagui.c:446: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_potentiometre’
spcagui.c:461: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_button’
spcagui.c:473: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_button’
spcagui.c:477: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_button’
spcagui.c:482: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_button’
spcagui.c:488: error: too many arguments to function ‘process_button’
spcagui.c: In function ‘processvideo’:
spcagui.c:504: error: ‘SDL_Surface’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:504: error: ‘screen’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:505: error: ‘Uint32’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:505: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘video_flags’
spcagui.c:506: error: ‘SDL_Event’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:506: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘event’
spcagui.c:508: error: ‘lib_flags’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:508: error: ‘SDL_INIT_VIDEO’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:509: error: ‘video_flags’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:509: error: ‘SDL_HWPALETTE’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:509: error: ‘SDL_DOUBLEBUF’ undeclared (first use in this function)
spcagui.c:583: error: too many arguments to function ‘refresh_screen’
make: *** [spcagui.o] Error 1
My o.s. is Ubuntu 8.04
final glitch
On September 21st, 2008 embee (not verified) says:
I followed the tutorial until running ./gspca_build, modules were added properly. I checked the support chart for extra assurance, and it's supported alright (Sonix with *** for support). However, when I run spcagui -d /dev/video0, it spews back an error "wrong device".
Any idea where I messed up?
Thanks for your help & awesome tutorial.
Those URLS
On August 21st, 2008 bobbyratliff says:
Here are the wget commands he used:
wget http://mxhaard.free.fr/spca50x/Download/gspcav1-20071224.tar.gzwget http://mxhaard.free.fr/spca50x/Download/spcagui20060127.tar.gz
Sadly this driver has three
On August 7th, 2008 Cláudio da Silveira Pinheiro (not verified) says:
Sadly this driver has three big caveats: The first one is it implements support for V4L version 1, an API that was deprecated by the time of Linux kernel's 2.4.0 release. It doubles a developer's work trying to support a wide range of devices. The second one is about some devices advertising support for pixel formats those devices in fact don't support, a bug that may make your skin look blue (as setting an RGB mode and getting a BGR image without notice). The third one is the fact the driver doesn't handle gracefully device unplugging while in use, making programs freeze instead of recovering from the device disconnection.
These questions were discussed with Michel Xhaard (gspca maintainer) but with less than stellar results.
Mr. Xhaard brought a lot of goodness to Linux for webcam users, and he got a lot of positive karma by doing so, but maybe he could make developers' lives easier. :)
Post new comment