What a trip…I decided to see if I could get a webcam running properly under Ubuntu. The answer was eventually yes, but it was a little bit of work.

First of all I did a little homework and found that Logitech webcams were the most likely to be recognized by Linux. The company, bless ‘em, works with the linux community to provide the rest of us with the correct drivers. There’s a very nice list of supported webcams here, it’s worth checking this out first. Some webcams will work “out of the box”, but most will probably need to have either spca5xx (linux kernel versions prior to 2.6.11) or gspcav1 (versions after, which includes Ubuntu’s Edgy Eft).

Now, as far as IM’s go, there are pretty much two choices: amsn (for MSN, which I didn’t even bother with, because I don’t even have an msn account) and kopete which supports both MSN and Yahoo (among others), with webcam support on MSN/Yahoo protocols. I have a Yahoo account (as does my friend with whom I tested) so that’s what I used.

I ordered the Logitech (QuickCam Chat) and in the meantime tested out receiving the images from my friend (who ran hers on the regular Yahoo application from her Windows XP setup). The initial trial run was disappointing as all I ever got from her webcam was the first still in the stream and nothing further. Upon some investigation, which included the helpful folks at the kopete-devel mailing list, who informed me that my version, 0.12.3, needed to be updated to 0.12.4.

At this point, I got a little bit confused, because I could find no deb (or other) package for kopete 0.12.4, and when I said that, the response was “There is no separate tarball.” After puzzling over that for a while, I realized what they meant was that it was all rolled in with KDE itself. That is to say, if I upgraded from KDE 3.5.5 (which is what’s in the Ubuntu Edgy Eft 6.10 distribution) to KDE 3.5.6, kopete 0.12.4 would come bundled with that. Oy. After noodling around that one for a while, I found these partial instructions for Kubuntu (other dists can look here). Once I incorporated the Riddell key, used the synaptic package manager to add one of the listed repositories (not forgetting to reload) and then, the important part, running the following command on the terminal:

sudo apt-get upgrade kubuntu-desktop

With that, I now had KDE 3.5.6 and by extension the upgraded kopete on my system. Woot! And when I fired up the connection with my friend, after a little fiddling on both our parts, her stream came through loud and clear. Double woot!!

So now the second part, getting it to recognize MY webcam (which had arrived yesterday ). This went more quickly but was a bit wonkier. First of all, I had to install and use the gspcav1 wrapper. I followed both these sets of instructions more or less (I skipped some of the setup because my system is already set up to compile things): here and here. I have no idea why there are instructions for installing spca5xx on Edgy as the linux kernel on Edgy (check with uname -r on the command line) precludes the use of spca5xx. Use the first set of instructions if you’re installing the older spca5xx stuff for linux kernels prior to 2.6.11; the second set if you’re installing gspcav1. But note that either way you’ll modprob something called spca5xx so don’t let that surprise you.

And this time, my webcam was up and running and ran just fine on kopete to my friend’s screen. So it was all quite good. The only issue left is whether or not the webcam can be set somehow to be less choppy. It’s really got a horrendous refresh rate, and it must be possible to clear that up a bit? If any of you have suggestions, please feel free to let me know.

Hope this helped someone out. My understanding is that webcameras and the like remain a weak spot in Linux, and it’s certainly true nothing worked out of the box (I do understand some webcams do not need the spca5xx/gspcav1 wrapper, and do work when plugged in, so it might be worth finding those; I was a cheapskate and got the cheapest camera that seemed to work alright.) However, it wasn’t too bad getting it to work; the worst part was finding all the information.

I also made use of a nice quick little tool just to verify that the webcam worked (for some reason my friend isn’t at her computer 24/7 with HER webcam for testing purposes…) called camorama which I found available in the synaptic package manager as well. It was a handy utility to verify that the webcam was indeed working.

Funny how ubiquitous IM is, isn’t it? I even regularly IM my co workers who are right down the hallway from me. It’s easier to ping questions and check what the latest status of things are, without actually having to get up and gasp walk down several meters to his office. Then again, I casually chat with people around the world at all sorts of odd times.

My favorite program is Gaim. I like it for a number of reasons, but two primary ones are that it’s cross platform, so I can run it on my windows (at work) and linux (everything else) installations, and not have to familiarize myself with two different programs. (There’s not a version for mac, unfortunately, but I understand Adium is a derivation.) The second reason is that it is multi protocol, meaning that I can stash my AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, and other Jabber ID’s all in one spot, again instead of running a separate IM application for each account I’ve got.

About my only complaint, and the impetus for this post, is that Gaim does not yet support video (eg with a webcam). The developers say that it’s planned for 3.0, but inasmuch as we are just reaching 2.0 and there’s no timeline in place, I have no idea when this will come out. There was a gaim-vv fork at one point, but that seems to have disappeared, folded back into the main project for the later release.

Now it appears that using a webcam on Linux is slightly tricky, but to start with, one must at least have an IM application of some sort that supports it. Which led me to Kopete. Now, I’m willfully ignoring the little voice in my head that persists in saying “kaopectate” as I download this little puppy and check him out. [Interestingly, this project also shares configuration stuff with Adium, might check that out a bit.]

If you’re running ubuntu, kopete is readily available in the repositories and is advertised to understand video. I’ve been playing with it, and it’s a nice little piece of eye candy so far. I like the interface and the colours and such. The cutest part may be the excited cheerleader swirl you get in the system tray if you’ve got it all shut down off the desktop and you get an incoming message. It seems to be pretty robust all around, and although I like Gaim’s interface better (it’s much more compact in the chat panel), it seems pretty extensively customizable, so there’s probably a configuration I can find that I like.

(The webcam is currently in the mail somewhere between Amazon.com and me, so that part of the post is later.)

Kopete webcam Howto.

One of the things I’ve thought about here for a while is expanding this blog slightly beyond computer geekery. There really are a wide range of things I’m a geek about and I’d like to discuss some of these other things.

In an era of looming global warming plus post oil peak considerations, I’m extremely interested in alternative forms of energy, not to mention general conservation, recycling, and so on. For example, I recently replaced my aging about-to-die washing machine with the most energy efficient one I could find. My next car may very well be a hybrid (although I run my cars into the ground, so that will be a ways off in any case).

I came across this new concept in home solar energy and I’m extremely interested in it. As you can see from their website, the basic idea is that they rent you the panels for a fixed rental fee. In exchange, they take care of the installation, the reverse metering, get excess eletricity that you generate. It may sound pie in the sky, but as they point out, this is exactly the same concept behind the nearly free cellphones you get these days. What? They GIVE you a cellphone for practically FREE? What’s the catch? Well, the money is in the service plan. They’re applying the same concept here; what they are after is the service plan that’s set up. I’m giving this some serious consideration.

However, there are a number of things I want to know, which their site doesn’t go into. Who are the people behind this company? What is their previous experience and background? Who are the people or organizations that are funding them or have invested in their company? What is their business plan? I’m trying to find out details like this before going further.

If any of you know anything more about this company, please feel free to comment… I’ll update as I learn more.

They’ve been working overtime…2.1 was released a couple of days ago and as usual, its best to update as soon as possible. One of the nice things about this upgrade is that it includes the latest Akismet. Which along with Bad Behavior (verified good for 2.1) will help cut your spam right out.

This is a major upgrade, so Mark on Wordpress didn’t create convenient diff files this time. Instead, follow the instructions over at wordpress: Upgrading Wordpress which are clear and straightforward.

All my plugins were fine with the upgrade, and while that of course won’t be true for ALL plugins, chances are you probably won’t have too much issue with that.

Perhaps a version for women, but still: