How to add a Logitech QuickCam Chat Webcamera to Linux CentOS 5, take snapshots, publish

published Mar 03, 2008 11:06 by admin ( last modified Mar 03, 2008 11:06 )

I have an old Logitech QuickCam web camera lying around so I thought I'd put it to use.

See if Linux recognises it as a USB unit

Run the command lsusb

Gave back among others this line:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 046d:092c Logitech, Inc. QuickCam Chat

46d indicates the vendor and 92c the model.

Install a driver for the Web camera.

Unplug the camera

I found info on this page.

Here it says that the correct driver for my camera is"spca".

Install the spca driver the normal way with the package manager (search for spca).

You may need to add a repository beyone the normal ones, I am not sure.

Check with lsmod that is is loaded as a kernel module.

Module                  Size  Used by
gspca                 650704  1 
videodev               25025  2 gspc

Use dmesg to see that the driver recognises the camera

usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
/root/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: USB GSPCA camera found.(SPCA561A)
/root/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [spca5xx_probe:4275] Camera type S561 
/root/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [spca5xx_getcapability:1249] maxw 352 maxh 288 minw 160 minh 120
/root/gspcav1-20071224/Sunplus/spca561.h: [spca561_init:467] Find spca561 USB Product ID 92c
/root/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [spca5xx_set_light_freq:1932] Sensor currently not support light frequency banding filters.

Check that the video works

Change the permissions of /dev/vide0 (or where it was installed), so that the user running the video application can use it.

Use Videolan client capture to check if you now can see the camera

Install frame capture software

Install cameE.

configure it by copying example.camErc to ~/.camErc

Put camE into daemon mode with the command:

camE -d

I wanted to publish the files to the same computer that captures the frames so I added a public key to the same user as is capturing the images and scp:s that to the web directory of the httpd server.

Läs mer: [LinuxBrit] - camE