Microdia Driver for Webcam

[mooscape]

I have recently purchased a new chinese usb webcam (make Feida, not that it matters) that uses the microdia hardware. The quality in the shop looked good, but it only comes with microsoft drivers. Typing "lsusb" in the Dapper terminal finds it easily enough:

Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0c45:613a Microdia

see attached image.

I have gone through the web on google and on the forums but have not managed to find a way to get this to work.

APPEAL TO THE LINUX GODS !!!!

[Icarosaurus]

No way for making this cam work for now...
We have to wait that someone writes a driver.

I've been In contact with Michel Xhaard who has the driver in his "to do" list, and with Luca who esplicitly asked to donate a cam.

At this point I think the best solution is to donate a cam to luca... our cam is very cheap and 4 or 5 person could buy it without problems...I think.

Best regards...


EDIT: Luca's driver works with a kernel version >= 2.6.19

[GordSellar]

So if we upgrade our kernel to 2.6.19, we can use his driver? If we do, will the cam work with various apps, or just Ekiga (as someone suggested elsewhere, I think)?

And if so, honestly, is upgrading to 2.6.19 a risky thing to try? Should I be worried about crippling my install?

Thanks!

[Icarosaurus]

As everything into linux you should know what you'e doing.
Anyway installing a new kernel is not impossible and there are some guides in this forum.
Intalling a new kernel does not implies you have to delete the old one and you can choose the kernel version at boot for testing.
Drivers should work with every application that supports v4l2.

Which distro do you use?
What's the id of your cam?

Michel Xhaard is working on a v4l2 driver, and (maybe) it will support my Microdia 613a... I hope.

[Icarosaurus]

OUR WEBCAM FINALLY SUPPORTED!
here you can find the latest sn9c1xx driver:
http://www.linux-projects.org/modules/mydownloads/
Thanks to Luca Risolia!

[jcronkhite]

I've followed the instructions in the "sn9c102.txt" file. Unfortunately, I'm not experienced using make. There are references in the file which are definitely above my knowledge. Is there a good step by step tutorial for us "noobs" that might make more sense? I've been searching hi and low with no luck. Thanks!

[Icarosaurus]

Hello,
the installation of the driver is quite simple...it needs just some hint (I've found them on the forum).
I'll make a little howto for you and for my future reference:
1)Download the latest source (sn9c1xx-X.Y.tar.gz) from site:
http://www.linux-projects.org/modules/mydownloads/
2)Untar in a folder, and compile.
Make sure you have downloaded the headers for your kernel from repositories.

make
sudo make install

3) start your driver:

sudo modprobe compat_ioctl32
sudo modprobe sn9c102

4)If you want to start your modules upon system startup, just append the modules into /etc/modules

sudo gedit /etc/modules

add two lines:

compat_ioctl32
sn9c102

and save.
5)Try rebooting the system and see if it works.
typing:

dmesg | grep SN9

you should see something like this

[   37.760287] sn9c102: V4L2 driver for SN9C1xx PC Camera Controllers v1:1.48
[   37.893405] usb 2-3: SN9C120 PC Camera Controller detected (vid:pid 0x0C45:0x613A)

I suggest using the "videoview" program you can find in that site.It's a V4L2 program. Unfortunately most of the programs are V4L1 and the camera will not work within them.
I can use the camera in amsn, but I have to change settings with videoview first because amsn can't control the camera (gives some error).

Let me know!
Bye...

[jcronkhite]

Thanks for the step by step! I'll give this a shot as soon as I can and will post my results here. Thanks again!

[jcronkhite]

Works great now! Hope to see more applications support VL2 soon. Thanks again!

[stevespam]

Hi Icarosauros!

I own an ACER Notebook (Aspire 5050 Series), which has integrated webcam, as LSUSB showed me:

Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0c45:6260 Microdia

So, i've just followed your tutorial on how to install this device (yes, i've skipped the readme file), since your step-by-step guide worked both for you and jcronkhite, but unfortunately it didn't worked for me...

So, after following all your instructions and typed:

dmesg | grep SN9

I get only this:

steve@feisty:~$ dmesg | grep SN9
[   33.734742] sn9c102: V4L2 driver for SN9C1xx PC Camera Controllers v1:1.48
steve@feisty:~$

Tried to Start CAMorama, but it returns me the error:

Could not connect to video device. (/dev/video0).

Do you have any idea of what i've been missing?

Just made a quick view of the readme file (doesn't helps to much, because i'm very new to this) and I saw something about "editing your kernel" to support "Video4Linux and USB", do you think this has something to do about my problem?

The following options of the kernel configuration file must be enabled and
corresponding modules must be compiled:

	# Multimedia devices
	#
	CONFIG_VIDEO_DEV=m

To enable advanced debugging functionality on the device through /sysfs:

	# Multimedia devices
	#
	CONFIG_VIDEO_ADV_DEBUG=y

On the contrary, to disable the debugging functionality, it's necessary to both
set CONFIG_VIDEO_ADV_DEBUG=n and remove its definition from the Kbuild file
provided with the SN9C1xx driver.

	# USB support
	#
	CONFIG_USB=m

In addition, depending on the hardware being used, the modules below are
necessary:

	# USB Host Controller Drivers
	#
	CONFIG_USB_EHCI_HCD=m
	CONFIG_USB_UHCI_HCD=m
	CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD=m

The SN9C103, SN9C105 and SN9C120 controllers also provide a built-in microphone
interface. It is supported by the USB Audio driver thanks to the ALSA API:

	# Sound
	#
	CONFIG_SOUND=y

	# Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
	#
	CONFIG_SND=m

	# USB devices
	#
	CONFIG_SND_USB_AUDIO=m

Sorry, i'm a new user to ubuntu, the main reason i'm annoying you with this question... any kind of reply/hint/post will be more than appreciated.

Thanks.