Does Skype support v4l2?

[meindian523]

I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 64 bit,and downloaded Skype from their site.I downloaded the Dynamic option,and extracted it into /opt.Everything works except my webcam which is a v4l2 device

easwarh@l1nuxr0cks:~$ lsusbeaswarh@l1nuxr0cks:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0ac8:305b Z-Star Microelectronics Corp. ZC0305 WebCam
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
easwarh@l1nuxr0cks:~$

I have downloaded the v4l drivers and compiled them,the webcam (as verified by Cheese)works but only so long as a reboot/hibernate.As far as I've tried,Skype doesn't work with my webcam.

Does Skype work with v4l2 devices?
And does anyone have any explanation to "The case of the missing drivers"?

In short,is the problem of Skype not able to use my webcam,Skype's fault because it can't deal with v4l2 or is it due to the drivers going missing now and then?

I'm real tired of compiling v4l again and again........

[Tim Sharitt]

The Z-Star Microelectronics Corp. ZC0301 WebCam is on the list of know non-working web cams at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SkypeWebCams.

I don't know what might have change from the ZC0301 to the ZC0305, but there is a good chance you may be fighting a lost cause for now.

[meindian523]

List of "Fiddle to get Working" webcams has my webcam has the last but one entry,though I'll have to check my Skype version,and the test was with 7.10 (and 64 bit!)

Vimicro/ZC0305
7.10
0ac8:305b
gspca v. 20071224
(AMD64) Works with skype 2.0.0.68

[meindian523]

My Skype is 2.0.0.72.
Thanks for the list though.

[Tim Sharitt]

Sorry, I didn't know the Vimicro was the same as the one as yours.

Do you have the 20071224 version of the gspca driver compiled and installed?

[meindian523]

I've the gspca-source package from the Ubuntu repositories installed,which is version 01.00.20-1.Which version corresponds to gspca version 20071224 though,I don't know.I have downloaded the source drivers 20071224,and tried to compile them,wherein I ran into this problem:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1015043
which has a duplicate,as far as I could see,though I didn't verify the error line by line here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1015611

whereupon I tried PartyBoi's solution and ran into the error mentioned by sangandongo in the last post.Again,I haven't verified the error line by line.As you can see,there has been no lack of tries.

[Tim Sharitt]

Try this. It may not work, but it may give more information on how to fix it.

Untar a clean version on the tarball in Partyboi2's post and apply the patch.

Instead of using the build script, just run make in the source directory. Post the output if there is an error.

I had no errors building the driver, so it may be an x86_64 issue. Maybe we can come up with a solution by dissecting the errors.

[meindian523]

easwarh@l1nuxr0cks:~/Path1/gspcav1-20071224$ make
make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build SUBDIRS=/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224 CC=cc modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-9-generic'
  CC [M]  /home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.o
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c:54:27: error: asm/semaphore.h: No such file or directory
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: In function ‘spca5xx_ioctl’:
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c:2466: error: implicit declaration of function ‘video_usercopy’
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: At top level:
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c:2607: error: ‘v4l_compat_ioctl32’ undeclared here (not in a function)
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c:2612: error: unknown field ‘owner’ specified in initializer
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c:2612: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c:2614: error: unknown field ‘type’ specified in initializer
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: In function ‘spca50x_create_sysfs’:
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c:2772: error: implicit declaration of function ‘video_device_create_file’
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c:2783: error: implicit declaration of function ‘video_device_remove_file’
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: In function ‘spca5xx_probe’:
/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c:4314: error: incompatible types in assignment
make[2]: *** [/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-9-generic'
make: *** [default] Error 2
easwarh@l1nuxr0cks:~/Path1/gspcav1-20071224$

[Tim Sharitt]

Did you apply the patch from here? asm/semaphore.h is being used, but it should be linux/semaphore.h.

[meindian523]

easwarh@l1nuxr0cks:~/Path1/gspcav1-20071224$ patch < /home/easwarh/Path1/gspca.patch
Path1/
easwarh@l1nuxr0cks:~/Path1/gspcav1-20071224$ patch < /home/easwarh/Path1/gspca.patch
patching file gspca_core.c
patching file gspca.h
easwarh@l1nuxr0cks:~/Path1/gspcav1-20071224$ make
make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build SUBDIRS=/home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224 CC=cc modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-9-generic'
  CC [M]  /home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.o
  CC [M]  /home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/decoder/gspcadecoder.o
  LD [M]  /home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca.o
  Building modules, stage 2.
  MODPOST 1 modules
  CC      /home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca.mod.o
  LD [M]  /home/easwarh/Path1/gspcav1-20071224/gspca.ko
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-9-generic'
easwarh@l1nuxr0cks:~/Path1/gspcav1-20071224$

I assume there are no errors.