Any good webcams +webcam software for linux.

Post Reply New Topic

As a recent linux convert I was wondering about webcam and webcam support in linux. Which brands should I get or avoid as well as what software will work best.

Hm. What do you intend to use the webcam for? Video chat? There are a number of programs for that, the most obvious being the one VoIP that comes bundled in Ubuntu... the name eludes me at the moment. There are a few dedicated video-chat programs, and the most I can tell you on that front is just to avoid Skype.

I think most third-party webcams would work just fine. I haven't seen a whole ton of forum threads whining about nonfunctional webcams, so I assume they aren't broken in Linux.

A while back, I picked up a cheap (£10) webcam from PCWorld. It didn't work under Linux. I had a quick play with patching the driver to accept it, but didn't worry too much. After a couple of months, it worked. It had been added to the list of cameras the driver knew about. End of story.

Webcams just go through the V4L stuff, so there's no great problem with using them - provided a driver recognises them.

As to what you want to do with the camera... I've been streaming a puny pencam out over the internet for a couple of years. My Acer Aspire One's camera is moderately better quality, and works fine with Skype. Capturing videos is trivial. There's some motion detection software knocking about. What else do you want?

most logitech cameras work well in linux, infact most cameras work well.

I havent had any issue in most anything I've used in a while, it all just seems to work out of box.

Rocketfish web cam works. I gave mine to my sister, and my brother uses one too.

I have two dynex web cams as well, and they work. 20-30 bucks for this. The rocketfishes are a little more.

The most important thing to know is that the guts are what counts.

open a terminal and type lsusb

you will get a reading of the usb devices

my dynex shows as

19ff:0102 Best Buy

taking the binary for that, look up drivers.

You may find that camorama activates it, or not. likewise cheese web cam booth. I find cheese better. Both are in the add programs list.

Off to work I go.