Howto : Quickcam Messenger

[lssoares]

HI guys,

I have my webcam working on gutsy....I will try to describe it. Please experienced people, feel free to correct the steps below....I'm just a beginner.

1) Find out which camera you have...plug in the usb and perform the command: lsusb
in my case:
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:08f5 Logitech, Inc.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

2) find the drivers (google helps a lot!) for the specified ID...my case:
046d:08f5
I found the driver on:
http://home.mag.cx/messenger/
Another good site:
http://http://tuukkat.awardspace.com.../quickcam.html

3) install needed software:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install xawtv
sudo apt-get install qcset

qcset is used on quickcam.sh (shell script from the driver I downloaded)


4) Uncompress the downloaded driver. My case:
tar -zxvf qc-usb-messenger-1.7.tar.gz

5) On the new folder where driver is, there's a file named quickcam.sh, this is the script that will compile and install the driver...I tried running this file several times and got several errors.
I made some workarounds that are not advisable...but it worked. Here are the steps I took:

5a) After some privileges problems while running quickcam.sh, I started running it as root (sudo -s). But be advised this is not the way it should be...I had my mother in law on the living room, asking for me every 5 minutes...

5b) The first error I got was during the driver compilation...something like
error: linux/config.h:File not found
I just created an empty file called config.h on the linux headers folder and reran quickcam.sh:
touch /usr/src/linux-headers-`uname -r`/include/linux/config.h

Just for documentation, my kernel and gcc versions are:
2.6.22-14-generic
gcc version 4.1.3 20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)


5c) The second error I got had something to do with dmesg command on quickcam.sh not being able to find out the device...the message was:
"I will be using ., if there are more cameras I'll not test them."
Instead of "." In my case it should refer to /dev/video0.
You can check this by executing:
dmesg |grep "quickcam: Registered device"

After knowing which device, I made a copy of quickcam.sh and just added the lines in bold:

VIDEODEV=`dmesg | awk '/^quickcam: Registered device:/ { print $4 }' | head -n 1`
[ -z "$VIDEODEV" ] && VIDEODEV=`dmesg | awk '/quickcam: Registered device:/ { print $5 }' | head -n 1`
[ -z "$VIDEODEV" ] && VIDEODEV=`dmesg | awk '/quickcam: Registered device:/ { print $6 }' | head -n 1`

VIDEODEV_REAL="`$REALPATH $VIDEODEV`"

VIDEODEV=/dev/video0
VIDEODEV_REAL=$VIDEODEV

...and reran the script.


5d) The next error was due to qcset not being installed, and it's referenced on the quickcam.sh as in the local path where you run the script....you should change from:
./qcset "$VIDEODEV" -i | head -n 1 | grep 'Logitech QuickCam USB'
to
qcset "$VIDEODEV" -i | head -n 1 | grep 'Logitech QuickCam USB'

and of course...I reran the script.


5e) Add on the end of /etc/modules the module: "modprobe quickcam" (without quotes)
sudo gedit /etc/modules


Sorry I did not have the time to correct the scripts...
Hope this helps.

[NeillHog]

Am I the only person with a camera where the video works but not the microphone.

Camera Quickcam messenger
Bus 005 Device 007: ID 046d:08da Logitech, Inc.
videodev 29312 1 gspca
Kubuntu 7.10

The camera works in Skype and in Ekiga. Both echo services are OK, can see myself and at least in Skype the person at the other end can also see me.

But no internal microphone.
I assume that all the stuff people are writing about drivers is when there is no video. Has anyone else experienced the "no microphone" problem?

Thanks - and have fun!

[encompass]

Woah, wait a minute! Does skype have video support!?

[NeillHog]

Yes! Skype has a new beta version for Linux with video support.
It is definitely beta. With some cameras (mine for example) it crashes after a minute and with some the picture is not good. But it is a move in the right direction and beta is beta right.
Neill

[pianoboy3333]

hey after I run the setup I can get camorama to open, but I get the error "Unable to capture image" in a popup and it closes right after. In addition the skype beta sees I have a camera, but an image does not appear when I try and test it. Help?

Also, when I restart it is no longer registered as a device.

[stansford]

3) install needed software:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install xawtv
sudo apt-get install qcset

qcset is used on quickcam.sh (shell script from the driver I downloaded)


hi,
Anybody know how to get qcset? I tried installing this with apt-get and it didn't have it. I also checked the ubuntu packages site and it didn't seem to know about it either....
Any help appreciated.

[Limulus]

qcset can be found in the qc-usb-utils package (see http://packages.ubuntu.com/qc-usb-utils or Synaptic for more info) or its compiled from the source you can download.

[kris_a]

Maybe I have a different version to the rest of you guys, but mine "Just Works" with Gutsy. I didn't need to compile anything or even change any settings, I get the Video and Mic:

lsusb:
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 046d:08da Logitech, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 046d:c03d Logitech, Inc.

From the previous posts I guess the 08da is the camera part.

The only problem I found was that 2 of the colour channels were swapped when using camorama, but you just need to add the Color Correction filter to correct it. The camera works fine in Skype and Ekiga etc.

Hope that helps somebody
Kris.

[LostinSpacetime]

Hello everybody
I have a (probably basic) question. First to my problem.
My webcam (Logitech Quickcam Messenger) works fine on my system (Ubuntu Feisty Fawn) and after using gstfakevideo, I can use it even in Skype. My problem, is that the picture is far to dark and the auto exposure doesn't work with the driver I have. It looks like the driver used is usbvideo, but I couldn't figure out how/if one can adjust the brightness with this driver. But I found out, that there is a far better driver for this webcam, namely the quickcam-usb driver. After downloading the source, and a "sudo make install" everything seemed to be ok. sudo modprobe quickcam did its job.
Now to my question. In my case I have (at least) two drivers which can handle the webcam. It looks like the device is still using the usbvideo driver. How can I change that???

Please help!!

[Raizor]

For anyone who may have had this problem, like I did, after the initial installation of the driver and then the camera wouldn't work (it simply reported that /dev/video0 was busy) check to see if you have installed the motion package via the Synaptec Package Manager.

If you have this installed, and your camera isn't working properly after reboot, once removed you will get control of your camera back.

Might not help some people, but if it helps someone else then why not post it in the spirit of open source right?!