Debian Webcam Installation Notes

This document is a rough sketch of steps used to install a webcam obtained from a "EZ Video Chat Kit" at Radio Shack October 2005.

Hardware

The USB camera is 1.1 and can be installed at any working port. Typing lsusb shows:

Bus 005 Device 002: ID 04fc:0561 Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd

which is identified as a "Flexcam 100" camera by the authors of the module in their SourceReadme? file.

Ensure Kernel Headers Installed

The following is for a stock Debian 2.6.12-1-686 kernel.

aptitude install linux-headers-2.6.12-1 linux-headers-2.6.12-1-686
cd /usr/src
ln -s /usr/src/linux-headers-2.5.12-1-686 linux

Compiling and Installing Module

Source is nicely available in Debian sources, so just have to compile and install.

aptitude install spca5xx-source
cd /usr/src/
tar xjvr spca5xx-source.tar.bz
cd /usr/src/modules/spca5xx
make
make install
modprobe videodev
modprobe spca5xx

Make and Enable Video Device

The following command simply makes a appropriate device file in /dev. It may not be necessary, depending on the state of other installed hardware. The chmod command simply opens the video device to all users on the system.

MAKEDEV -v video
chmod 666 /dev/video*

Install and Use Viewer

The authors of the driver module have also written various video output software listed here . The spcaview software does make the best images with these cameras, but there are other packages available to suit requirments for the webcam application. To view the output of the webcam at its full frame size, issue the following command after installing spcaview:

spcaview -s 352x288 -d /dev/video0

---

-- RyanEgeland - 08 Oct 2005