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Simon Waters wrote: | | I've scheduled this for when I upgrade to 2.6, I think anyone else doing | this would be well advised to go to a recent version of the 2.6 kernel | immediately to get the best from the webcam. But I just need some images | for a web page at the moment, so 2.6, and bandwidth hungry images can | wait for me, beside ADSL don't get here till at least July :(
Built a bespoke kernel with the 2.6.11 source tar ball using the Debian kernel-package tools. Installed home make kernel-image package.
Used the script in /usr/share/doc/module-init-tools/examples to build an /etc/modprobe.conf.
Installed package "discover" to help with hardware detection now I have 2.6 package.
Installed package "udev" (not that it made much difference for what I'm doing currently.
Downloaded and built the latest PWC driver from source as it is no longer in the kernel. Once I resolve USB issues with the new kernel (enabling USB support is a good start, but not enabling isn't as obvious as you might expect).
insmod pwc.ko - as if by magic 640x480 webcam pictures from the 840K looking good in camstream and gnomemeeting. Looking rubbish in gqcam, just like the outstanding bug in gqcam in fact....
The kernel driver was a no hoper with this hardware. Downloaded the lastest of the 1.x series from the maintainers site. Built and run and got a decent image in "gqcam" but it refuses to play with gnomemeeting, or camstream.
Not happy with this I tried the latest 2.x series drivers, which required i2c (?!?!) support in the kernel. Oops rebuild again.
The 2.x drivers make the image from the 820K go wrong in gqcam, just like it's big brother the 840K, but don't resolve the other issues, so I backed down to the latest 1.x series drivers 1.65-1.11
Both sets of drivers I had to edit the source code for because the kernel API changed between 2.6.10 and 2.6.11!
Well it isn't clear what is bad apps, and what is bad support, but either way the end user experience sucks badly. Obviously commercially people should sort these issues before claiming a camera is supported but even with cameras with supposedly "good support" you disappear into the minutae of compiling your own drivers to get even halfway decent support.
(Fairly) recent software makes life a lot easier for configuring regular peripherals, but there is still a long way to go.
It is easier to do a kernel upgrade from 2.4 to 2.6 than getting a PVCV 820K webcam to work well. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
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