Linux WebCam Software?

Who_Sez asks: "I'm interested in setting up a Linux based webcam, however the solutions I've been seeing are either very convoluted in execution, or the referring sites appear to be out of date. Can anyone recommend a webcam package that runs on Linux? I don't really care what distro is required but I'm familiar with Fedora, Yellow Dog, and Ubuntu. I guess I would be considered a 'mid-level user' with regard to experience. Is there a web cam software package that is a fairly complete solution that is also pretty easy to configure (preferably with a GUI)? Also, some suggestions for compatible webcam hardware would be welcome. I'd like to be able to do this on the cheap, and would love to be able to brag about setting up a Linux web cam. Any help here would be appreciated. Thanks!"

Comments

Here you go:

[Wisgary]

Here you go! Now go brag about your awesome google, er, webcam setup skills.

Re:Here you go:

[bradkittenbrink]

dude, you misspelled http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com/search.pl?query =linux+webcam+software

New here? Tell him about the Pool on the roof

[seann]

You can always just hook up a regular video camera to an ATI Rage All-in-One TV Capture Card (AGP works best!)

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense! 2006 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!

What exactly are you looking for?

[Craig Maloney]

Are you looking for something that will just pop up a semi-frequently updated shot, or are you looking for streaming media? They are pretty different requirements. Also, you didn't mention what kind of camera you'll be running. It's been my experience that the USB cameras out there require a bit of work to get running under Linux. (And some won't even reward you with pictures after considerable effort).

Re:What exactly are you looking for?

[CableModemSniper]

There is. Its called appropriately enough webcam. There's no GUI afaik, but the config file is really simple. It sounds like exactly what you want. apt-get install webcam will grab it in Ubuntu for sure.

Re:What exactly are you looking for?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.exploits.org/v4l/

scroll down, webcam stuff good luck!

Re:What exactly are you looking for?

[Craig Maloney]

Well, I wrote a webcam Perl script called "Poor Man's Cam" (http://decafbad.net/pmcam), but unfortunately it requires that you have a program to grab the images already. Once that's taken care of, the rest is pretty straightforward.

Hope this helps!

Re:What exactly are you looking for?

[moro_666]

yeah the webcam thing is quite fine for the purpose. i have a logitech quickcam here (had to build the kernel module by hand from sources found by google) but it works with the webcam application.

webcam can be set to react on image changes and a simple shell 5liner can be written which checks if the file has been modified since last upload and uploads it into the server via curl&http.

that's as simple as it can be, 1 kernel module, 1 application, 1 shell script.

you could also use the builtin features of webcam to upload images but using ftp is a bit too insecure for my case :)

motion

[ender_the_hegamon]

I use motion http://www.lavrsen.dk/twiki/bin/view/Motion/WebHom e, an application which detects motion within your camera's field of vision and then either takes still images or moving video captures of the scene. Great for paranoid security or annoying your roomate.

Axis

[linuxwrangler]

I'm interested in setting up a Linux based webcam

Step 1: Buy an Axis.

Step 2: There is no step 2.

The Axis is what you asked for. It is pre-packaged, embedded-linux-based, open (you can edit the scripts on the device if you want) and very easy to set-up and configure (sometimes as easy as plug in camera, access camera from browser).

Except ...

[A nonymous Coward]

The 210/211 are as nice as they come, except you can't set up the motion detection unless you use Internet Exploder. It flatly refuses to work with Firefox.

An amazing sucky for such a nice camera which runs Linux internally. I tried to get answers from Axis about why and what workaround existed, such as tell me the format of the motion detection files and how to upload them, I would edit manually if I could, but their response was vague and did not answer the question.

The old 2100 has an ftp option, so I had my own motion detection software which simply downloaded pictures and did its own analysis. There is no ftp option with the 210/211.

Camsource

[Leknor]

Camsource: http://camsource.sourceforge.net/ has met my needs in the past. It's rather flexible and should work with any Video4Linux cam. (I had a USB webcam) It supports making the cam images available in a variety of formats and can do archiving, motion detection, ftp uploading, multipart streaming and probably more.

Re:Axis - not the only player in cyberspace

[JohnnyGTO]

Only one of about 20 decent choices out there :-) and almost all have some form of web services embedded in their OS. For a decent list of manufactures check out this list of supported hardware over at Milestone. FYI we sell it and the hardware but the list covers many of the top players. Also there is IndigoVision, VCS/Bosch and Smart Sight for those trips in to analog to digital to analog transmition.

Ekiga

[iamstan]

Ekiga, formerly known as gnomemeeting, is a full SIP Phone as well as a videoconferencing application. It works with usb webcams as well as firewire attached digital camcorders.

I've had good luck using this https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Webcam utility to install the latest drivers for many consumer webcams.

IM clients that do video Chat include aMSN and kopete.

depends how things are setup

[blackcoot]

webcams under linux break into roughly two camps: firewire (aka DCAM or IIDC) cameras and anything that can be handled by V4L or V4L2. which software you use depends very much on what camera you have (sucks, but that's how it is).

if you have an iidc camera (a la apple's isight, an orange micro ibot, etc.) then you really should be using coriander which can be compiled with support for ftp upload of the images. you can also use coriander to set things up for using ffmpeg (see below).

otherwise, i'd suggest looking into using ffserver and ffmpeg. when compiled correctly, it can handle both dv, iddc/dcam, and v4l cameras. i've had rather good results with them, and they're a lot cheaper (i.e. free) than an axis box.

if neither of these works for you, i wish you the best of luck -- you're probably going to need it.

Ubuntu and Camorama

[delirium_9]

I have a Logitech USB webcam, and in Ubuntu it just works (it worked fine in Gentoo too but I had to do a lot of searching to find the kernel driver for it). Software wise there's a program called Camorama which will automatically take a picture at user-defined intervals and will either save it to your hard drive or upload it to a server. It also gives you the option of having "cool" camera effects as well. And the whole thing could be done by a novice (no command line, easy to understand dialogs).

What happened at home

[Doc Ri]

It was very nice when I was on holiday recently to be able to check up on home and see that nothing whatsoever happened in my house when I was away.

If that server of yours is also located in the house, I would not be so sure about that...

Re:What happened at home

[legoburner]

Which is why I have 60 second rsyncs with a server in my parents house as well as the server in my own house. The server room is locked when I am away so someone would have to sever the (underground) communications lines coming into my house before breaking in, then they would need to break down the door/lock to the server room, then destroy/take the 9 hard drives in the correct machine. If I was more paranoid than I am I could rig it up to use my neighbour's wireless Internet connection as a backup connection for the rsync. Servers are UPSed but the cameras are not, so cutting the (underground) power would get the same results (unless I stuck batteries on the cameras too). Should be enough to catch a common criminal in the act and give me enough time through the alerts system to call the police or my neighbours.

Webcams might be as easy as usb mass storage

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

If the usb video class takes off like usb mass storage (Logitec is using it for one). Have a look at work of Laurent Pinchart http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/.

Re:Desktop Linux is here!

[s4m7]

Let's see if I follow your logic here:

1) Linux isn't ready for the desktop, because it doesn't just work
2) It doesn't just work because vendors don't provide Linux applications/drivers for their hardware
3) Vendors don't provide drivers because nobody uses Linux because... Linux isn't ready for the desktop.

Mmmm-Hmmm. Seems about right to me.